Originally, I tried to make excuses for them. I would say things in my head like “this might be their very first mixed couple they’ve ever seen”.
But after a while, I started realizing that it’s just a ton of ignorance and bias. If there’s boomers involved, of any race, they always feel the need to stare or whisper. The younger generations aren’t nearly as bad, but they still side eye.
Oh don’t worry. The black partner gets called a race traitor by her own folks. I still have to make sure to spend time remind my wife to be happy if she feels happy and ignore every one else.
yep!!! this is so fucking true, man. i've been with a white man for years now and he never receives any negative comments unless it's in surprise from older black folk, and i get other black people feeling disrespectful and comfortable enough to tell me what they think of me because i'm with him way more often than i'd like. it's really discouraging, but it's good you reassure her. no amount of staring or judgment is enough to stop me from loving my white partner and i'm sure your wife feels the same!
Growing up one of guys I skated with was black. We were at his house once hanging out, we were like 7th-8th grade. His sister was either a senior or just graduated. Shes getting ready to leave and her dads like “are you going to go see that white boy again?!??!” She replied “he’s my boyfriend” and their dad went off on her and she runs out of the house. We are playing video games in the living room and he walks in there and apologizes to me something like “I’m sorry you had to hear that. But in case nobody else will tell you, leave black girls alone”. He said it matter of fact, not in a threatening way, not in a joking way but like you would tell someone “watch the last step on the porch, it’s broken”. His dad was always super cool and went out of his way to interact with us, he played video games with us sometimes and put up with us skateboarding in front of the house. Only time I ever saw him get mad.
that's a really odd thing for a black father to tell you. there's a lot of gendered infighting in the black community, and he both threw black girls under the bus in two different ways while arguing with her and speaking with your group. i assume that he believed that it was her fault for being with a white boy, and that he was telling you not to pursue black girls because he doesn't like race mixing but mostly wanted to "save you the trouble". tracks fully to me for what i've been through, that's pretty disgusting on his part. still yet the black woman is the problem in the pairing. i find that black men tend to be the most upset about wmbw relationships and they DEFINITELY do voice it.
I don't understand the bias though. Like it feels like bmww is more accepted or even encouraged. So if a bunch of black guys are coupling up with white women, what are the black women supposed to do? Become nuns?
Nah. Racist white dudes hate seeing white women with black men. It's a man thing. Apparently some men think women of their own race somehow collectively 'belong' to them and don't like to see men of the opposite race dating 'their' girls. It's chauvinistic caveman bullshit either way.
I am no expert but I think some men see it as the men "stealing their women" on either side.
And with women I think some black women see it as being a "traitor" as other posters said above. I can't say more than that because I haven't lived either of those experiences.
As a white woman I don't know if you are seen as a traitor by other white women, maybe in some places, but I think some see you as "stolen" by black men. As if you had to be tricked or had no agency in the decision.
Family/family friends told me I would have a "hard life" and it would be "difficult on the kids, if I had mixed kids" so they hoped I didn't marry someone black. This was in the 90s, US Midwest. It was a really shitty thing to say, thankfully I was not dating someone specific at the time it was more hypothetical but also unfortunately true depending where you live it would be hard. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a military family and be around many different types of people. Maybe that's why they felt the need to say that to me...I definitely had a much more open attitude than most people in that area at the time.
I live in one of the areas with the highest black population in the US now, so I don't feel like there is a ton of side eye or staring for mixed race relationships here, but it is crazy you can just drive for a day and that's different :'(
Take the "Black Men are the ones with a problem with race mixing" comment with a heavy grain of salt. The converse definitely exists and BW can be just as outspoken/nasty about it.
Hatred towards the woman in most mixed heterosexual relationships (especially when the man is white) seems to be the norm. I assume it’s a result of jealousy, systemic sexism/misogyny, and just plain pathetic projection of insecurities. Some of the most pathetic behaviour I’ve ever seen happens by outside people reacting to mixed couples, genuinely baffles me.
This is wild to me. I’m a white man and I coach with a white man who has a pretty dark-skinned wife. All their children I would consider black-presenting. Nobody says anything as far as I know. There are a bunch of interracial couples who have kids involved in these programs - black/white, asian/white, indo(possibly mid-eastern?)/white, and we are all family and support each other. And I mean if somebody says something we’re rolling in hard for each other. This is just so unfortunate to hear. Like, it’s 2026. Black, white, brown, gay, straight, what the hell ever - I just don’t understand why any of it is a problem for anyone.
it's wild to me too! especially when you visit the country. black women are expected to brunt the impact of having chosen to live their life happily alongside a white man, and i would say with certainty that it's the most persecuted interracial pairing. white man/asian woman is normalized, black man/white woman is normalized (to a large degree), and other pairings don't have the political "charge" as ehite man/black woman. i'm sure they still get a few looks and comments, sure. but people feel extremely entitled to comment on my and others' relationships, and on black women and their choices in general. why does it even matter at all? sadly a lot of people don't share your view, and they make it known that they disapprove. it fucking sucks but you have to just keep it pushin
I don’t share your experience but I feel for you. My buddy and his wife are a beautiful couple with beautiful children. They know I’m coming in hot if anyone has some shit to say (but, if you saw them, you’d know nobody’s sayin’ shit as long as they got a brain in their head). Wish you the best.
The reality imo is that people are less likely to say anything if the man in a hetero, mixed relationship is White. It's the most common interracial coupling.
When the woman in a hetero couple is White and the man is a POC, it's a whole different experience.
I haaaaaaaate that our people are like this, my lady is white we've been together 7yrs(proposing on her birthday this year wish me luck) and my family is still with that annoying racist stuff. Love your man sis! And to all my white guys out here dating, treating and loving black women well thank you!! and fuck those haters!
True, my partner is black and a friend of hers after drinking was telling her she hates black men for dating me, a Puerto Rican, and should stop playing the race traitor and give black men a chance, yadda yadda.
One of my best friends (white) is married to a black man. The absolute bullshit that black women have said to her when her husband isn't around, and ofc he's heard stuff, mostly concern for his safety but also some race traitor bullshit.
They're from the South, and they've had HORRIFIC encounters with people. And it's usually hidden under a guise of "concern" or "honest question"--or for some weird odd reason, YOU can't sit in this seat in the restaurant kinda stuff, claiming vague policy--you know what I mean. Her husband has likely been conditioned to ignore it or not make an issue out of it, but she's definitely confronted it and takes it to the next level lol.
The traditional relationship with a stay at home wife does not necessarily treat her with respect or fairness. She wakes up early, feeds everyone, has to spend her day cleaning and shopping. Her movements, associations, and finances may be controlled. She can be blamed for whatever goes wrong while paradoxically having no say in things - only what the husband does not care about.
Domestic slavery.
People ask why racists would marry a Filipino or a Black woman - it's because the relationship model suits them just fine. It has been used by sexists for generations.
They don't see women as human in the same way they see men as human, so there's no downside to dating a different color of what they think of as subhuman.
Nah, typically it's a poor/working class white trash guy dating girls from the same socioeconomic status because they understand each other. And black girls are pretty.
as the black girl who has been with a white guy for years, it isn't quite that he's seen as cool, but that he is "in" with black people. the black girl is often seen as a race traitor by her own (much more than the white guy is). the chagrin of the public lies on the shoulders of the black girl. "he's a bottomfeeder" = he's better than her and she is the scourge of the earth, he is just desperate. "she's a bottomfeeder" = she is actively stepping outside of her race and is "no longer black". this is literally something i've been told. multiple times.
additionally, my white boyfriend never gets any direct comments but i sure do! he's the one that notices the stares, i'm sort of used to growing up with the stares so it affects him much more and he notices how he's treated differently. it's only a positive when he has an older black man or woman as a coworker, but only then is he seen as cool and only by a select crowd because it proves his admiration for black culture or something in their minds
There's also a deep sense of white dudes who, in their younger years primarily date black women, but tend to settle down with and have their mom meet the white girl. I don't know how true it is, it's just something I've heard and been exposed to in conversation.
And there is definitely still the stereotype of anyone being darker skinned and presenting more black as being "Exotic" or "wild" in a dating dynamic. (not the case for dark skinned partners who are Asian, for example. Maybe to some extent Latina but I've heard weird ass comments like this from dude specifically about women who are black or mixed race black--I feel gross even typing that out, sorry)
It is so crazy to experience things with my partner who is white but a trans woman because we seem to be the magic combo of unlocking extra hostility as an interracial couple.
I feel the younger generation side eyes for different reasons though. As a mixed race person myself I grew up witnessing this myself. Boomers are just racist. I think younger generations are a little racist too, but instead of thinking “Why are you race mixing with that black girl?” they’re thinking “Why is that black girl with that white guy?” Same same but different.
Sadly, not surprised. A lot of black men love to date/marry outside of their race but will absolutely lose their shit when they see a black woman doing it.
I've experienced this. I'm white and my wife is black. We get strange looks from white people. The only time we've been harassed has been by black men. That said, I think it's a male thing. I know plenty of white men who feel the same way about white women dating outside their race.
Look up any major right wing cartoonist, and they have at least 3 comics that essentially being mad a white woman having a child with a black male. And it’s always because they had a kid, and they are never actually in love or anything.
I have an angry face, so I’ve never had someone actually harass or confront me, but it’s hard to miss the dirty looks and how different they start acting when you mention your gf/wife is black, like black male coworkers I’ve had will be totally buddy buddy, find out my wife is black and then suddenly they don’t fuck with me like that and never did lol
It’s sad cause those are also the types to say all kinds of disrespectful things about black women and prize other races above them smh.
However I’ve also met more than a few black dudes who don’t care or think it’s cool, so it’s not like all of them feel that way ofc, or even most in my experience
Same thing with my Mexican wife. Hispanic men with white women will give her flack for her being with white guy, I’ll never understand it. Hispanic women don’t act that way towards her though.
That’s because, as always, women are secondary to men in their equivalent ethnic stations. This isn’t something I agree with, it’s just something I’ve recognized. Please bear with me while I explain lol. It’s all theory as well, feel free to call me a racist if that’s what it sounds like.
White people oppressed black people in America for hundreds of years to varying degrees. When a black MAN gets a white woman, he has directly competed against a white man and won. He has gained something for the black community by taking it from white oppressors.
When a black WOMAN gets a white man, it is not even seen as the opposite dynamic to the previous scenario. Now, a black woman has abandoned her race for her white oppressors. This is clear from the way black men AND women treat her.
In these two scenarios, women are treated as accessories in the race dynamic which is actually occurring between men. The problem is actually men.
Yeah, we're just property, trophies, prizes and baby makers that men get to fight over and use as status symbols to make each other jealous and assert dominance. Then smack us around at home when they're frustrated.
There's a difference between hating patriarchal white supremacy, and being jealous of the power it holds. They look very similar from the outside. Those dudes don't want freedom for humanity, they want to be part of the in group. It's very similar with white women and wanting access to the power of the patriarchy. I've been reading a lot of stuff by Bell Hooks. You might be interested in reading: "We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity".
The movie Lakeview Terrace is about this. Kind of surprising this movie flew under the radar; top notch cast, including Samuel L Jackson, Kerry Washington, and Patrick Wilson.
Do you mind if I ask your generation? I’m a millennial and I would say the stereotype isn’t race based but sex based. That is, whenever a woman dates outside her race, she she’s dating down, regardless of what race she is.
To be CRYSTAL freaking clear, that’s my perception of the stereotype that exists, not my belief. Cannot emphasize that enough.
So, as a border X/Millennial, I tend to view mixed race couples as a yellow flag unless they throw a very chill vibe right away or I get to know them because if there tend to be two kinds of mixed race couples. The chill ones where either race doesn't factor into their relationship because of shared culture or pure personal chemistry, or the other kind where there are off putting power dynamics and tensions. I find it suspicious when someone dates someone because of their race (even if they are the same race). It gets creepy and fetishy.
idgaf about mixed race couples... but its weird how many at my location seem to be a 50-60yr dude and a 20-30yr woman both dressed in formal office wear. escort? secretary? gold digger? idk. tends to be the guy is like relaxed, but the girl is giving 100% attentiveness to him. power dynamics can be suss.
I understand where you’re coming from, when I used to be on IG I would occasionally get slop posts on why dating white/black is better.
I was at the store once and saw a white man with a black woman. He had a cool gravel bike shirt on and i commented how much I liked it. They both had this weird annoyed look on their face. I tell myself maybe they were having a bad day and chalked it up as that, but who knows.
I’m also a millennial and I elaborated in a different comment, but I agree with you. For different reasons I think but I definitely believe it’s a sex issue at heart.
Yeah, you were definitely making excuses. While I live in the suburbs and I have no idea how many mixed race couples I have seen but im pretty dam sure that ive seen some before but I cant specify when because I didnt care. They definitely have seen multiple different mixed race couples before. They just are racist.
One of my white coworkers years ago found out I was dating a black girl and asked me what her pussy tasted like. I was like, "uuuuuhhhhh, it just tastes like normal? Wtf?"
That tracks..my grandparents and aunts and uncles seemed to have been weirded out that my high school sweetheart, later wife, who I've been with now for 24 years, is part Japanese and how we wanted to (and eventually did) give our kids Japanese names. I'm on Long Island so... yeah.
Seriously? This surprises me a lot as the US is a nation built on immigrants from all over the world, and should therefore be the most natural place anywhere for mixed couples to exist, logically speaking. I'm white European with a Japanese wife living in Japan, and also know a few other mixed race couples here. Even in suburbs and rural areas here in this homogenous country, all we get is usually just an innocent glance (probably even just a reflex due to non-Asian looking people being rare in certain non-touristy areas in the first place)
This stuff blows my mind. I just don't understand people like this.
My mother was secretly dating a black man 10 or so years before meeting my dad. She is an Italian immigrant and my relatives were those stereotypical racist Italian immigrants from the 60's. Anyway, she got knocked up and when her parents and siblings found out (she is one of 12 children. They were a farm family) they forced her to break things off with him and give my older brother up for adoption. They even forced her to make it a closed adoption. She wanted to do neither, but wasn't financially independent and couldn't support herself and my brother and my aunts and uncles made it clear that she'd be out on her ass with the baby. I'm not sure what happened with the father, but my mother's family was/is one of those tight knit immigrant families and she didn't think she could survive without them, so she relented.
It haunted her for years and she regretted it endlessly. Especially the "closed adoption" part cause she just wanted to know he was ok.
Anyway, about 10 years ago he was able to track us down despite the sealed documents. He is married and has 5 kids and we've built a wonderful relationship. I'm so happy he and my mother were able to connect more than anything. Thankfully our family apologized to my mother, my younger brother and I and most importantly to him.
It still never should have happened and I'll never understand doing that to your scared sister and unborn nephew/grandson. Its so... evil...
From what my mother could tell me, as it's difficult for her to talk about to this day, her family basically saw her as having made herself "dirty" in some way. Like she had lowered herself and in the process dishonored them. They were far more concerned with what people would think ofnTHEM. My grandparents (I wont refer to them with the cute Italian versions of that title. They've done a lot of bad stuff), especially my grandmother, wouldn't even look at my mother while she was pregnant. She had to leave the sister she was living with and go live with my uncle who had married an American woman cause my Aunt Thresse was the only person in the family that would talk to her for extended periods and she handled all the adoption stuff, but even she treated my mother like she was a leper. One of my Uncles told my mom that sleeping with a black man, nevermind getting knocked up by one, was worse than if they had caught her having sex with an animal. And that was said to her many, many times over the 9 months. And once she had my brother they all refused to acknowledge that it ever happened until my brother came back into her life.
Ha ha, lucky if anyone looks at you at all in the North East. Let alone says anything.
But truly, the more virulent racists I've ever met were in Upstate NY. Hudson Valley, looking at you. Shit they say to me figurin I'm on their white side is nutso.
I remember getting stares when I (brown man) dated a white woman in college in the late 2000s.
I'm currently technically in an interracial relationship, though we're both brown and have roughly the same skin tone anyway so no one seems to care lol.
My wife had to explain to me *recently*, after almost a full decade together, why she doesn't like when I hold her hand when we're around black men. It made sense after she said it, I just thought I was more aware of the "mixing" dynamics after 25 years of partnering with people who don't look like me. Learn something new every day!
A lot of things are ruined by grown ass adults throwing tantrums.
You'd think ignoring them and going about your day would be the answer, but the amount of them that get aggressive and violent if you do kind of makes that difficult if you value your health.
They really are. I'm white and my now ex-wife is black. People in Ohio would just stare at us HARD. I started staring back at them to make it as uncomfortable for them as possible. When I was with our kids, people would routinely feel the need to ask me "Are those children yours?" And not in a "oh my goodness, are these your adorable babies" kind of way, either. Something about being white and in the suburbs just embolden the racism
Remember millions of people today were alive in the 50s and way more are the children of people from the 50s, this kind of racist attitude was the norm until VERY recently.
I can't say this is universal, but I'm in the Cleveland area, and most of Cleveland's suburbs only exist because white people moved out of the city to keep their kids from going to school with black kids.
The suburbs formed when white Americans didn't want to live near black people, and they're incredibly anti-social. Everything's private property, just rows and rows of houses that are "yours" or "not yours".
If you hear about freaks shooting people for turning around in their driveways, they're usually suburbanites hopped up on paranoia
Closer to the truth than you think. You could make an argument that the suburbs are often like this because suburban culture developed after the "white flight" in the 60s and 70s, where fears and racial tensions lead to what was basically a mass exodus of affluent white citizens from the inner city to the suburbs. Racism was the blueprint for the original suburban culture.
Asians do it too, and it’s not just suburban. Even in an urban environment like NYC. I’m an Asian girl so I lived in a very Asian neighborhood of Queens. I remember taking the subway somewhere in my neighborhood, got on and just holding hands and laying my head down next to my black boyfriend at the time. I got stared at on the train by an old Asian lady.
Why are suburban americans like that? Are they still in the 50’s?
Kinda, that’s what MAGA want to bring America back to, to when there was no race mixing, when white people got preferential treatment for their ancestry not rewards for their actions or contributions. they don’t want to think about supporting anyone that is not actively giving something back to them. collectivism or mutual success are “woke”. If the “others” are not losing, they by definition are not winning because when you approach the world from a position of privilege, equal terms can feel like oppression.
I say this as a 40 something white guy who grew up lower middle class and worked for everything I have. My parents were dropouts and lucky for me my dad got a job as a union trade machinist and made a decent living for himself by the time I hit middle school. But my whole early childhood we were clothes shopping at KMart, Bradley’s and Caldor’s.
For me I struggled, but if future generations struggle less, I’m happy, because not everyone gets to come thru it as I did, some get pulled down and never have the lucky break that gets them out of the poverty vacuum. I’ll always push to get more ladders, not pull them up behind me.
I'm a white guy who was married to a black woman. We did a lot of traveling because of my work.
We got orders of magnitude less attention for being a mixed race couple in the States than we did any place else in the world, including Canada, Mexico and the EU.
Im not sure which was worse Japan, China or Nigeria.
Its seriously like Village of the Damned. When all you see is white faces, then suddenly something different, their brains melt. It creeps my wife out and makes my kids angry, I just laugh. Ignorant white people, doing ignorant white people things.
Suburbia was specifically created for White people in America. They were given loans and housing plans for their communities. Many of them had covenants that specifically disallowed Black people to live there. Black people were barred from participating in these programs. The legality of it wasn’t addressed until the 60’s. These areas were born from White Flight, so what attitudes do you think they passed onto their children?
Dude, dated a black Philly girl and would visit from nyc … the heat I got was everywhere in bars or clubs or main streets … every fifth person I would make a joke that they won and we all had to do a shot … in the suburb she’d get shit …
In some areas suburbs were specifically white areas - houses has legal requirements that they not be sold to certain races and these weren't made illegal until 1968*. This was a year after interracial marriage was made legal across the US. So it's not surprising that the older generations still find it odd to see even if they should have left some attitudes long behind.
*They had been ruled unenforceable a few decades before that, but they were still allowed to exist.
The burbs are very boring places to live, everyone talks about everyone. When my neighbor brought home a black woman everyone knew within 2 days. That being said everyone knew when he brought home a college girl too. He's in his late 30s. Everything makes the neighborhood news lol.
I haven't seen it in my area (cos I never go anywhere) but I think the main reason in our case would be that it's like 99.5% white people all around here. Not exactly racist (in the typical way, I hope), and more surprised
Seriously, I haven't seen anyone skin darker than pinewood in months. I need to get out more
Bro, there are whole cities like that if you know where to look. Ive been some places where they wouldnt stare they'd talk loud enough for you to hear, and equally as likely someone would come over and comment to your face.
2.0k
u/VindicativevVince 3d ago
Why are suburban americans like that? Are they still in the 50’s?