Twenty Hard Things About Being Married to a White Man
Kelechi Okafor: 'I'm not hiding my white boyfriend' - BBC News
My cousins can be split into two groups: Ones who grew up with weaves and skin lighteners and ones who needed sunscreen and haircuts. Our family is a classic case of women and the black men who left them versus the white men who stayed. I remember being 6 and slapping my white uncle in the face to figure out why his face turned bloodred. I wondered how men with such delicate bodies seemed to be the only ones who could endure the storm. When my cousin on the all-black side birthed a baby girl whose father had become abusive, we took a long ride to a shopping mall. She was looking to me for advice on raising a fatherless child, considering my firsthand experience. We rolled down the windows in her beat-up car and took in as much air as we could.
I was talking to my friend, Kim, as we sipped cocktails at a bar in Hollywood. She followed my gaze. I nodded.
In fact, when I first set out to meet his white, British family, I asked if he had told them I was black. I was also nervous about introducing him to my Somali-Yemeni family. But as it turned out, both our families have welcomed and supported our relationship.