My brush with unfamiliar feelings…

I have no idea how to concretely categorize how I’m feeling right now, and I have to get this out.  There are some lies which must be told to keep the people you love safe.  These are not lies that I’m telling, but I have to corroborate them.  Now, keep an open mind. 

Racism and bigotry is still very alive and well in the south, and especially in the Bible Belt. I was not raised to believe that people are not people when their skin color is different, but too many folks down here have been.  The older generation can’t get beyond the ideas about different races from their youth (think civil rights era, wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East). Still, some of the students I encounter don’t know quite what to make of me, because their experience is limited, but they are generally more accepting of people around them. The hateful backlash against the president…I’m sure that you can recognize that at least some of it is due to the color of his skin (even though he’s half-and-half). Want proof that such hard feelings still exist?? Link, link, link, and link. 

I have been in a wonderful relationship for five and a half years, and it is an interracial relationship.  I am the luckiest person alive to have found such a wonderful, caring individual to share my life with.  The two of us have been through so much together, and our love just grows stronger and stronger. We live together. We are not married, due to the fact that his family doesn’t and CANNOT know about our relationship.  You can read a little more about our situation in a couple of posts I wrote back in May (one <–read at your own risk! and two<–much more tame). He has been under a tremendous amount of pressure from balancing his two “lives”–one with his family (that doesn’t include most of who he really is) and one with the rest of the world (where he gets to be himself and include me). For the entire duration of our relationship, I have made excuses for his family and their views on interracial dating, and Black people, in general.  “They are good people and can’t be wicked and truly hateful if they raised their son so well…oh, they’re just from a different time in history….oh…they have lived in a small town their whole lives….well, they just haven’t had the opportunity to get to know people of different races, and would be more tolerant if they had…well, maybe…” This is his family, and the last thing I want to do is alienate him from the people who have loved him his entire life, because they would disown him.  So I have justified these elaborate deceptions to keep their feelings safe, and to keep his family in his life.  Even after every racist comment, reaction, joke (which I actually think are hillarious…yeah, I know…), and ugly comment about the president, I have still defended them. For their feelings.  For their sense of security and what makes sense in their limited world.  For what is acceptable to the “teachings” of the church.  For the fact that the son who loves me is more helpful to them in their increasing age and has the best chance of providing them with grandchildren than the other son….and the list goes on.

I have overlooked all of these things, until recently.  (Here’s where the open mind comes in handy) They were planning a trip to see him for this weekend. Did I mention that they didn’t know that I already lived here?  So needless to say, we were scrambling for an excuse, justification, or any reason for me to be here, with all my stuff when they arrived.  We decided on the path of least resistance, where I would just be living here temporarily, etc., etc., with no mention of half a decade of dating.  It seemed harmless, with me as a roommate, since we’re both post-grad, and are adults in every sense of the word, right?

Wrong.  We might as well have dropped bombs on them. From the reaction we got, you’d think he told them he had given me a ring (which he has).  Momma, Daddy, Brother(who is closer to our age)–they all flipped out.  They cancelled their visit.  They haven’t spoken to him in two days.  And I am left with an unfamiliar set of emotions.

Despair, which is new for me, in light of how I was raised so multi-culturally.  Despair which attempts to prove white people are looking at me and thinking, “she is black and dumb,” or “she is black and ugly,” or “she is black and worthless.” Despair which shows me the futility of trying to have intelligent conversation with them ever again, because I have the distinct feeling that they will just smile and nod while the n—-r is talking.  Despair, because I’ve had meals at the table with these people, and all of those interactions are now suspect. Despair when I consider the future with my s/o…they will never understand our relationship, and because of my newfound dumb, ugly, worthless and subhuman status, I actually almost believe that I’m not worth the risk.

Hatred, which is all-consuming and sickening all at once. Hatred which fuels a wish for a malignant something-or-another to be found this week.  Hatred which inspires a desire to sign them up for all sorts of junk mail services. Hatred which drops all the previous defenses I had for them…and labels the behavior as what it actually is. Hatred as un-like my nature and as unhealthy as it can be. Hatred in my chest and somewhere deeper, that is making me hot, cold and sick to my stomach.  Hatred that may not ever subside and allow me to forgive, especially if the current situation leads me away from the man I love.

Anger. Furious anger. I don’t even have the adequate words for how I felt when the comment “…well, you won’t be renewed at that job now,” was made.  Angry clenched teeth, when I realized that they would not bother to call him, and would ignore him on the internet. Helpless anger because, despite their irrational, unfounded, racist, outdated, small-minded, hateful, unintelligent, nonsensical beliefs and feelings, he still cares what the hell they think, and he’s hurting in a way that I CAN’T HELP MAKE BETTER unless I leave for good.

We knew this day was coming…but this is not even the level of revelation we were so afraid of. I am also equally appalled at my reaction.  I didn’t know I was really capable of feeling this way about his family, and I’m sorry that I feel as irrationally as they do.  I didn’t think they could have me so upset I’d be ready to wash my hands of the whole affair.  But he has been as wonderful as he can be–as sad as he is, he’s been more tender and loving than normal, and all I can do is hug him and tell him that I’m here for him.

Can people not recognize that the Emancipation Proclamation was in 1862, Desegregation mostly occurred in 1954, Anti-Miscegenation laws were repealed in 1967, and we have a damn half-black president, elected in 2008.  Yet…here I am today, in 2009…miserable because narrow views that take pride in STOMPING on my very human-ness, still exist, and are touching my life in ways I never would have believed.