Look, I understand the historical context, and due to slavery, black women have endured centuries of sexual assault and abuse at the hands of white men. There is no forgetting that; however, viewing all WM/BW couplings through that lens is just as unfair as Coulter’s position that white men who like black women only do so out of white guilt. Sorry, but in my experience, the foundation of my interracial relationships is not giving middle White America (and the rest of America, for that matter) a heart attack. When my ex and I started dating, he didn’t say, “Pass me that Johnston & Murphy catalog. I need to pick out a pair of wingtip shoes so we can march down to Washington, DC.” He said, “Hey, you’re cute”—a’doy—“let’s go out to dinner,” and I was two hours late. And before you can say, “Colored People’s Time,” it wasn’t, I swear! It was “Selfish Stand-Up Comic Not Wanting to Reschedule a Show for a Date with a Cute Boy Because My Momma Raised Me Better Than Putting Sauseege First.” Let’s forget my tardiness for the moment. What’s imperative for me to state is that making WM/BW relationships about how white men are rebelling against white people, rather than about a human connection, shows people’s inability to see that not everything is defined in relation to whiteness or blackness. And as someone who has dated outside her race, I figured there is no better time than now to bust out my version of “Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” aka keep you hostage a little while longer to provide some information about the still mysterious world of interracial dating in hopes that the barrage of questions will cease or, at the very least, the dumb-dumbs will STFU.
FIX YO’ FACE: THERE’S AN INTERRACIAL COUPLE COMING YOUR WAY
Hi there! Like Ferris Bueller said, “Life comes at you real fast,” and in this case, we are already fifty-one years removed from the landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling, which not only invalidated laws banning interracial marriage but paved the way for sessy—#Lisp—ass cinnamon angel and MLB Hall of Famer Derek Jeter to be born and his hotness to warm our loins on disrespectfully cold winter nights. What I’m getting at is we’ve come so far in such a short amount of time, and we should give thanks for IRCs being able to live their lives how they want. Hooray! Yeah, yeah, you said, “Hooray,” but I SEE YOU. Your face looks like how mine does when my bestie is being a drunken hot mess and forces me to record her attempting to hit Beyoncé’s low-ass register on “6 Inch,” and now I’m using up all my damn LTE connection to send her this boo-boo video so she can upload it to Instagram. Anyhoo, fix yo’ dang face because this is the new normal. You might as well get used to it and understand that love is love is love is love. Thanks for that one, Lin-Manuel Miranda!
First and foremost, it’s VERY important to note that everyone who has ever been in a black/white interracial relationship still harbors the hope that Seal and Heidi Klum will get back together. They had outlandish Halloween parties, and until their divorce, they renewed their vows with the frequency Hawaii Five-0 airs at my gym. I mean, isn’t planning weddings super stressful? These two made it seem like it was as cazh as planning Taco Tuesday dinner in Duluth, Minnesota. #OldElPasoOnFleek. Anyway, I know their reunion will probably never happen as both have moved on, but they are the black/white IRC’s version of Ross and Rachel, so it’s probably best not to bring Seal and Heidi up as it’s a touchy subject.
Earlier, I touched on the “interracial couples making beautiful kids” thing coming off a way to fetishize people. Obviously, it’s awful to make folks feel like objects, but more importantly, for every Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Olivia Munn, there are 372.6 busted-ass looking biracial or multiracial people. That is so much pressure to put on an IRC. Creating a hot person from scratch is harder than competing on The Great British Bake Off, and unlike the judges on that show, people are not sympathetic when ish goes wrong aka when folks are ugly. Frankly, there are too many variables that affect someone’s future hotness—such as luck and genetics working together like green eggs and ham—so let’s not make that yet another thing IRCs must do in addition to dealing with racism and ignorance. I know that in my case, if I do end up with a nonblack dude, I’m less likely to make a ridiculously attractive human being than I am to unnecessarily bring up slavery as to why we must watch RuPaul’s Drag Race live (“Harriet Tubman would want this!”) instead of hanging with his friends. Nothing gets between me and my Ru!
Memo to delivery personnel and movers: If I’m in a relationship and living with someone nonblack, I need y’all to stop referring to us as “roommates,” like you’re going to catch the vapors if you acknowledge that IRCs exist. Let’s just be real about it, a’ight? There is one bed and one bedroom in the apartment. That’s simple math: One bed + one bedroom = our intertwined bodies looking like a cup of Baileys Irish Cream.
Store clerks: Treat a woman of color with respect before realizing that the white dude down the aisle is her beau. I can’t tell you the amount of times I have entered a store with my ex and his friends only for us to separate, with ex-bae and his homies browsing on their lonesome, and employees swoop in to offer them assistance like they’re the mice Bert, Mert, and Luke helping Cinderella fashion a dress for the ball. Meanwhile, in my aisle, it’s just me and a dented box of Crest White Strips and doggone tumbleweeds like I’m on the set of Unforgiven because no one is helping me. But then a couple of the employees would see ex-bae walk over to me, kiss me, and place an item in my shopping cart, and they’d ask me how I’m doing and if I’m finding everything okay.
My name ain’t Julia Roberts and I don’t want to be Pretty Woman’d. You should be nice to me regardless of whom I’m dating. Behaving as though I’m only worthy of attention once my boyfriend is beside me is NYCSanitation.gov/TrashCollectionSchedule.
Don’t “Halle Berry at the 2002 Academy Awards when she won Best Actress for Monster’s Ball” an interracial couple. Meaning, don’t start sobbing uncontrollably about how you’re proud of them for not seeing color and being together and how their relationship is for all “nameless and faceless” IRCs that came before them. There are few things more uncomfortable than someone trying to force a heart-to-heart when you and your bae just want to stuff pigs in a blanket in your mouths.
Just because I am dating [insert race], do not ask me if I know any other people I can set you up with from that racial group. Humans are not spare Mophie cell phone chargers lying about my crib, waiting to be passed out.
Remember that 2012 Fox News segment entitled At Home with the Romneys, in which they showed a clip of Mitt knocking over the Jenga tower his family had been playing with the second he comes near it? That’s how quickly people get awkward when they assume an IRC aren’t together and decide to hit on one of the people in the couple. Mofo, this dude and I are hella close to each other and practically moving down the street in unison like we’re the North Korean army busting out high kicks. WE. IZ. TOGETHER.
The next person who says something to the effect of “What’s the sex like though” should just do us all a favor and ctrl + alt + del their reproductive organs so they don’t have kids and raise them to be ding-dongs who ask inappropriate questions like that.
Parents, relatives, and friends: Be the Tony the Tiger you want to see in the world, and when your child brings home a bae of a different race, just say, “Grrrrrrreat!” and keep that shit moving. Ain’t nobody got time for you to be stuttering like Roger Daltrey when he sings “My Generation.” Haha. That is the most old-ass reference I could use. This is what happens when you’ve had a white bae and gone to hockey games.
* * *
All righty! That’s a pretty sufficient primer for how to interact with interracial couples. It’s really not that difficult if you just treat them like any regular old couple. You just have to see them that way. Trust me, I’m a pro at it. Despite having all this experience, I still have no idea who the hell I’m going to end up with, which is kind of exciting as long a
s I stay off dating apps. Maybe a black guy, but maybe not. Regardless, there is one certainty in my love life: Michael B. Jordan, the offer still stands to make some cocoa babies, so holla at your girl before it’s gone. Oh, who am I kidding? Even if I lived in Idaho, married with seven kids whose births had effectively turned my womb and vajeen into an open-concept kitchen under renovation, and MBJ slid into my DMs like Tom Cruise slid across the hardwood floor in Risky Business, I would be like, “Husband, there are enough Lunchables in the fridge for the chillrens,” chuck up the deuces, and get on the first Southwest flight to the land of This Definitely Gonna Fuck My Entire Marriage Up but #KanyeWestShrug.
The Top Ten Non-Trash Moments of My Life
Life has two categories, trash and non-trash, and I like to believe I’m an unofficial expert at identifying for myself, as well as for others, which moments ought to be tossed in a Glad garbage bag that’ll end up at landfills (aka Earth’s junk drawers) and what should be held up like Simba at the beginning of The Lion King while one sings the Zulu intro to “Circle of Life.” I’m that good. Not to get all Game of Thrones on ya, but you can call me Phoebe of the House Robinson, First of Her Name, the Blerd, Drinker of Rosé and Also Chardonnay When Rosé Is Not an Option, Khaleesi of Ignorance, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Trash. You’re probably wondering, at this point, what my qualifications are. I’m so glad you asked.
Peep the stats: (1) I’m alive, which means I’ve had enough experience dealing with the good, the bad, and the ugly to know what sucks and what doesn’t, (2) I’ve watched one and a half seasons of Friday Night Lights, so I understand what it takes to lead and assess a situation in mere seconds: wear khakis, always be hot like Kyle Chandler is, and have some hella emotional music cued up when saying something poignant, and (3) sometimes when I give friends advice, I end it with, “but IDK tho,” so that way if my advice Hindenburgs their lives, I can point to the “but IDK tho” clause so they can’t cuss me out completely. You know the saying “Those who can’t do, teach?” Well, in my case, there’s the following saying: “Those who identify trash can do so because the double helixes of their DNA are made out of the plastic rings that keep together a six-pack of Fanta.”
My résumé may be a tad iffy; however, I don’t need a PhD to properly analyze the moments that make up our lives. For example, having to do a number two after showering? Trash. Finding an outlet in a store while running errands so you can charge your phone for ten minutes? Non-trash. The fact that Maxine Waters probably put her 1991 game of spades with Ruby Dee, Cicely Tyson, and Alfre Woodard on permanent hold to become a US representative for California? Simultaneously, trash and non-trash. I mean, thank you for your service, Maxine, but I really wish you could’ve finished that game so I could hear about all the #BlackGirlMagic that transpired. Anyway, I could go on and on and on, but you get the idea. It’s clear I have a knack for determining what’s trash and non-trash, and I think we can all agree that I’ve spent a good amount of this book thus far breaking down what belongs in the former category, so I want to switch gears and focus on what has ruled in my life.
Just being a healthy, able-bodied person who is employed, comes from a loving family, and has been in love means I’ve had an embarrassment of riches when it comes to non-trash. But sometimes I forget that because the curveballs life throws my way can be overwhelming or heartbreaking, not to mention that simply reading the news and digesting the current state of affairs is enough to make me want to throw up my hands in defeat. So, as a little counterprogramming, I want to pause and appreciate some of my favorite non-trash moments of my life and recharge my positivity batteries. First up . . .
Non-Trash Moment of My Life #1: Too Many White Friends—A Black Woman’s Journey in Learning How to Swim
Well, the actual, full title of this non-trash moment is “Too Many White Friends: A Black Woman’s Journey in Learning How to Swim with the Help of Julia Roberts, Her Übertalented Husband, Danny Moder, and Their Family After Spending a Day on the Coast of Hvar, Croatia.” And yes, that is truly the Goopiest, most “my children’s names are Madison and Grayson,” “I’m a gentrifier descendant of WASPy Connecticut parents” sentence that I’ve ever written in my life, let alone experienced. Let me start at the beginning.
In 2017, I shot my first movie—more on that later—and the two-month shoot took place overseas in Belgrade, Serbia, and various other cities throughout Croatia. Serbia can be quite the culture shock for Americans, or at least it definitely was for me, but I was psyched to be making my feature film debut on Netflix. I, along with the principal cast, director, screenwriter, director of photography, and other key members of the crew, arrived in Serbs a couple of weeks before shooting commenced for typical movie duties: wardrobe fittings, rehearsals, bonding with the cast, etc. Fun times, but here is my travel warning: Do not go to Serbia in August. It was hot. Actually, it was disrespectfully hot. Ignorant, even. In fact, if temperature could be personified in ignorance, it’d be the singer Meat Loaf when he competed on The Celebrity Apprentice in 2011 and assumed actor and fellow contestant Gary Busey had stolen his paint supplies, so Meat cursed Gary out with the same passion Malcolm X had when delivering his “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us” speech. It was that hot. How hot was it? It was so hot that I get why the devil leaves hell to take an Airbnb vacation to the polar ice caps and melts them because he’s mad at living in such a hot-ass home. You get the point. It was hot. Moving on.
One day, after a wardrobe fitting, I was sweating like Patrick Ewing during his heyday on the Knicks and I was hanging out with Alex, the director. I mentioned I was hungry and jonesing for water. Alex said, “Oh, Danny, our DP [director of photography], has some snacks. I’ll introduce you.”
“Great,” I responded, while dabbing my sweaty body with napkins the way bougie people dab a slice of greasy pizza.
Danny entered, and two things popped into my mind: (1) I recognized him, but couldn’t quite figure out why, and (2) he’s hot, like looks-wise. DaHell.No?! THERE ARE FEW THINGS WORSE THAN MEETING A HOT PERSON FOR THE FIRST TIME WHILE YOU LOOK LIKE WARMED-OVER, THREE-DAY-OLD LASAGNA. And before you object with some pump-me-up talk, yes, I know. I’m attractive. I’m cute. I’m pretty, but I’m not hot. Hot is next-level attractiveness that makes people trail off midsentence and forces their bodies to suffer mild and involuntary whiplash that’s bad enough to warrant a phone call to Cellino & Barnes, injury attorneys. No one is getting minor whiplash when I walk into the room. Quite the opposite. People’s necks are stiff and straight like they’re in the process of getting their ears pierced at Claire’s. Anyway, Danny is a hottie, and after we briefly met and parted ways, it dawned on me where I knew him from. Oprah! In case you haven’t figured it out already, most things lead back to Oprah. Julia Roberts had appeared on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show shortly after she and Danny had married in the early aughts, and she talked about him and showed a few pictures of them together. And there he was in the flesh and in front of me.
Over the course of two months, he, the cast, and the rest of the crew were in front of each other every day, whether it was shooting the movie or grabbing a meal or swapping remedies and medicines to battle different illnesses (e.g., I had diarrhea for seven days and I talked about it to everyone as if I had survived Dunkirk), and on occasion, folks had their significant others or various family members visit. And, yes, this, of course, included Julia and their three kids. No one in my family could come for a visit. To cure my homesickness, I jokingly not jokingly asked Netflix to get me a yacht for my birthday that the cast and crew could party on. Netflix very kindly said, “New phone, who dis?” and my dreams were dashed. That’s until a couple of weeks prior to my thirty-third birthday, when Danny was hanging out with me and my costars (Gillian and Vanessa), and mentioned that his family was coming back to town. I should mention that Vani and I were not chill about this news. But can you blame us? We’re both Midwestern gals with a p
enchant for forcing our friendship onto people (this just consists of a lot of smiling and telling long, meandering, yet endearing stories). This charm offensive had worked in the past as we’d hung out with Danny & Co. every time his fam came to town. So Danny was game and said, “We could rent a yacht and hang out.”
Bitch, “we”?! Obvs, Vani and I didn’t say that. I don’t know a lot, but I do know this. When rich people suggest some pricey shit that y’all can do, you do one of three things: (1) Laugh uncontrollably like Vincent Price on “Thriller,” pull up your checking account info on your mobile banking app, and then say, “Stop fucking around and lemme know what time you want to go to Cicis pizza tonight.” (2) Toss up a Michelle Tanner thumbs-up with a chaser of “You got it, dude,” while mentally going over the meth recipe Walter White came up with on Breaking Bad and decide then and there you’re going to be a drug dealer for a few days so you can afford to hang out with said rich folk, or (3) as I like to do, just assume they know you ain’t got no money and that they’ll have to pay for everything.
Everything's Trash, But It's Okay Page 13
