Tiffany Cross interracial relationships in DC comment
The interrogation of Bernard was awkward, but then she made the DC comment and I thought damn, is she talking about me? Am I part of the problem?
She’s making some genuinely problematic assumptions, and it connects to this broader conversation about gatekeeping: the idea that Black people can only be Pro-Black if their partner is also Black. And as a parent, the way biracial children get discussed in these conversations really comes off like something said by people who don’t actually have kids. What does it mean when she sees an interracial couple in DC? It’s a global, diverse, and transient city and one with one of the largest Black populations in the country. In places with real diversity, you see all kinds of relationships. Not every Black man in an interracial relationship is RGIII, and not every white woman is some caricature of a “problematic white girl.” And if we’re judging children by the race of their mother does that logic make Candace Owens someone to look up to? Obviously not. As I’ve gotten older, there are real cultural differences I navigate with my partner, but that’s rooted in my specific lived experience as a Black man in America not some ideological failure. My parents are West African. I’m first gen. Realistically, unless I had married someone West African specifically, there were always going to be significant cultural differences to work through and even then, it’s not simple. What’s funny is that I have cousins who are exactly like Van grew up in the South, Memphis, Jackson, Dallas the only difference is that one of their parents is African.