TOTALLY GEEKED!

Q. Race impasse: I am black, while my longtime girlfriend is white. We have been talking about marriage for a while, but after the recent shootings, she told me that she couldn’t have a black baby in this world. She is too afraid. I don’t know what to tell her—she hasn’t had to grow up with sermons on how not to get killed by the police or how to speak “right.” We live on the coast in a diverse city and everything else syncs up: our education, political goals, spending habits, etc., but our skin difference has never been more apparent. I know my parents like her but would rather see me with a girl of my own racial background. I really don’t know how to move on here. Can you help? Should we split up? Does that mean the bigots win? Or are we fooling ourselves?

A: I’m concerned that your girlfriend’s response to police violence against black people has been not “How can I support my partner, a person I love who is trying to survive while black in a racist country?” but “I couldn’t possibly raise a black child now that I’m being forced to confront the reality of America.” Your future child is hypothetical, but you are here right now. While her concerns about raising a black/biracial child in America are certainly valid, I wonder why she’s bringing that up as a primary issue right now, and why she hasn’t acknowledged that you would also be raising a black child every bit as much as she would. Raising a child is something you two would do together.

Does her fear of raising a black/biracial child stem solely from the latest acts of violence by police against black people? Or has she not fully come to terms with what it means for her to be partnered to a black person? Is she otherwise supportive of you? Does she listen to you and validate you when you describe your own experience, and does she do her best to examine and challenge her own racial privilege? Only you can answer those questions, and while I can’t tell you whether or not you two should stay together, I think you should ask yourself not “Would breaking up with my girlfriend mean the bigots win?” but “Does my girlfriend see my race as something that compromises her safety and security in a way she can’t handle?”