Red and Yellow, Black and White...
Tonight I had dinner with a couple and we continued a conversation we started more than eight months ago when I worked with the wife (at the temp job when I first moved to Nashville). The background: The wife is white and the husband is black. They have one daughter together and another daughter from the wife's first marriage.
The wife started a new job about five months ago and really loves it. Loves the work, loves the atmosphere, loves the coworkers. She invited me down to the office to visit one day to meet all the coworkers, which I did. She has not, however, invited her husband to come to the office. In fact, she is purposefully keeping his race a secret from her coworkers. She has shown pictures of her daughters, but one is white and the other looks white in the baby picture she showed (even though that girl is 10 years old now).
When the wife and I worked together, she told me early on that her husband is black, but consciously kept it hush-hush to most everyone else. Their interracial marriage doesn't bother me, and I have spent plenty of time in their home and out with them.
She says she doesn't want to make a big deal out of "things" so she keeps it quiet. The husband never has much to say when she talks about this strategy, so I guess he is okay with it. But it bothers me. Sure, I am not in that situation, so how would I know, blah, blah... But I think even if it means losing her job because some coworkers MIGHT make it miserable, her HUSBAND is WORTH that. Does he reeeally not resent her just a little for trying to hide him from her coworkers? What is their "way of handling things" demonstrating to their daughters about relationships?
I hope my husband is proud of everything about me and would say so to his coworkers.
posted by laura g @ Friday, October 21, 2005
4 Comments:
I agree (with all the same qualifications you made, blah blah blah). Not to be overlypsychobabbly, it seems to me that SHE has a bit of a problem with his race.
It reminds me of a sketch on MadTV, where a white girl brings a black boy home from college, and though the parents are VERY accepting of the young man, she makes a big deal about how they just can't accept him. Guess you had to see it.
Anyhoo, good post.
well, would your future husband have to talk about your prosthetic leg all the time, too?
Cole - No, but he would have to talk about my glass eye all the time.
jenni - i completely agree with your gagging at that pc version of the line. i've also heard it sung, "red, brown, yellow, black, and white." changing the line suggests that the original version was written to the exclusion of "brown" people, which i seriously doubt was the case.
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