As a biracial woman, I know the pain of never being good enough for your partner's family just because of your skin.
Meghan Markle’s “Failure” to Please the Royal Family Is Painfully Familiar
I cried through Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah. I’ve lived my life in white institutions, starting with my family, often the only person of color in any given room. My childhood bedroom, shared with my blonde and blue-eyed half-sister. At college in Virginia and then graduate school in Cincinnati, when I was praised for being so “articulate” and “surprisingly well-spoken.” In meetings as a magazine editor in New York City, where I learned how to explain Black pain to white colleagues or, more often, learned how to bite my tongue.
So much of what the Duchess of Sussex shared rang true for me and many others. (Just check Black Twitter; we all done popped off.) But for me, the waterworks started when Meghan began talking about the specific pain of being a Black, biracial woman working overtime to please her white partner’s family and failing—not because of her actions, but because of the color of her skin.
I’m biracial. White on my mother’s side, Trinidadian on my father’s. I was raised by my mother’s family and brought up believing, mistakenly, that my Blackness was a nonissue for white people. That I wasn’t Black or white, but just me. I grew up told that being “me” would not cause discomfort in white folks who have a problem with Black women existing in traditionally white spaces, achieving traditionally white successes, or dating white men. I wasn’t aware the one-drop rule applied to me. I wasn’t aware it existed. I also live with mental illness, and it’s only been recently that I’ve learned not to tie myself in knots trying to convince white folks I am harmless, polite, and likable to the detriment of myself and my mental health.
I learned the hard way that some institutions, some matriarchs, some families will never accept me. I learned the way Meghan did—I learned by failing.
https://twitter.com/TIME/status/1368909970226491395When Meghan shared that she didn’t want to bring her fears of self-harm to her husband, I related. When she told Oprah, our one true queen, that she didn’t want to bring her problems to him, she wanted to bring solutions, I flashed back to the times I’ve cried in bathrooms in other people’s homes—more than one home, more than one partner—because of racist comments aimed if not directly at me, then around me. When Harry, her husband, gave his own wholly supportive, but also flawed, account of the vitriol Meghan endured, I was reminded of how hard it is to explain to a white man that his love of a nonwhite woman is going to be a problem.
AdvertisementI’ve had partners, my current boyfriend included, who didn’t understand that interracial couples still ruffle feathers until we started dating. The shock Harry expressed upon learning there would be questions about the skin color of his biracial child was the same look on my partners’ faces when folks stopped and stared at us because we were holding hands in public. I’ve seen it when their mothers ask me invasive questions about how dark my other siblings are. Suddenly, for my ex-boyfriends and for Prince Harry, the world becomes a different, more difficult place.
When faced with these situations, the disrupter is often viewed as the source of the problem. The problem isn’t the racism: It’s the Black woman who sees it, is exposed to it, is harmed by it. I know how impossible it feels to tell your boyfriend that his mother, his sister, his cousin, is racist. You don’t win by telling the truth. You don’t win by keeping it inside. Either you or your relationship will suffer. I’m proud of Meghan and Harry for getting out, for choosing themselves and their relationship. I wish I could say my experiences have had the same triumphant ending. Oftentimes, they haven’t.
https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1368904417135767558I’ve learned to love and put myself first. I’ve learned to have difficult conversations with my white boyfriend. I am lucky, the way Meghan has been lucky, to have a partner who listens and, like Harry, is willing to learn. I’ve learned to put myself and my mental health above the opinions of my partner’s family.
I am whole, happy, unknotted, and so grateful to Meghan for speaking up about something that still happens every day. Over half a century after Loving v. Virginia, interracial couples still aren’t wholly embraced in the States or, as we have all learned, overseas. The more light we shed on this problem, the easier it will be for women like me and like Meghan to value ourselves, our mental health, and our well-being more than the opinions of those who won’t accept us—no matter how many presents we bring to Christmas, how much we cook for Thanksgiving, or how well we curtsy. Simply because of our beautiful skin.
Amber Rambharose is a culture and beauty writer based in Philadelphia. Follow her on Instagram @amberdeexterous
This story originally appeared on: Glamour - Author:Amber Rambharose
