At the end of this week I will have been married for 17 years. Over that time I have come to believe that one key to a successful marriage is to simply choose the right partner- which I did.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of my marriage being ruled legal in the United States. Had I been born a generation earlier, “the right person” would have been illegal. I think it is important to know that these laws written to protect and uphold the sanctity of whiteness were racist in the most standard and traditional sense. There is not now, and never has been, a non-racist defense of those laws.
But that was then.
When my wife and I chose each other we knew what we were doing. We did not ignore nor were we ignorant of the racial ramifications of being together. Racial identity, self defined or otherwise, plays a role in who any of us become and we loved who we were. We still do.
These 50 years later, or 17 in my case, race in marriage still matters. It matters in my wife and I understanding each other, in how others react to us, and in how we as a whole do or do-not support others moving forward. 
We do not advocate ignoring race but rather advocate for understanding it. In marriage, just like any life long decision, there are thing you should know- and some things you simply can’t prepare for. But you have to try.
Brohammas 
You two are so cute!! Still love that first picture of your beautiful family.
Love you guys together. Congratulations on 17 years!!
How was Mixed Remixed?
Is it different living in California than it was in Philly or the South?
It’s strange in Louisiana – there are lots of Creoles but interracial dating seems more taboo than it did when I was in Cali.
Do most people assume that your daughters are Latinx?
When I arrived to pick my daughter from a birthday party everyone stopped and stared. I looked around to see everyone was Latino. The party had a taco truck, was playing mariachi music, and it wasn’t till my wife and I arrived that everyone realized our kids wasn’t Latina. Everywhere we have lived has had its small issues but strangely enough we have had more white people say ridiculous things to us here in Cali. I think it is because people are so comfortable mixing that they let their guard down and say stupid things.
I’m not sure that people are being ‘stupid’.
My friends and I were so racist to one another that I thought it was the norm.
My jokes were more ethnic (Shackle Dragger, Dego, Hebe,…) but we would call each other everything to each other’s faces.
I had a friend from Yucaipa who was in the Aryan Brotherhood and we’d talk trash to each other all the time. One of his cousins threw in a ‘Nigger’ comment and got beat down and was forced to apologize. I just laughed when the comment was made pointing out that the guy wasn’t good enough to call me that. When the AB leader asked what I meant I explained that his cousin wasn’t good enough to attempt to be condesending and anyone who was good enough knew better that to call me that. The AB leader pointed out that he would never call me that, not even behind my back. I said, ‘Exactly, you’re my equal’.
I think many people get comfortable enough around people that even racist terms may not hold the common weight afforded them.
when a white person tells a black person they are surprised that a local school is so well ranked because they didn’t expect as much from a school with so many brown people- and then defends the statement by pointing out that schools in LA do poorly and they are filled with brown people, I call that stupid.
When that white person doesn’t understand why this statement bothers the black person they are talking too, we are working with a very deep kind of oblivious.