Interracial relationships have slowly become a norm given the taboo that has surrounded it for decades. You don’t need to look far - a couple of clicks on Instagram will direct you to the vast majority of accounts now dedicated to highlighting interracial relationships. But although it is becoming increasingly popular, it is still not widely accepted. Sometimes the lack of acceptance is displayed publicly in the form of overt racism, but most times it is covert and embedded systemically.
Seven years ago, we were one of such couples being featured on these Instagram accounts (and blogs) after a 15 second video of my husband, who is white, and I went viral. The response was extremely positive. The video showcased us dancing to Afrobeat music, which was well received by the black community as they appreciated a white man enjoying a huge part of the culture.
The virality of that video made us jump initially from 450 followers to 30K followers on Instagram. Whilst that was both exciting and overwhelming, it was the first time we were exposed to the negative and racist remarks of being in an interracial relationship. We dealt with the hate as we knew how – we deleted comments and blocked the trolls but welcomed the love with open arms and started to build our community on both Instagram and YouTube.
Recurring questions we kept getting from our newly found community was: “How did you meet?”, “How did your parents take it?”, “What is it like to merge your cultures?” (my husband is German and I’m Nigerian). This led us to share more personal stories about our relationship with our community and we continue to do so to the extent we feel comfortable with. We have since shared videos of our weddings on YouTube - we had three! In Germany, in Nigeria and in Ireland where I was attending medical school at the time.
David and I met at The University of East Anglia in Norwich where we both studied for our first degrees. We specifically met at the Afro-Caribbean society and initially became acquaintances. Our friendship transitioned into a beautiful relationship and we supported each other in everything we wanted to accomplish individually. David went on to acquire a Masters Degree at LSE, moved to work in Mozambique, Kenya, and then back to England. I went on to become a Medical Doctor and when we were finally ready, we decided to start a family.
Our experience as an interracial couple has been mostly positive, but as we started to form the unit of a family and lay down some solid foundations, it became clear to us that being white will almost always work in your favour. The sad truth about being in an interracial relationship, in a country filled with systemic racism, is that you sometimes have to hide behind your white partner to get things done quicker or even done at all. This has been our reality with house hunting, test driving cars or even waiting times at hospital emergency rooms. We have shared our full experience with racism as an interracial couple on our YouTube channel ‘The Adanna & David Family’ and you can watch the video here.
We went on several adventures, especially with our first child Kian, and were fortunate enough to travel to many countries. One thing that became clear to me was the reaction and/or comments from strangers towards me when I was with our biracial son, compared to when my husband was with him. A blatant scenario was on one of our holidays - I was sitting in the pool with Kian and a lady pointed to me and said to her nanny “join the other maid in the pool”. Or when I was a junior doctor in the hospital, many patients mistook me at best for the nurse, asking when the real doctor was coming, and at worst, for the cleaner.
While David and I have always been very open with each other about the topic and have talked about it a lot, the recent global events surrounding the Black Lives Matter (#BLM) and the numerous police killing of black men (especially in the US) have not only caused a massive uproar and renewed focus on eradicating racism, it has also inspired a new and even deeper conversation between us. There were still (and probably always will be) gaps in understanding and fully grasping the emotional and mental pressure all these experiences have caused over time. The impact of knowing you live in a society where you are being treated differently is immense and unless you are the one experiencing it, it’s almost impossible to imagine. These conversations though have taken us to a deeper appreciation of each other and determination for what we want to achieve and stand for as a family.
We already knew and loved each other’s cultures; we knew that we always wanted to raise our children with the knowledge and appreciation of both. But reflecting on our experiences as an interracial couple and the reality of racism, we made a decision very early on to intentionally raise anti-racist children. We have been very proactive in integrating this approach in our daily routines with our two boys and have been vocal on our social platforms. We also started the #EarlyChildhoodAntiracism campaign online. In addition to our social platforms we have also published several articles on the topic.
Over the past few years and especially since the Black Lives Matter (#BLM) movement in the US gained momentum last summer, we have been getting a lot of questions on this topic from parents of every race and colour. Parents who want to do the right thing and want to be intentional in their parenting approach to raise anti-racist children, or who want to help and encourage the people around them to become anti-racists as well. Today we wanted to share with you the top five mistakes to avoid making when raising anti-racist children.
Five mistakes to avoid when raising anti-racist children
'My children don’t see colour'
It is wrong to assume that kids don’t see colour – of course they do! What is important is to talk about are the differences in colour as a beautiful aspect of the society we live in and to make sure not to perpetuate stereotypes about certain skin colours. Especially in families where the parents have the same skin colour, it’s important to expose children to different skin colours and highlight the beauty of that.
'They are too young to understand racism'
For us it’s important to differentiate between racism and race. It’s true that for your children to fully grasp racism with all its facets they would have to be a little older, but you can start from an early age subtly integrating aspects of race into their daily lives. That way they will also much better understand the issues of racism later on. The best way to do that is to ensure you encourage a diverse range of books where the main character or the ‘hero’ of the story is of a different skin colour (and/or gender) than your children. Equally when buying toys, try and include a diverse range of skin colours too.
If more children were introduced to race early on, there would be a significant decrease in racism because children will learn to appreciate all the differences in our skin colours, cultures, religions and so on.
Surrounding yourself with only people that look like you
Depending on the area you live in - especially for white parents, your circle of friends is probably mostly (if not exclusively) white, or the school your children attend is predominantly white etc. Of course, we understand that with Covid-19 at the moment you can’t just go out and make new friends as easily and you only have so many options when it comes to choosing schools. However, if you can adopt the mindset of intentionally surrounding yourself and your family with people from different backgrounds and different skin colours, whether this is in an online environment due to the pandemic (there are plenty of people to follow online, blogs to read, channels to watch on this topic) or beyond the current situation in the near future in person again, you will automatically enrich your children’s’ lives and their view of the world.
Discourage speaking out
Another big mistake to avoid is discouraging your children from speaking out when they see something wrong. This could be a case of bullying at school in the playground or in your local park for example. The best thing to do there is to lead by example and address any issues you see. At the end of the day, children don’t do what they are told but what they see (actions speak louder than words). This is also important if you have older children and they want to get involved in, for example, movements like BLM. Overall engagement in social causes should be encouraged – it helps children gain the confidence to stand up for themselves and for others.
Make inappropriate/racist jokes
One very big mistake people sadly still make is to joke about racial stereotypes without understanding that, while their intentions were not to hurt anybody, they are in fact perpetuating racist views of that particular race. If you make these jokes when children are around, not only will they believe they’re ok, they will also internalise the jokes as true and will see any given race in that light. Once such a racist view is planted in a child’s mind, it’s very hard to eradicate it later on in life.
For many people of colour, hearing these jokes is not funny at all and can cut into very deep wounds caused by decades of systemic racism and what many societies considered acceptable when it came to minorities.
Take the next step
If you have taken the time to read this article, you have already taken the important step of being aware of this topic and learning more about it. Now is the time to take action. By implementing any of the above points into your life with your children, you will notice that you are able to seamlessly instil a very important life lesson. We as humans are all the same but unfortunately, the society we live in does not recognise that fact and doesn’t treat all humans equally. Learning that in a subtle way from an early age will not only you’re your children be anti-racist, but will help them to become overall more confident, outspoken and socially aware global citizens.
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