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I wake up next to my boyfriend of two years and he is both white and not white to me. It sounds corny because it is corny.
This is not a segway into a promotion for colorblindness. I refuse to adhere to a practice of “un-seeing” race and ethnicity. The worldview of colorblindness for so many conservatives and progressives is a bullshitter’s cop-out, an attempt to extract one’s self from an uncomfortable conversation, when there’s more intellectual value in following through with an openness to debate. Except you don’t have to debate anyone who undermines your experience or disrespects your intelligence on the basis of superiority and privilege.
Anyway, as corny as it might sound, I really don’t see my boyfriend’s race, but neither have I somehow philosophically transcended the pollution that is racism. I don’t feel anything when my brain sees his skin color. I dutifully note that he is indeed, factually, without a doubt, a white man. Because I am Black, and like other Black Americans, I have been conditioned to always see race because this is America. And often, when this conditioning feels more obviously burdensome than just a state of man-made nature, it is a struggle to combat thoughts of inferiority and negativity. But what I feel about my boyfriend’s race is simply a state of necessary apathy. My heart feels neither sorrow nor joy about his race. Nor rage or lust or benevolence towards his race. I’ve dated Black men, a Korean-American man, and a Jewish man. Even then their races mean nothing more than I must remember that a part of once caring for these men, no matter how briefly, meant respecting their personal and cultural histories as a part of what makes them individually unique.
Everything that makes him, the man waking up beside me, is unique and worthy of love. His race is an afterthought in our relationship, because I am in love with him. But race is also nothing to divorce from one’s worldview or lived experience. He has immense privilege as a white, heterosexual man; he knows this. And I am allowed to challenge that when and however I feel.
It’s really boring to be in an interracial relationship. I’ve never fried chicken for him. He’s never made me a casserole. Sometimes I wear a bonnet or silk scarf to bed to maintain my hair and not once has he given one fuck. No comments. No questions. No curious look. A very sleepy and scarfed woman is crawling into his bed at the end of a long workday, to cuddle and watch Frasier or Abbott Elementary. He didn’t make any fuss the first time, or the thousandth time. Nothing to see here. This is just one example, and I’ll admit, it is overused online when talking about BW/WM “relationship phenomena.” Oh my god, girl! He saw you in your bonnet?!?
This being my first serious relationship with a white man, at the beginning of our relationship, I self-consciously explained the way my hair clumps sometimes as threads of old-growth tend to fall out after taking out two-month-old box braids. He wasn’t horrified. Nor did he coddle me and deliver some cringey, over-the-top, liberal lecture on beauty ideals. He understood that it was just a natural process that Black hair undergoes. He even offered that for a period of time he wore a silk bonnet, just like mine, when his hair started to thin. And that story put me at ease, but also — whatever, who cares? I didn’t give him a metaphorical blue ribbon. There you go! You qualified for pole vault in the Swirl Life Olympics!
We take long walks through Horner Park or Welles when the weather breaks. We cook dinner together. Sometimes he loads the dishwasher. We rub each other's shoulders and crack each other's backs. We search excitedly for old ‘70s thrillers on HBO Max. We’ve gone dancing. We’ve thrown up in front of each other, drunk and giddy with affection. Our relationship is boring in the most beautiful way. We are not some liberal fantasy of triumph over racism. We are not some conservative nightmare. And maybe this is because we have not made a brand identity of race.
Interracial couples on YouTube are fucking weird. I, like many other consumers of social media, of all races, don’t understand what can be gained from the kind of fetishization that takes place on our content platforms. Not only in cringey “race lessons” on TikTok. But also on dedicated Facebook forums that rank the “cuteness” and “skin tone” of follower-submitted photos of their interracial infants. The answer is nothing is gained. These influencers don’t really cater to meaningful content. They don’t want to upset and alienate their audience with lessons on the history of family separations within the indigenous and enslaved persons population, master-slave sexual abuse, miscegenation restrictions, and the legal end of marriage inequality in most (not all) of the U.S. Maybe the cutesy content of TikTok and Instagram aren’t ready for that. Maybe there's no content creators willing to take on such a balancing act – confronting the bullshit of racism using compassionate and clever humor. But ultimately we use social media to be entertained foremost, and taught second.
Also of interest: TikTok algorithm error sparks allegations of racial bias by Conor Murray at NBC News
But is it really that damn deep? Do we as mindless media consumers always need several threads and think pieces on the history of racial abuse and inequality when someone unnecessarily invites race into the bedroom? Well, yes and no. Yes, because one of the only and often scarce redeeming qualities about our global interconnection on the Internet, is that often genuinely thoughtful and curious people come together to share information that is profound and illuminating. From my own personal experience, I’ve read valuable knowledge concerning race, in the context of the psychosexual drama of human existence, from intelligent Black people in respectful and cathartic conversations with themselves and others on Twitter. No one’s humanity or histories are undermined for laughs. Sharing their own experiences, and backing it up with easily verifiable studies and cases to back up their beliefs and retorts. This is a rare experience you have to hunt for online. The cesspool that is the Internet lacks this, and our societies’ addiction to narcissism, cruel communication, and cheap, instant stimulation are to blame for it.
But also no. We don’t really need to open our textbooks and write research papers (in Twitter threads or Facebook statuses) in response to these vapid, cringe-inducing videos and posts. Because they are just that: vapid. Neither stimulating or challenging to our senses or the status quo. What’s considered “funny” is usually the awkwardly dull or outdated fetishization of physical traits—fear of Black women’s hair, the lust for a Black man’s penis, the act of seeing Asians as virginal or asexual. Humor never seems to derive from any partner’s personality or unique quirks. The quirk is that they aren’t white. Get it?
Every #swirllife couples’ favorite genre of content to record for their millions of followers is the skit in which the white bf/husband is horrified or disgusted by his black/brown gf/wife (note that these influencer couples tend to be heteronormative).
He sees her natural hair for the first time and storms out. Makes a big scene before playfully destroying her wig.
He eats her version of some so-called white people cuisine and gags (or has the most explosive orgasm ever because apparently he’s never tasted Lowry’s seasoning salt).
A Black man is posed smiling at the site of his white fiancee’s wedding venue choice: an Antebellum plantation. We’re horrified at the insensitivity, but girlfriend is oblivious to her man’s forced composure. She nods approvingly with a gleaming grin.
The reverse outside of Black-white relationships is just as demeaning and unimaginative. A white woman is so shocked by the size of her Chinese boyfriend’s penis and whips out a cartoonishly long ruler. He could never measure up, but she loves him anyway. Shrug.
Thems just the breaks when you date outside of your race. White lovers are resolved and can sigh, relieved that their exotic, special partner can endure their racist stupidity, and is also in on the joke.
Ironically, I’m devoting a lot of energy to doing exactly what I am telling you not to do. Giving attention to this type of content (and the Internet is oversaturated with it) within the attention economy of social media paradoxically continues to center unimaginative and droll racist fetishization and stereotypes, while also opening conversations for destabilizing these same ideas. Don’t misunderstand, the attention given to this content is unearned, but also the attention given can also be useful and enlightening.
What I’m most interested in doing here is undermining the influence these shallow performances of so-called “real” swirl life think they wield over cultural content. Liberal “woke” theater often falls flat of humor and short of insight. The problem is that the performativity – the skits, the dances, the “ironic” racism, the “ironic” subjugation of the minority partner — is always ludicrously assumed to be a universal experience, and is also exaggerated, illogical, and phony. Nothing new to learn about human nature. White people will continue to be innocently and mildly racist. Power dynamics between races in romance remain elitist. The Othered lover remains unsatisfied, embarrassed, ignored.
To accuse these influencer couples of racial abuse and not loving one another is a step too far. How are we as viewers to determine the nuances and capacity of their private lives, the romance they don’t sell on their pages? I don’t believe that what they perform is their actual relationship. Or I hope that what’s posted isn’t their reality. But why not show us your real selves, the real beauty of human romantic relationships, where white dominance over or discomfort with race is not central. The good, the bad, the ugly. That would be boring, right?
And they’re trying to make something as annoying and fucking dangerous in the extreme as racism look and feel fun – for sponsors and clicks of course. I feel like I’m asking too much of creators, who often betray how naive, insular, and narcissistic they truly are. I’m asking that their content is actually refreshing. We already have enough cringe content, insincere, monotonous, or woefully ignorant. Culturally, we are really swimming through the dregs of content.
But admittedly, there are very successful creators who have done just that. They have posted videos that attempt to open the controversy up for meaningful conversation to their audience, sharing troubling, illuminating, blurry, or funny experiences within interracial relationships and dating.
Myself and viewers are pained to ask why so much of this content is mean-spirited or laughs too loudly and with too much conviction at the discomfort of Black, Brown, Asian, and Other lovers in these partnerships. Why is this funny? Why is this content corny in a way that is not endearing?
Because often the point of view is from the perspective of the white partner. Why are minority lovers always the butt of the joke in these videos? And why are the white lovers always performed as innocently oblivious or naive when facing racial bias? Because the voyeuristic gaze is universally white. The comfort, tastes, sense of humor, sense of reality is always shaped by and for a white-centered audience. The broad majority of viewers who enjoy these videos are often the ones who have an immature understanding of racial sexualization, and are often shielded from actual fetishization because of their race and privilege.
We know that stereotypes are harmful to minorities viewing the content, especially for children, teens, and young adults. And can also be harmful for white partners witnessing content that disrespects their minority partner. But outside of harm, we just think the whole thing is phony. Phoniness being a simulacrum, a flimsy, unsatisfactory imitation or substitute for the real thing. One of our spiritual and cultural crises of living online and participating in the content drive of the global village is how inauthentic our experiences can be. The content is saturated with this cringey kind of insincerity. Everyone is so fake, laments our alt-online friends. Faux outrage. Fake news. False sincerity. Fake love.
What’s a shame is that interracial couples are making a living off the delusion that their racial make-up romantically is “rare” (although we know that interracial and interethnic interpersonal relationships are increasing in the U.S.). They see race as a viable brand identity, because it is. Our culture is superior at turning racism for a dollar. What they are selling is the idea that (white) liberals are socially unique, and that is capital in our world that cannot be understated. Look what these white liberals have to put up with. The nappy hair! The smelly traditions! The spicy food!
Online narratives have real world implications around how well-meaning, progressive white people are once again the heroes of the American saga of race. Because after all, you’re with me, you’ve been rescued by the love of a white person. There are numbers to back this up: as seen with Black beauty bloggers whose content views soared after they introduced their white boyfriend on camera. Content creators are selling these narratives, narratives that are most interested in the message of faux “togetherness” and colorblindness. There is a reason why Black audiences viewed Jordan Peele’s cinematic allegory, Get Out (2017) as a horror movie, and white audiences saw it as a comedy.
Also of interest: White girls are fetishizing Black men on TikTok by Samira Sadeque at the Daily Dot
Hollow symbols of progressive virtue signaling, ironically, are bolstered by the strength of our culture’s love for racist taboo and cliche. Actual romance — confessional, messy, emotionally and sexually fraut, promoting character growth — does not sell well in the attention economy. When actual racial concerns are address sincerely, often addressed naively, it’s too late. They’ve already shown us that they’re sellouts; they’ve made a name using race as their costume already. And their primary audience never really gets to learn who these couples truly are outside of their racial brand identity.
And TikTokers and YouTube followers laugh their heads off. Or they change their avatars in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and #StopAsianHate, when they wouldn’t in reality condescend to swipe right on a Tinder profile featuring a perfectly normal Black woman or Indigenous man. But you are not special because you’ve slept with Asian men. And Black men are not just muscles and dick. This same, tired trend will continue to be performed as long as the racist algorithm approves. An algorithm that will censor a profile that has “Black creator” in the bio, but not a video of a white woman enthusiastically fetishizing her “perfect,” hypothetical Black male lover.
The line between fantasy and reality, performance and personhood has collapsed. There are quite a number of content creators willing to embarrass themselves by defending their cringe-inducing, poorly conceived, and monotonous #swirllife stories and clips because they have forgotten that they are performing to the strengths of a discriminating algorithm and the race-baiting audience who loves this easy to digest, but tasteless content.
My boyfriend and I are not interested in being cardboard cutouts of the larger drama of race relations online. We own different experiences and we are the same in temperament. Contradictions in our personhoods do not undermine our ability to laugh or engage in debate.
Our private lives belong to ourselves, and we also share one another’s inner worlds. We are respectful of one another’s struggles, biases, desires, pains. We are wildly complex creatures. We can be right. We are often wrong. Our personalities, our physical beings, are complicated by an unfair racist societal structure.
We don’t care what anyone thinks.
We haven’t bought into what phony content creators are making.
We’re not ambassadors of interracial love. We don’t need that kind of attention.
We’re sexy enough.
We are very boring.
I’ll be very corny: it’s all love.
Swirl life