3:52pm
She hated running through Cambridge. She was worried some friend might see her or, even worse, one of her professors as she ran down the brick sidewalks with white pages flinging in her hand. Everyone knows what that means. You’re that type of student, the procrastinator who really presses the limits. When, in reality, it just so happens that an extra episode of Glee and a two-hour break to buy a burrito around the corner are perfectly logical steps before starting a 10 page paper the afternoon before it is due—at least, that’s what she thought.
With short bouts of running interlaced with awkwardly disguised speed walking, she finally opened the door to the Harvard Expository Writing Office. She checked her phone.
3:54 pm.
Six minutes until the deadline. Sweet.
She slowly began walking the hallway and spotted a sign with an arrow pointing further on—“Professor Mailboxes.” It was dead silent in the office. Most of the lights were off. She passed a secretary who was re-shelving books and didn’t notice her come in. Continuing at her lessened pace, she took one last glimpse over her paper. It was her baby, her newly born child that took 10 hours of labor to pop out, kept her awake into the middle of the night, and for a thing so light in weight, it sure had great importance. It was her first college paper, her first Harvard paper.
3:58 p.m.
She was the only one standing in front of the mailboxes, her heart pounding—perhaps because she just ran from her dorm or because this was a highlight moment in her academic timeline. Suddenly—whack! The main door to the office was flung open and a guy with a similar set of white pages in his hands jolted up the stairs in the wrong direction. She chuckled to herself.
She was so absorbed in re-reading her essay that she almost overlooked that he had correctly found the mailboxes and was kneeling next to her, trying to shove his loose papers into the narrow slot belonging to his professor.
She glanced down. It’s not even stapled, she thought. She was fully watching him now, as he bent over trying to use his finger to ease his baby into its crib. You can’t turn your first paper in without staples! What about first impressions? She waited a couple more seconds. I should probably tell him something.
4:01 p.m.
“Hey, don’t you want to staple that?” she asked him.
The guy looked up at her, then smiled. She smiled back. At that moment, she would have never guessed she was smiling at the man she would be madly in love with for the next three years.
________
I am in an inter-racial relationship. I am black, a Haitian-American from California, with a love for guitar music and red velvet cupcakes. He is white, from the Czech Republic, with a (sexy) European accent and an undying love for dance music. Before we started dating, before we even met, society had made its own assumptions about us as individuals apart from one another. We all know about the stereotypes, the prejudices, the silent racism, classism, education-ism. What is more elusive, however, is what happens when all these ‘-isms’ are forced to collide; not in hatred, not in war, not in protest—in love.
As such, being in an inter-racial relationship has taught me that the world is often much more confused than we think it is. When we pass through the streets, holding hands, giving kisses on each other’s cheeks, we can spot the longer looks we get from those passing by. They are not always looks of disgust, of anger or fear; nor are they always looks of excitement, acceptance, or happiness. They are just looks—longer ones. As a psychology major, I’ve read enough studies about child cognitive development to know that people tend to look longer at things that catch their attention—be it beauty or, as in our case, the unexpected, intriguing, unusual things.
For some, a relationship characterized as “unusual” is one to avoid. If it’s uncommon, it can’t be right. Yet for our relationship, being “unusual” is a blessing and a curse, though more of the former. On one side, it is often the most difficult hurdle to overcome when out in public. On the other hand, it serves to bring us even closer together, to support and stand up for one another and, in the end, feel all the more special because we are fighting for something beautiful—something the world is strangely confused about.
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In my world
When I think back onto the moment we first met in the Harvard Expository Writing Office, I realize that his skin color didn’t really become a factor until we started dating and became an “item”. His accent was what first got my attention (come on, who doesn’t love accents!). After that, I have written in my journal that my first thoughts were, “he is kinda skinny, but kinda cute.” His white and my brown didn’t seem to matter much until the inevitable happened—the white boy found himself in a room filled with black people.
It was my first a cappella group concert in early December, 2009. KeyChange, which sings mostly music from the African diaspora, is a black music a cappella group on campus. As such, we have a wildly supportive relationship with black Harvard students: our concerts are filled with fans who will shout, stand up, clap and scream their praises.
Just a couple weeks after we had started dating, he attended this concert and by doing so he stepped into an environment that, quite frankly, he had never experienced coming from the Czech Republic. At the end of the show, however, it was one he was totally in love with. He may admit that in some situations–where he is the minority for a change–it can feel a little daunting; he can feel that more eyes are on him than he’d fancy. But he moves beyond that. He is not in a room full of black people. He is in a room full of Rachels, Jordans, Aarons, Erikas, Randys. He is in a room full of my friends and his friends.
In his world
“Jak se mas?” (How are you?) My relationship with my boyfriend is great; my relationship with the Czech language is disastrous. It has sounds an English speaking tongue cannot quite make, it moves fast, and it never has an easy learning guide in the Barnes & Noble’s language section. When I landed in the Prague airport for the first time in the early summer of 2011, I stepped into a blur of confusion. Not only could I understand next to nothing of what anyone was saying, but I was also—quite literally—one of the very few people of color in the city, it seemed.
My boyfriend’s flat, located on the outskirts of the city center of Prague, is a place where tourists often don’t go. It’s the place where regular living occurs. There are no hotels, no night clubs, no taxis waiting impatiently for customers. When his family embraced me with open arms, I knew that even in a place where racial homogeneity is high, there is still space for new faces when proper time and care is used.
Regardless of this, I still heard a voice growing overwhelmingly on my shoulder while I was there. A voice I truly hate because it rarely says something of value and yet it speaks so loud. They are staring at you. That lady over there is looking at us. Can that guy stop glancing over his shoulder? The girls are giggling—is it about us? About me? Is that guy really on his phone or is he taking a picture of us? I shouldn’t have worn such a bright shirt, I’m standing out way too much. I should have straightened my hair instead of leaving it curly. A voice that instills a hyper-sensitivity to any sign of racially based attention, a voice that will tire you out. Unfortunately this voice never seems to go away. At times, it can be dimmed down, but it can be easily switched up again. There were days in Prague—in this bright and bustling, cosmopolitan and exciting city, where I preferred to stay inside his flat all day watching Netflix than to risk getting consumed by the voice.
And this is when the world thinks it has won, when the world affirms it is not confused—it is right. What is unusual cannot last. Yet, what’s most important throughout our lives is the fact that we are with each other in all types of situations. When one of us feels awkward, feels like the spotlight is unfairly cast over them, then the other is there to say, ‘It’s okay, I still love you’ or ‘Make some room, I’ll gladly join you under the light.’ Not to mention the mounds of support from friends, family and far-off admirers that remind you that this “unusual” some few may see as bad is actually doing some good.
And after all this, what really wins is not race, not color, not even affection. What wins is the trust you have in the person who tells you that what really matters is the truth shared between the two of you. Truth the world wishes it could deny if only it were allowed in.