This year, my mom, who is the eldest of eight siblings, lost two of her sisters, my aunts. While attending their funerals, the pervasive familiarity of whiteness surrounded me.
Since marrying a black man, I’ve developed a habit of noticing the racial makeup of people in any given space. This practice falls outside the norms of whiteness that I learned, and I feel pressure to conform to these norms when I’m with other white people.
Yet here I am at a funeral with my white family, observing the many mourners as they pass, and noting that only five people aren’t obviously white. As I sit in this space, I can’t help but think about how my black husband and brown kids might feel if they were here with me. I also can’t help but wonder if someone will ask me where my husband and kids are.
With a cloud of sadness hanging over all of us, I ready myself for answering such a question at a gathering like this. Talking about race and its impact on our lives with other white people is already troublesome enough. But in this setting of grief and loss, my heightened awareness of whiteness and determination to have a productive conversation about it highlight my desire for my white loved ones to grasp the effect whiteness has on my mixed-race family, and the importance of race for all of us.
My family has gathered before to mourn the passing of loved ones, but the recent gatherings feel different. Perhaps it’s because of the people we’ve lost and their ages, which are so close to mine. Or maybe it’s due to my current phase of life, where I’m trying to figure out the best way to raise my growing children and teach them about the stories, people, and places from which they come. Whatever the reason, today I’m acutely aware of the strong sense of disconnection I feel with my white family.
I seldom see most of my family members. In the 20-plus years since my wedding, almost all of them have met my husband only a few times, and some not at all. Most have never had the opportunity to get to know my beautiful children. Although I spent more time with my family this year than in previous years, my husband and kids were not with me. They don’t know the majority of people who make up my white extended family.
Today, I’m mourning not only the recent loss of loved ones, but also closeness with my kin. It saddens me that my children will never meet two of my aunts, just as they will never know my grandparents who passed away before they were born. It’s disheartening to know that my kids are missing out on knowing pieces of their heritage as their relatives — unknown to them — pass away. Unfortunately, the truth is that whiteness and the privilege it grants white people to avoid acknowledging and examining the relevance of race are significant reasons for the distance between us.
My family, with a few exceptions, is composed of white Americans. But, despite our shared racial identity, many of my family members hold different beliefs and values about race than I do. These differences in how we understand and interact with race make it difficult for me to see how my mixed-race family can become closer to our white family.
Similar to other families, there are many things that can divide us — geographic locations, political leanings, personal ethics, and ideas about faith, to name a few. But, for me, race is the most divisive. Whiteness shapes and taints everything we know, influencing who we are, how we interact with the world, and the way we relate to one another. Whiteness touches every aspect of our togetherness, including our shared grief.
I long for deep familial connection, yet I feel like a stranger to many of the white people I love. It’s not just that I feel like an outsider due to my different approach to race — our differing ways of dealing with race clash directly. While I’m committed to exposing and dismantling whiteness, my family’s collective approach seems to oscillate between defending whiteness and living as though race doesn’t matter. I’m uncertain whether it’s possible to help my brown kids become closer to my white family when this is our racial mode of operation. I don’t know how to bridge the divide that whiteness creates.
We are all mostly free to live and believe as we wish, but our life choices do not occur in a vacuum. How we live our lives has repercussions for those with whom we’re in, or trying to be in, relationship. The way other people, family or not, understand and approach race has an impact on how my husband, kids, and I relate to them.
My spouse and I constantly assess whether individuals and spaces are safe. As a mixed-race family, when deciding who to expose our children to, we consider race — not just skin color, but also how individuals and communities attend to issues of race. We make this evaluation to safeguard our well-being.
The way race operates in the US, with its relentless focus on privileging and protecting whiteness, poses a danger to my black spouse and brown children. Whiteness is brutality and power disguised as normality. It denies the beauty, worth, and basic humanity of people of color. Failing to recognize how whiteness perpetuates racial injustice, and doing nothing to stop it, is to be indifferent to the forces that denigrate my own precious children and beloved partner. I simply cannot do this.
I recognize that whiteness harms white people too. It has deep roots, and I’ve witnessed firsthand how it limits our ability to form meaningful relationships with people of color or genuinely care for them. Whiteness was created to divide human beings, teaching white people to disconnect from our humanity and filling us with falsehoods about human worth. It even hinders our relationships with and ability to care for other white people. Although we may not want to admit it, the destructive legacy of whiteness persists with us, white people who live today. It’s up to us to do something about it.
Daily, I struggle to balance my concern for my black husband and brown children by dismantling the racist structures that surround us, without completely alienating myself from white people. To fully love black and brown people, I must continually recognize and engage with the reality of race and the impact of whiteness on all of us. However, this often leads to conflicts and separation from white people in my life who struggle to understand my rejection of whiteness.
Moment by moment, I’m presented with opportunities to either perpetuate whiteness or work towards racial equity. Through experience, I’ve learned that deviating from the conventions of whiteness unsettles white people and strains relationships. Despite this, I’ll continue to engage with other white people about race. My hope is that we’ll come to agree that eliminating racism and reducing harm for black and brown people must take priority over the comfort of white people like us. I also hope that we’ll see how our narratives, personhood, and connectedness can be more than the biases and painful division that whiteness mandates.
At the very least, I ask white people I love to be gracious and open, particularly when it comes to issues of race. I invite us to listen when people of color share their experiences, and to broaden our understanding of the repercussions of ignoring race and allowing whiteness to go unchallenged. I urge us to recognize that genuine love for one another involves taking a sincere interest in each other’s lives, sharing in the things that bring us joy, and being present for the things that cause us harm.
Race and its impacts do not pause because of grief. My love for and accountability to the brown and black people in my life doesn’t go away because I’m sad. Today, I’m learning how to grieve with my white family while also acknowledging and attending to race.
I imagine nearly every family must learn how to love each other well, despite the pressures, expectations, and norms of their culture. Perhaps a funeral is a good place to invite and support one another in living as our preferred selves, free from narratives and definitions that work to dehumanize and divide us. As we’re reminded of the fleeting nature of our time together, may we strive anew to express our love and care, without being constrained by the things that keep us apart.
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