Milk & Mocha Interracial Community - Front Page

M.L. KING'S "I HAVE A DREAM" SPEECH - AUG. 28, 1963

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation This momentous decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the colored America is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the colored American is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chains of discrimination.

One hundred years later, the colored American lives on a lonely ...

According to Webster's, the definition of Culture Shock is:

"A sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation" .

This description perfectly describes how I've felt for some time now. As a Southern white woman married to a Mid-Western black man, the complexity of race-relations in America never ceases to amaze me. No, "amaze" really isn't the right word... Although I've traveled overseas, the only culture shock I ever experienced was after my marriage, and the culture that so shocked me was my own.

Have any of you seen (or felt) a different side of your same-race peers since embarking on an interracial relationship? I have- and even though I've been seeing this for years now, it remains fresh on my mind.

At times, being white can blind me to the racism of my peers: until my husband enters the room, and they're no longer able to conceal their hate. Other times, my whiteness acts as an unwelcome window into their depravity, as some of these closet-bigots "confide" their hateful views to me in casual conversation. I'm not sure which is worse. Sometimes it's a racial slur that rolls off their tongue in an easy and familiar way; sometimes it's a vague comment that discloses their insecurity about their "position" in society- like black people are somehow going to take over & "get even" (?!). This has especially come out in political rhetoric: "Let's take back our country!", etc...
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Love is a splendid thing! And so is shopping. When I heard that Crate & Barrel had an interracial gay couple in its January 2013 catalog I simply had to take a look for myself.

Now, this isn't the first time that Crate & Barrel has included gay couples in its catalogs. But it IS the first time that I can recall ...