· That brother is a sell out. Black men are only with white women because they have internalized the racist view of white female beauty as the ideal.
· Somebody has jungle fever!
· Oh, she got herself a Mandingo!
· What a stupid man. That woman can cry "rape" any time and ruin his life forever.
· Black men always date the ugliest white women, they can't tell the difference.
· That brother must be getting all kinds of stuff. Everybody knows white women have been trained to serve, they'll do things no black woman would ever do.
· That's disgusting. That woman is used goods. No white man will have her now.
· Damn, hope they don't sit at my restaurant table. Everyone knows interracial couples don't tip well.
· If that woman was a feminist, she would never date a black man. There aren't enough black men to go around for black women.

This is an ugly list of ugly stereotypes that makes polite company nervous. But polite company doesn't mean unprejudiced company and frankly I'm tired of polite company, since polite means you smile to my face and then think your ugly thoughts, all the time telling yourself how liberal and full of goodwill you are. I want you to have to voice your stereotypes and prejudices, rather than think them so silently that maybe you can pretend you don't have them. And I want you to recognize that I am not a stereotype. I'm tired of being the passive object of a gaze that often denies its prejudice and anger. Who I am, who my husband and I are together, has nothing to do with jungle fever, bad tipping, rape, or feminism. And at the same time, who we are together has everything to do with these things. Here's why.

I'm crazy in love with my husband. And he's in love with me. He says he married me because when I met him, I saw a human being, not a black man. I married him because when he looked at me, he saw a human being; not a white woman, not potential prey, not a maid. The night we met, we looked at each other and our spirits understood one another. Everyone else in the room looked at us and thought, "Jungle fever."

I am a feminist. You might not know this if you just knew me causally because in my daily life I am treated so well, loved so much, and feel so equitable, that in my own house feminism rarely even comes up. That's the irony of feminism and women's studies: if they really work, they put themselves out of business. If we truly achieve equality and mutual respect, those things will be an integral and unnamed part of our lives.

I feel guilty when I become acquainted with a black woman and then have to introduce her to my husband for the first time. I believe in sisterhood. I know the history of the feminist movement, and white women's betrayal of black women. But I love my husband. And I loved him as a human being, as a man of integrity, from the first moment. Should I have given that up, asked him to give that up, in the off chance that he might go on to fall in love with a black woman?

My husband and I both know the history of race in our country, and the number of lynchings prompted by an excuse such as: he looked at that white woman, he touched that white woman, he raped that white woman. My husband's mother and sister know this history, too, and are sure to remind him of it at every opportunity. Yet, my husband loves me-and trusts me-enough to take this chance with history. Though certainly we are both deeply suspicious of the police and law enforcement and we avoid them as best as possible and make judicious decisions about where and when to drive together.

I don't believe in race as a biological category, but I do believe that race is a political, man-made construction with deeply entrenched consequences in people's everyday lives. Because my husband and I both understand the consequences of "race," our decision to speak to one another was difficult, the decision to date even more difficult, and the decision to marry was life-changing. We did not want to live out anyone's stereotypes, nor did we want to be bound by them. But those stereotypes, like it or not, create a reality we have to live in every time we go outside, eat in a restaurant, look for an apartment, see a movie…

In our own home, when we are alone together, we have everything we could want. We are a partnership of two human beings who help each other find meaning and love in a very frightening world. There is an irony here, though: this relationship that makes the world more bearable, also makes the world nastier. If I'd fallen in love with a white man, I'd rarely have to see the violent, nasty, prejudiced underbelly of our society. But I didn't; I fell in love with this wonderful, funny, smart, meticulous, ethical man whose skin is darker than mine-and who brought with him, into my life, the daily reminder of hundreds of years of prejudice, violence, and hatred. Together, we try to protect each other from that ugly world, even as the world gets uglier because we are together.

So I tell you, who we are has nothing to do with jungle fever, bad tipping, rape, or feminism. Who we are to you has everything to do with those things. Because of who we are to you, we are often forced to a dark cynicism about the world. But because of who we are together, our world is a much better place. There is nothing about our relationship we want to change. Except the way your stereotypes interfere with it.

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