"I grew up in Chicago believing the book on interracial marriage my father, a white anthropologist, worked on throughout my childhood sprang from his love for my Black Jamaican mother. But when I finally opened the boxes of papers I had inherited, I discovered he had begun interviewing Black-white couples as a 21-year-old graduate student in the 1930s, long before he met her."
"It is the month before my eighth-grade graduation from my integrated school in Kenwood, as the chilly Chicago spring slowly warms into summer. I am barely thirteen years old. During recess or when school lets out, I notice two white girls in my grade leaning casually against the school wall as Black boys bend toward each one, playfully chatting. The girls pose with an unaccustomed demeanor as they look up at the boys, seeming to hold their attention effortlessly."
A woman inherits her father's research papers and discovers his long history of interviewing Black-white couples dating back to the 1930s. Archival notes reveal bachelor-era observations and a party exclusively for mixed-race couples, prompting discomfort about desire that is driven by race. A childhood memory of two white girls and Black boys interacting at school illustrates how racialized attraction can appear distinctly and feel unfamiliar. Clothing, demeanor, and age disparities heighten the sense of difference. The material raises questions about how race becomes eroticized and how those dynamics shape relationships and social encounters.
Read at The Nation
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