One in 10 married couples are interracial in the U.S., representing an increase of 30% since 2000 (Pew Research Center, 2017). Further, 21% of gay and lesbian unmarried couples are of different races (The Williams Institute, 2019). Are couples therapists ready to deliver services to this growing population? Considering the salience of skin color in society, and its central importance to our psychological experience and ongoing social movements for racial justice across the country and around the world (#BLM), it’s surprising so little research and clinical training in our field has been devoted to race, and, more specifically, interracial couples and multiracial families (Killian, 2013).
If choosing a partner from a different racial (or cultural) background made no difference in a person’s life, then interracial and intercultural couples would have few stories to tell about their experiences of racism and discrimination.
However, since racism (and white supremacy) impacts everyone through differentials in privilege, power, and safety connected to our social locations, it necessarily does impact interracial couples, as well. How? Lewandowski and Jackson (2001) found that European American men married to African American women were perceived as significantly less competent and as less likely to be professionally successful than were those married to European American women. African American men married to European American women were perceived as less competent, less traditional, as having a weaker racial identity, and as less comfortable with same-race others than were those married to African American women. These are examples of things interracial couples contend with on a daily basis. But coming from different social locations on axes of power and privilege, partners may exhibit very different understandings of everyday situations they encounter, and may choose to remain “oblivious” to, or silent in the face of, their partner’s experience.
The sound of silence: Ally and enemy
Trainees and supervisees often express a wish to avoid uncomfortable silences during their sessions. I tell therapists in training that silence is not something to fear. In fact, in narrative therapy terms, it represents a potential ally in the room. If we welcome it as such, it can do a lot of heavy lifting for us, and we can avoid a lot of aches and pains as we exit stage left after our sessions. Silence can be our friend, allowing space and time for people to think through, and feel through, things they haven’t processed fully. But silence can also whisper to us: “Your clients are waiting, and they think you don’t know what you’re doing.” Similarly, in intimate relationships, silence can erode the sense of connection and intimacy. It can whisper to either partner: “She just doesn’t get it and will never understand.” Or, “He doesn’t care about what you’ve just shared with him.”In individual interviews for my book Interracial Couples Intimacy & Therapy (Killian, 2013), partners were open and candid about experiences with racism, and discussions and negotiations around racial and ethnic difference. However, in conjoint interviews, these topics were dropped like hot potatoes. Some couples couldn’t change the topic fast enough, especially those who appeared uncomfortable discussing differences in general. “Gender roles, or expectations? Who, us? We have no differences to discuss.” And “We’re just like any other couple.” Couples may choose to avoid discussions of difference, and their everyday experiences of prejudice and racism for a host of reasons. Male and female partners of color may adopt a code of silence out of family allegiance or loyalty (i.e., “some things just aren’t talked about in mixed company”) or concerns that their partner may not be empathetic. For example, when a white female partner observes her black male partner being issued a ticket by a white male police officer for driving four miles over the speed limit, or five miles under the limit (“I noticed you were driving five miles under the limit; anything wrong?”), can she acknowledge the possibility that this scenario is suspect or even an outright crock? Or will she see his commentary on the incident as evidence of racial baggage, and his “seeing race in everything”?
bell hooks wrote, “we pondered whether black folks and white folks can ever be subjects together if white people remain unable to hear black rage, if the sound of that rage must always be repressed, contained, trapped in the realm of the unspeakable” (1995, p. 12). When a visible minority partner experiences racism, or a white partner’s silence or a lack of affirmation, it reinforces the notion that some people do, and some people don’t, understand the myriad ways racism manifests itself in everyday interaction—ways that are sometimes more subtle (microaggressions), not always obvious, but always powerful. In light of white partners’ tendency to “not notice” negative public reactions towards the couple or to their partners (Killian, 2013), visible minority partners can remain silent about their daily experiences, or take on the unenviable task of directing attention and making their case as each event or experience occurs. Whether or not they are successful in opening dialogues about suspected racist incidents with their partners, minority partners will continue to adopt a stance of vigilance, to invest considerable energy to monitor incidents, and to tolerate ambiguity in the face of acts of hostility that occur in a racist society. Silence can hinder or impede the level of connection and intimacy in a couple’s relationship. And microaggressions can occur in a variety of contexts, including the therapy room (Constantine, 2007).
On uncritical defenses of interracial couples
Lest we assume all interracial relationships must be inherently empowering and emancipatory, Jared Sexton, professor at UC Irvine, offers the follow caveat:
. . .uncritical defense of interracial relationships rests upon an assumption that love and racism are somehow mutually exclusive and counter-posed to one another. However, a recognition of and critical engagement with the constitutive role of racism and white supremacy in the formation of the social conditions for interracial relationships does not preclude the possibility of love. (p. 95)
This is to say that we do not wish to exchange the knee-jerk slamming of interracial couples as problematic, deviant, or pathological with its antithesis, an uncritical championing of interracial couples as panacea for society’s ills—Jim Crow, segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, and white supremacy. There is the potential for interracial relationships to challenge racism implicitly by flouting the invidious hierarchy of white over black—if their partnership demonstrates mutual respect and equanimity—and multiracial families do challenge racism by dispatching the dichotomy of white vs. black through the creation of children who are both (like Barack Obama). But these couple and family relationships are transgressive and transformative only to the extent that they do not fall into hierarchical power relations along the lines of gender, race, class and their intersections that go on everyday in the larger society. One way couples and families can try to avoid the usual traps of patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, and classism is by resisting the effects of silence, by observing, detecting and engaging the palpable effects of these structural inequities that operate both “out there,” and right here within their relationship (Killian, 2013). To be helpful, professionals and partners in interracial relationships must be willing to challenge dominant discourses of homogamy, hypersensitivity of partners of color, the insignificance of history, and the overarching discourse of “no race talk” (Killian, 2002, 2003, 2012). And for therapists and partners tired of hearing about racism and discrimination, just imagine how completely enervating it can be to be the one regularly targeted because of the skin you’re in.
Challenging the dominant discourse of “no race talk”
Public discourse about race frequently invokes the language of healing (Yamamoto, 2000; Dalton, 1996), but often at the expense of suppressing forthright talk about race and racial history in the U.S. Public race talk features phrases such as “playing the race card,” it backlashes against affirmative action, and fails to take seriously the material and psychological residuals of social institutions and policies such as slavery, Jim Crow, and persisting differentials in access to quality education, financial aid, and equal justice. It is interesting to note that such processes of non-engagement are also frequently reflected in the therapy room. The tremendous power of normalizing discourses (Foucault, 1980) can influence interracial couples and helping professionals to (consciously or unconsciously) collude with one another to the extent that a dominant discourse of “no race talk” organizes the dialogue, and subaltern and marginalized discourses are avoided, minimized, or dismissed in the therapeutic conversation.
Helping professionals can move to affirm interracial couples’ power by acknowledging their agency in choosing particular strategies, even when they may not be the best tactics. When a partner refers to how he or she has silenced ethnic, racial, and/or family histories, or a partner demonstrates compartmentalization of components of his or her identity (e.g., “it’s a family thing, not ethnic”), we can acknowledge the usefulness of these strategies at particular moments in their lives in a racist social context. After affirming couples, we can then create opportunities to discuss how much energy has been invested in efforts to suppress important components of their histories and selves, and how this energy might be applied toward devising new strategies that allow creation of more inclusive identities, including their identity together as a couple. We can acknowledge the sweeping scope and power of the rule “no racial history/talk” out there, and then work to subvert this generalized, normative “truth” in the room by discussing: How the rule is manifested in a variety of contexts (e.g., work, school, etc.) by what does not get discussed, how that is helpful or unhelpful, and then what kinds of things probably would not be addressed/broached in therapy. Then, one has a list of topics to explore in future sessions. Another means to broach important topics, such as partners’ cultural assumptions and beliefs, and the degree to which each partner’s cultural heritage is valued and included in the relationship, is the use of assessment inventories. For example, the author developed the Cultural Assumptions and Beliefs Inventory and the Index of Cultural Inclusion (Killian, 2013) for this purpose. Beyond obtaining scores on scales and comparing them, the administration of these and other assessment inventories creates a launch pad for invaluable conversations about things that matter to couples, especially ones bringing a new generation into the world.
We have our own work to do
Professionals who wish to be helpful with interracial couples must examine their own biases, explicit and implicit ideologies, and will to power. When I spoke at Harvard Medical School on interracial couples, a white clinician said that she, like her mother before her, didn’t approve of mixed couples. She took exception to my use of the terms racism and white supremacy in my talk. She held that the word “racist” is used “far too often,” and saw me as astonishingly ignorant when I expressed curiosity about her worldview. In the wake of her absolute certainty on these matters, a John F. Kennedy quotation came to mind: “Too often we…enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” Therapists’ ability to aid couples in examining issues related to race, ethnicity, and identity is grounded in their having done this work themselves (Pinderhughes, 1989). In the case of my audience member, she appeared racially unconscious and fully ensconced in white supremacy; I believe she should not see visible minorities or interracial couples in her practice. If she did, she’d regularly violate her Hippocratic Oath. To conclude, I hope that your approach to this rapidly growing population is racially and socioculturally attuned, allowing room for partners (and yourself) to really listen, begin to understand unfamiliar experiences and concerns, and engage one another in ways that break the codes of silence.
Kyle D. Killian, PhD, LMFT, is core faculty in marriage and family therapy at Capella University, and author of Interracial Couples, Intimacy & Therapy: Crossing Racial Borders (Columbia University Press), and co-editor of Intercultural couples: Exploring Diversity in Intimate Relationships (Routledge). Killian is an AAMFT Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor.
REFERENCES
Constantine, M. G. (2007). Racial microaggressions against African American clients in cross-racial counseling relationships. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54,1-16.
Dalton, H. (1996). Racial healing: Confronting the fear between blacks and whites. New York: Anchor Press.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. New York: Vintage Books.
hooks, b. (1995). Killing rage: Ending racism. New York: Henry Holt.
Killian, K. D. (2002). Dominant and marginalized discourses in interracial couples’ narratives: Implications for family therapists. Family Process, 41, 603-618.
Killian, K. D. (2003). Homogamy outlaws: Interracial couples’ strategic responses to racism and partner differences. Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, 2 (2-3), 3-21.
Killian, K. D. (2012). Resisting and complying with homogamy: Interracial couples’ narratives. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 25(2), 125-135.
Killian, K.D. (2013). Interracial couples, intimacy and therapy: Crossing racial borders. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lewandowski, D. A. & Jackson, L. A. (2001). Perceptions of interracial couples: Prejudice at the dyadic level. Journal of Black Psychology, 27, 288-303.
Pew Research Center. (2017). Intermarriage in the U.S. 50 years after Loving v. Virginia. Retrieved from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/intermarriage-in-the-u-s-50-years-after-loving-v-virginia
Pinderhughes, E. (1989). Understanding race, ethnicity, and power. New York: Free Press.
Sexton, J. C. (2002). The politics of interracial sexuality in the post-civil rights era US. PhD dissertation. University of California, Berkeley.
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