You Don’t Look It, So It’s Okay

Inside The Mind Of My Racist Ex

I was 18 when I got pregnant. I did what I thought was the right thing for the baby. I stayed with the father and tried to make it work. Was it love? Not really. I was, if truth be told, on the rebound and looking for a distraction from a particularly bad breakup. And he was a friend of a friend who frequently made guest appearances in our social group.

Looking back, I missed a lot of red flags. Or I overlooked them in my youthful naivete. First, his family was the strangest bunch of people I’d ever encountered. I can honestly say I had never before, and have not since, met a bunch quite like these people.

First, there was his mother, a twice-divorced middle-aged woman who was on a serious quest to find “a man with money” in between embarking on get rich schemes. She lived in a strange sort of alternative reality in which she truly believed she was going to be rescued from her life.

Then there was her mother, my ex’s grandmother, a stern, practical chain smoker who controlled her descendants with money and threats of being left out of the will. She hated everyone.

This mother-daughter duo was the most bigoted pair of people I’d ever seen in my life. They refused to buy a Honda or a Toyota because they were mad at the Japanese for World War II. They hated their neighbours, the Campbells because they were Catholic. They spoke often about Jewish conspiracies to control banking, Hollywood, and the news media. They were deadset against immigration and did a deep dissection of the surnames of everyone they encountered to make sure they could determine their origins.

But they weren’t him. So I didn’t their behaviour against him. He hadn’t shown any racial prejudice toward me. He knew my background and my racial makeup. And he pursued me, so he couldn’t possibly be racist, right?

Wrong. The second red flag came when he introduced me to his great aunt, Ann. She was a diminutive senior lady with an acid tongue and a fake Scottish accent.

He warned me not to tell Ann I was “half-Black.” Not that he had a problem, he said, but to avoid trouble.

I remember being offended by his request. I mean, I had no plans to meet the woman wearing an “Ask Me About My Black Daddy” t-shirt, but I also felt no desire to hide the truth. But, I acquiesced. She never asked. I never told. She just assumed my surname was a good, strong name from the “old country.”

As time went on, he became more and more controlling and abusive. When we fought, he’d toss around racial slurs, calling me a “porch monkey,” or a “bush ni**er,” and making cracks about eating watermelon. Then he’d apologize profusely, saying he didn’t mean it, it was all said in the heat of anger.

He became possessive and started to isolate me, warning me not to tell anyone, friends, potential employers, acquaintances, etc. not to disclose my heritage lest I be excluded. This was, according to him, all in the name of protecting me.

I still remember the collective, very audible sigh of relief from him and his family as each one of our children were born looking white.

He started cheating. A lot. To call him a serial cheater would be an understatement. And it was always with the same type of woman. Linda, Christine, Krista, Lisa, the names didn’t matter, they were all very large white women. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Which begged the question — if he liked big white girls, what was he doing in a relationship and having children with a very tiny woman of mixed racial origin?

As time went on, he became more and more outwardly racist. He’d say things about Black people on television or just passing by. Not just Black people, any people of colour.

I finally asked him what he was doing with me if he hated Black people and his answer left me speechless. He said I was okay because I didn’t look like I was mixed-race.

Wait, what? How does that even make sense? I mean, by this time, and being around that family, I’d heard more than my fair share of dumb shit, but that took the damn cake!

Our paring didn’t last long after that. When he left, he immediately moved in with another woman. Her name was Shirley. She was a petite single mother with a cute, playful manner. Oh, and get this. She was Jewish! The racist moved from me and my eclectic mix to a Jewish girl. This both confused and amused me.

Well, Shirley was a lot older and wiser than I had been and their romance didn’t last long. Surprise, surprise. He landed back on my doorstep. I didn’t let him in.

As the years went on, he was, at best an intermittent father, showing up every now and then to criticize my parenting, to holler about “his kids” or to show off what a wonderful father he was to whatever woman he was trying to impress.

Fast forward to today and me a full-fledged MAGA hat-wearing, Trump-loving proud racist who spends most of his time driving around in his truck with confederate battle songs on full blast.

He’s a sad, lonely figure now and deservedly so. Two of his three kids won’t speak to him. The youngest still does, from time to time, and refuses to believe his father is really a racist. He prefers to think his father “just says a whole lot of stupid shit.”

I asked him again, not so many years ago how he could be racist and have mixed-race children that he claims to love. His answer was the same, they were okay because they didn’t look like it.

The thing is, it didn’t surprise me this time. In fact, I think I get it. I think I know what his problem is. It was right there, hiding in plain sight all along, I just didn’t have the maturity, wisdom, or life experience to see it before.

My ex’s racism is two-fold, I think. First, he has no identity of his own. he never has. he’s always sort of, latched on to a personality that appeals to him at a given time and adopts it. Then, when it no longer suits, he discards it for another.

I’m not kidding. I can, in general terms describe his life in phases, marked by the personalities he adopted.

The first one I remember was the Paul Stanely phase. He was a huge KISS fan when we were young and was obsessed with the lead singer. He tried to look like him. He’d examine himself in the mirror doing mundane things like chewing gum and then ask me if he was doing it the same way as his idol.

Next came the Mick Jagger phase of the mid-90s. The same type of thing. He even tried to name our youngest son Jagger. Nope.

These were followed by several others, most notably his Tupac phase. yeah, he went out, bought chains, started wearing FUBU and blasting rap music all over the place and talking like he was from “da hood,” like it was some kind of game. I guess he never noticed Tupac was Black.

Then there was the Toby Keith phase, the evangelical Christian phase and finally the MAGA man supreme phase. It’s a terrible thing to say, but he’s truly just a cartoon version of a person. Hearing his latest antics is very much like tuning into the daily funny papers, except it’s not so funny.

Secondly, to go with his lack of any sense of self is absolutely no self-esteem. Makes sense, I mean how can a person have self-esteem if they have no self to have any esteem in?

I think he actively sought me out because of my race and because of my appearance. I think he sought me out because he knew he could hold my race over my head to boost himself up. He may not have known who he was, but he sure knew what he wasn’t.

But it got better for him. Not only could he try to elevate himself by using my race to bring me down. He could do it all secretly. He could do it all behind closed doors without anyone knowing. Because as far as the outside world knew, he has a pretty white girl on his arm and three handsome white babies. He lorded race over my head at home. He lorded me, and the kids over the heads of his peers, as symbols of success that he had and they didn’t.

Did it make him feel better? I doubt it. But when you hate yourself that much, the easiest route to feeling a bit better is to hate someone else, and trust me, this pathetic guy only takes the easy road.