In an ideal world, we all would be lucky enough to find someone who is our perfect match for us regardless color. The thing about love is sometimes it comes out of nowhere, you can’t predict or plan for it.
This is not an ideal world, of course, so a lot of times there is a lot of judgment of interracial relationships. There are also men and women who date outside of their race because they feel that other race is superior.
With athletes and entertainers, there are stereotypes about interracial relationships. There have been there for years; even MAGA Kanye once said: “once he gets on, he’s going to leave you for a white girl.”
Black men are judged a little more harshly than black women who date outside of their race, but there were a few eyebrows that were raised when Serena Williams married Reddit Co-Owner Alexis Ohanian. She was asked in NY TIMES profile what message she felt that sent to people and here is what she had to say.
Anyone who has read Richard Williams’s 2014 memoir, “Black and White: The Way I See It,” knows how much resentment he felt about the racism he faced growing up in the American South and how intent he was on preparing his tennis-playing daughters to handle being outsiders in a predominantly white sport. Racist comments that he said he heard at the tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., in 2001 were a big part of the reason Serena and Venus Williams boycotted the event for more than a decade.
I asked Serena, who had dated black men and white men, what message her marriage to Ohanian sent.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Literally all I tell Alexis is, ‘well, you know, there’s such a difference between white people and black people.’ He always gets to hear about the injustices that happen; that wouldn’t happen if I were white. It’s interesting. I never thought I would have married a white guy, either, so it just goes to show you that love truly has no color, and it just really goes to show me the importance of what love is. And my dad absolutely loves Alexis.”
She added: “Ultimately I wanted to be with someone who treated me nice, someone who was able to laugh with me and someone who understood my life and someone that loved me.
You can watch the docuseries Being Serena on HBO starting May 2nd.