Dating fatherless man

Defiant lovers still found ways to express their eternal devotion by jumping the broom, which symbolized the leap into a new life, lived together.Such “frivolity” did not stop the slave owners and foreman from raping the women, while husbands and sons watched, helpless and impotent. My husband and I jumped the broom the day we married.

I realize that some black women, steadfast in their quest to find the ultimate brother, may bristle when they read this.

We continue to transcend together, beyond Jim Crow and the n-word, beyond the fear of ridicule.

Knowing what I do now, I wish I would have told the engineer-slash-sandwich-shop-owner that you just have to snatch love for yourself when it comes knocking, in whatever color or cultural package he’s wrapped in. I really want to do it when my husband and I have what we call our “big wedding”.

He would have to toughen up to hear a few slurs of his own, now that he was going to be married to me. To my left was his family and friends – mostly white – and to the right was my family. As the tide ebbs and flows, each part takes and leaves a little of itself with the other.

I looked at my soon-to-be husband, with his wide smile and hopeful green eyes, and I knew in an instant that no matter what the future brought, this was my man. Almost equally ironic as was the drive-by name-calling a fluke, my husband and I have been lucky thus far to never experience blatant outrage or bigotry about our bi-ethnic, bi-cultural relationship. At almost 12, my oldest daughter has never been called a nigger.