Thread by @AzieDee

I have a lot of respect for Prince Harry.

I’m going to tell a story here that I never have before. It cut me very deep.

So I was in a 7+ year relationship with a White man. Started in my very early 20s for context, and he was only the 2nd bf I’d ever had.

We had a mutual pool of friends. Really they were my HS best friend’s friend group, through her bf/fiancé who was my bf’s brother. I was the only one to go out-of-state for college, but I would come home a lot and hang with them. They were all white except me and one other guy.

So when me and, let’s call him Josh, start dating, we go to a party with this friend group. At one point a guy, let’s call him Mike, got me alone in a room, and said to me, “Tell the truth, you really want a Black dick...” He said it over and over trying to get me to “admit it”.

As I said, I was very young. I’d had experienced SA and DV. Being cornered like that, alone, and asked about “Black dick” from this white dude was extraordinarily traumatizing for me. On the sexual harassment level, on the fear level, and on the race level.
I didn’t tell anyone.

So Josh continued to be friends with Mike, not knowing. They weren’t like besties, but he was around. There were several times when Mike was drunk and he would casually touch my ass or say suggestive things. Even w his girlfriend around. It was always to covert for anyone to see.

So finally, maybe four years into the relationship, I told Josh everything. I said I didn’t want Mike around anymore. What I was trying to say is that I didn’t feel safe.

Josh: “Oh that’s just how he is. Ever since he became a fire fighter he’s been like that.”

I told this man that his friend cornered me alone in a room and berated me to admit that I want a Black dick and his response was, “He doesn’t mean anything. It’s just how he is” and “firefighter”.

My partner went on to say that he considered himself like “a mentor to him”.

So this man was still at parties in our home. He was still in the band my partner played in. He absolutely never confronted him about the things he had done or said to me.

Their friendship was much more valuable to him than I was.

This was a running theme in our relationship. People would be racist to me, people in his family mostly, and he would not protect me or stand up for me. He would never confront this issue. It was always on me to grin and bear it or try to advocate for myself or even educate.

The finally straw for me was toward the end of our relationship. I had been out of town for work, or maybe he had, I don’t remember, but he tells me Mike and his girlfriend are coming to visit for a week (we lived across the country at this point) and staying at our apartment.

He waited till the last minute to tell me. And the plans were already settled. He was like “I know you don’t like him very much, but he’s my friend.”

I spent a lot of time crying alone over that. I don’t think I need to explain why.

At this point we were married. I left him shortly after that and we divorced. I also went into a trauma recovery program because I had a lot to work through. Not about him, really, but about a lot of experiences that had led to me being ok with being treated that way.

I say this to say that if you are white and you are thinking of being in intimate partnership with a POC, and you aren’t prepared to be an advocate, to be an educator, to be a protector, to face racism *full on*, to let friendships go, to confront family members —

LEAVE US ALONE

Be a Prince Harry or leave Black women alone.

The crazy thing is that this person now runs a business with his current (WW) partner and during the BLM protests they had a whole campaign about how they are an “anti-racist brand” and when I saw that I laughed hysterically to keep from breaking things.