White Woman Married to a Black Man Lists All the Things in Her Life She Had to Adjust Because of Racism
"If Walter is pushing the cart, I always have to have my receipt ready when leaving the store."
Racism does not always show up in loud, obvious ways, and sometimes it reaches right into family life. That is part of why Pamela Chandler’s open letter struck such a nerve.
Pamela is a white woman married to a Black man, and she shared how racial prejudice has forced her family to make changes, face awkward moments, and deal with hurt that never seems to fully go away. Her post quickly spread across Facebook, drawing huge attention and plenty of responses from people in mixed-race relationships.
What she described was personal, frustrating, and far from over.
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Walter Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Pamela Chandler
Walter Chandler
Walter and I met seven years ago on Twitter,” Pamela told reporters. “He retweeted something I wrote, we started talking, and we never stopped.”
About a year after they began chatting online, Walter moved from New York to Ohio to marry Pamela. What brought them close were their similarities in sense of humor and fundamental values in life, faith, love, and family.
Walter Chandler
Pamela received such a positive reaction to this post that she even started a family blog, The Chandler Crew. Through it, she aims to connect like-minded people all over the world.
Pamela is glad that she has encouraged people to talk about this issue, but what bothers her is the fact that her post went viral because it was created by a white woman, while “plenty of people of color have spoken to these issues many times” and gone unnoticed.
Walter Chandler
I’ve always known that we [as a society] needed to work towards greater racial unity, but I gained a unique perspective on what it’s like to live as a different race by being married to a Black man,” Pamela said.
She doesn’t believe, however, that our racial problems cannot be solved. “I see society improving. People are willing to talk about it, engage, learn, and try to be better humans. I think we are all trending upwards as a society, and I think that’s great.”
And how did people react to her post?
For more family conflict, read why she left her in-laws out of a gathering despite her spouse.
