It's a Process

Sonya and Paul Kix have been married since 2007. She's a Black woman from Texas and he's a white guy from Iowa. There were zero black people in his graduating class. Living as an interracial couple, Paul living as the only white person in his household that now includes three children, that forces their entire family to have difficult conversations about race on a regular basis. It has been more than 50 years since Loving versus Virginia struck down laws banning interracial marriage. And some may take it for granted that that means life is much less complicated for interracial couples. It is in a lot of ways, but in the face of today's national reckoning on race and systemic racism couples like Paul and Sonya also have to figure out how to best navigate race in their relationship. How can Paul be empathetic to how Sonya feels watching a police shooting of a black man, how can he raise black boys in a world that already sees them as black men, how can he understand what it feels like to be pulled over by the police as a black person? Navigating all of this can be exhausting for everyone, but also completely necessary.