Published June 12, 2022, Loving Day

It was one of those gloriously bright, extremely windy and slightly brisk days that feels like Fall up north, and feels rare and magical in Southwest Florida. As we hustled to the boardwalk leading to the beach, long strands of my curly hair got stuck in my lip gloss, which felt simultaneously annoying and glamorous. I’d had my hair cropped short since 2001, and only grew it out due to COVID; at first, because I wasn’t comfortable going into a salon, and then, to see how far I could go with it. I now have a love-hate relationship with it — lightweight but curly and apt to tangle, a product of the Italian roots I only recently learned existed, and possibly the 3% Afro-Caribbean ancestry, according to one DNA test. I was wearing sunblock on my face, because my fair skin is apt to burn when it’s been shielded from sun exposure chronically, as it has these last two years. My husband never wears sunblock, relying on his ample supply of natural melanin to protect him, passed down from his Nigerian, Cameroonian and Kenyan ancestors. We both wore jackets; it was a chilly 52 degrees in January. This was why we’d come to the beach on this day; the cold, which we’d expected and hoped would drive away other people.

It was our first wedding anniversary. Both being nature-lovers and especially enamored with the ocean, it felt right to go there to celebrate our first year together as husband and wife. The cold weather was the perfect opportunity to do that in peace, without the inevitable hardened stares of small-town white people — Florida natives and transplants from the Midwest and North. Homogenous in style, generally over age 50, and dripping with the markers of their politics and ideology — Trump 2020 bumper stickers, “assault life” decals on their cars, fishing shirts and weathered faces, perpetually sour and angry. The cold weather would drive away those people, who invariably come with the hostile body language, the disapproval and visceral disgust showing through their tightly pressed mouths when they see us. They wouldn’t be there. That was our expectation.

Laws banning interracial marriage, specifically between Black and white people, date back to the 1600s. It wasn’t until the 1967 case of Loving vs. Virginia that the US Supreme Court deemed “anti-miscegenation” laws unconstitutional. Mr. Loving was a white man who married a Black woman from their small, unusually heterogeneous community. If you watched the documentary The Loving Story, you know that they didn’t get together in order to make a statement on social justice, they weren’t activists, they didn’t seek each other out in order to rebel against societal expectations. They were two people who shared a community, connected, and fell in love. I don’t know anything about whether the Lovings ventured out into natural environments for recreation, what steps they may have taken to protect themselves when doing so, or what they may have been met with.

What I do know is that outdoor spaces — especially in natural wilderness areas — have largely been reserved for white people. This isn’t news, and efforts to diversify and encourage Black and brown use of outdoor spaces have been ongoing and more and more prevalent. As a woman, I’ve always been careful going to isolated wilderness spaces, because a woman alone is never totally safe from the potential predatory behavior of men; the ubiquitous vigilance we feel around that is generally in response to the risk of being raped and/or killed by some loner, misogynist attacker. The stuff of Law & Order SVU, and while my whiteness doesn’t protect me from this risk, it doesn’t increase it either. Although I’m often mistaken for Latina and people tend to tell me I appear ethnically ambiguous, my white skin is generally a sort of “passport.” Alone, my presence in outdoor spaces in Southwest Florida is probably unremarkable to the majority of people I might encounter, even if I am the only woman without straightened, bleached hair in a 5-mile radius.

Selfie taken upon arrival to the beach on our first wedding anniversary.

But together, with my husband, it’s a different story. I watch them, behind my shades, as they size us up, invariably. Sometimes openly hostile, other times determined to behave as if we are invisible, and rarely, over-eager to be friendly, as if to let us know that our relationship is acceptable. This last one, I feel ashamed to appreciate. Disgusted with the need for the safety of their acceptance, at the same time that I’m grateful for a human’s inclination to send a message — albeit one we shouldn’t need to receive — that we belong. What rarely happens is that they treat us like “everyone else.”

On this day, our first anniversary, we expected that we wouldn’t have to deal with any of that. It was so windy, in fact, that we assumed the sand might produce an assault on the skin, which would surely drive away beach-goers. We were to be safe. There was no one at the entrance, and only a few cars in the parking lot. No people on the boardwalk leading out to the beach. The sea air was wet and pungent, blowing ahead of the storm set to come over the next few days. It felt blissful.

Our feet met the cold, damp sand and we looked around; we were almost right. Except for two people far down the beach walking, the coastline was empty. My spirits lifted further, knowing we were in a human-free, judgment-free zone. Just us, the Gulf, the sand and the sky. We trekked over to a spot slightly to the south of the entrance. We planted our feet in the sand wide, stood relaxed, hands held, and let the wind and sun wash over us. I rolled up my pants and ran into the chilly shallows, giggling. We watched the surface of the water for wildlife, pointing at wave caps and hoping they were dolphins. We basked.

All the while, the two people who had been far down the beach were making their way toward us. As they got closer, they began to take shape. A white man, resembling a large egg, wearing a veteran’s hat. Red flag. Note: I appreciate veterans deeply, and their sacrifices and service. I recently learned that my biological father and grandfather were both veterans, the latter having fought against the Nazis in World War II for five years in Europe, which made me incredibly proud. Notwithstanding that fact, I have observed a close association between those who wear their veteran status on their bodies and cars, and virulent, unmasked racism. This has been my experience, and I learn from my experience. The egg-shaped man had a metal detector, and was sweeping the sand in front of him while he glared at us. He was accompanied by a younger white man wearing an oversized, worn and dirty hoodie and a slack jaw. Both hands were hidden in the front pocket of the hoodie. His eyes were aimed in our direction as well.

We stood about halfway up the beach between the lapping waves and the exit. The men had been swiping the sand close to the water during their entire slow progress toward us. We were roughly 30 feet away from their path, had they continued the same trajectory. But they didn’t.

The egg-shaped man made a sharp left and began ambling toward us, his face alternately tipped down to his feet to see where he was going, and up to look at us. I noticed his coat was oversized, bulky. It was Florida. It was not unlikely that he had a firearm on him. I noticed his legs protruding out of the bottom of his long shorts. Like sausage, yellowed, swollen. Diabetes, maybe. As he got closer, I could see the redness of his nose. Alcoholic, possibly. My husband and I stood more erect, inched closer to each other. I glanced at my husband, the man I love, my best friend, who was giggling with me just minutes ago, out of the corner of my eye. His face was fixed on the ocean, tense. The younger man had followed the egg-shaped man to a point, then stood in place, staring at us. Watching as his father-uncle-boss-whoever continued walking closer, and closer, and closer to us.

The whole beach. There was a whole beach around us, and here this man was, in the age of COVID, approaching the only other people on the beach, for no apparent reason. He was now maybe 10 feet away, within the distance that IF, by chance, he had been approaching us for a legitimate reason — perhaps to ask the time or a question about the surrounding area — he would have said something by now. So it wasn’t that. My head began to draw back on my neck, my head tilting to the side, my brow furrowed as he came within 8 feet. What the hell was he doing? 6 feet. 4 feet. I looked at the other man, who was watching the scene unfold intently, with that mouth still hanging open. His hands were still inside the front pocket of his hoodie. Two firearms, possibly. Or a hunting knife. Those were big here too.

The egg-shaped man came close enough that I could see the mercury of his back teeth fillings in his open mouth. I glared at him and the only words I could get out, as I shifted my body to turn slightly toward my husband and looked over my shoulder, were “there’s a whole beach out here, you know.” By now, even with the raging wind, and even though I didn’t shout, he could hear me. Because he was close enough to grab me. Close enough to grab past me to my husband, had he tried. At that, a rough bark erupted from his mouth — “Heh,” and he walked past me, stopping directly behind us, swiping the metal detector across the sand inches from our feet. We did not budge. I knew my husband’s hand was most likely on his taser. I knew that my husband, based on sheer physical fitness alone, could take this man down in a heartbeat. I suspected that as a team, we might be able to whip them both, quite frankly, barring weapons on their part. I also knew that God forbid, this escalated into a physical altercation, with no witnesses around, no matter how things unfolded, we would be the ones deemed in the wrong. I lamented the fact that I’d worn pants with no pockets and my husband had my phone, so I couldn’t take it out to record. We held our breath. After what felt like minutes but was probably fifteen seconds or so, on some signal or prompt we couldn’t see, the younger man began to continue south down the beach, crossing between us and the ocean. The egg-shaped man shuffled away, heading back down toward his companion (accomplice) near the water. He had found nothing of interest in the sand behind our feet, of course.

My husband and I stood in silence for at least a minute. I commented on how the reflection of the sun off the unusually large waves almost looked like a solid sheet of ice. Pointed up at a particularly interesting cloud. We couldn’t speak of it directly yet. We couldn’t acknowledge the way they had intruded on our moment. It didn’t need to be said. Maybe if we didn’t say anything, the hurt, the adrenaline, the disappointment, the anger, the shame, would get picked up by the wind and flung into microscopic particles we would never see again. It didn’t.

“Well, that happened,” I said, looking at his profile.

“Yep,” he sighed. “Never fails.”

“Nope, never does.”

He moved me to stand in front of him and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, clasping his hands over my chest. I leaned my head back into the crook of his neck. We breathed. I silently thanked Spirit for protecting us, for whatever made them choose to keep going. For my husband’s silence, for him keeping his head and not endangering us with his ego. For the avoidance of a confrontation that under no circumstances, ever, would end up working in our favor. Not here. Not with them being white. Not with him being Black. Never.

I insisted we take a picture, and a video, to commemorate our anniversary, though the heaviness still hung on us. In defiance, in a way. We would love each other. We would celebrate us. We would mark our place in the world. We would capture the beauty of our love. And so we did.

Our defiant joy.

And then they started to come back. After maybe ten minutes, if that, the two had turned around and were walking back in our direction. This time, they weren’t 30 feet west, walking along the wave line. They were walking directly toward us, side by side. They didn’t amble this time. They didn’t look at the beach, but forward. They moved with intention.

We both knew we had to move or risk confrontation. We both knew we were not going to flee the beach. We both knew we had too much pride for that.

“Let’s walk south. I don’t want to walk with them following behind us,” I said to him. “Pass me my phone?”

My husband reached in his pocket and withdrew my cell, which I then held in my right hand, looping my left arm in his. Putting myself between them and him. We began walking in the direction of the men, positioning ourselves far east, creating a wide berth between them and us, walking fast in order to pass them quickly and get to the other side. I mentally noted that I was glad the egg-shaped one could never catch up with us if we didn’t want him to. I wasn’t sure about the other one, though. And firearms. I found myself wondering if the wind was strong enough to derail the path of a bullet. I found myself saying a silent prayer for protection to Oya.

As we approached the point where we would pass the two men, arms linked and locked together, pacing quickly, the egg-shaped man shouted across the 20 feet of beach separating us.

“There’s a whole beach out here,” he shouted, mockingly. They snickered, and the wind carried the sound to me.

“F*ing assholes!” I said, too loud.

My husband was silent. We continued. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder for a few seconds, and then couldn’t. They’d continued walking, they didn’t double back. My shoulders dropped slightly, exhausted but relieved. When we’d gotten to what felt like a safe distance away, we stopped. The moment was gone, though. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I knew in that moment, that I could never forget this experience. That the memory of our first anniversary would be forever marked by this. And I took it as yet another sign, in a slew of signs, that the US is not our home.

You would think that was the end of the story, right? Nope.

“The wind is starting to get cold,” I observed. “Do you want to try to find someplace on the bay side, go have a glass of wine and sit?”

“YES. Let’s do that,” he agreed.

We stopped at a convenience store and my husband ran in to get two individual-sized bottles of cabernet and snacks, and we set out to find a spot by the bay. On this particular barrier island, public roads with private houses ended at the bay, and often times there were benches situated at the dead ends, for people to sit on and enjoy the view of the bay and its wildlife. Street parking is available. There aren’t gated communities. Access to the bay is ostensibly public.

After weaving around a few side streets, a glimpse of the bay was lit up by the sun at the end of a short street and my husband pulled in to it. Beautiful, large homes, some on stilts, lined either side of the street. Summer homes for the uber-rich, most likely, and investment properties for the working rich. Palms waved in the wind, reflecting bright sunlight, reminding me why we lived in Southwest Florida. We rolled slowly down the street, scanning the sides for a spot to park. Just as we approached the last quarter of the road, a large luxury SUV pulled out from the last house on the block, the one nearest the water. My husband slowed further to facilitate the car’s passage on the narrow road. The driver of the SUV, a white-middle aged man with the hairstyle one might associate with Florida politicians, began to pass us but braked dramatically as his eyes registered the inside of our car. His mouth gaped open, his features hardened. He was clearly troubled, his hackles up. We rolled forward, and I turned around to look behind us. His SUV had come to a complete stop on the side of the street.

“Babe, I’m pretty sure that dude is watching us,” I warned.

My husband stopped the car and looked in the rearview mirror. “Wow, he’s really stopped,” my husband observed with a bitter laugh.

“Yep, he was really on his way out and now he’s stopped to observe us. What do you want to do?”

“Y’all don’t belong around these here parts,” he mimicked.

“He’s calling Karen right now,” I snickered. It’s easier to joke, sometimes. “Babe, let’s go home. Honestly, I don’t want to deal with this. I’m 90 percent sure if we park and get out, he’s going to call the cops,” I pleaded.

“Yup,” he agreed. I could feel his frustration in the way he jerked the steering wheel to execute a broken U-turn. I could sense his disgust in the way he shifted the gears. I suspected all of it was tied up in a package of shame, of masculinity impeded, of freedom thwarted, of oppression unleashed, yet again.

When he’d turned around the car to go back out to the main road — only then — did the SUV’s brake lights go off and the vehicle start to slowly roll forward to exit the narrow street. Crisis averted. The outsiders were leaving. “Damn right,” he probably congratulated himself. The sun glinted off the water behind us, abandoned.

We grew tired on the ride home. I felt deflated. All we’d wanted to do was enjoy nature. Unlike the fishermen who frequently took over the piers at the beach to the exclusion of everyone else, we didn’t come to take or kill anything. Unlike the obnoxious teens and tourists who took over swaths of the beach and left behind piles of trash, we didn’t come to make a mess. Unlike the developers who had built the homes like the one that housed Mr. SUV, we didn’t come to destroy anything. All we had intended was to exist and enjoy being in nature. To celebrate our union.

White people weren’t having it.

This was just one day, and it was a day in which we were fortunate. No guns were pulled. No cops arrived. We lost nothing tangible. We didn’t escalate anything, and we were smart and careful; we didn’t tempt fate or provoke.

When I tell stories like this to well-meaning, liberal white people, they often insist that we should resist, we should have stayed put on that beach and told them to back off, we should have gone ahead and sat on that public street by the bay. They say things, indignantly, like “You have every right to be there. I would have stayed.”

They don’t get it. They don’t understand that having the “right” to something on paper is meaningless when you’re Black. They don’t understand that my whiteness, when with my husband, may or may not actually exacerbate the disgust and rage of people perpetuating racism. They don’t understand that the limits of my white privilege are completely unknowable in these circumstances; that I may come across a cop who defers to me because of it, or who wants to punish us both for crossing the race line. They don’t understand that men in veteran’s hats with Trump bumper stickers and “assault life” decals don’t acknowledge the validity of our “rights,” and that my entitlement to exist in their spaces only lasts as long as my compliance with their rules — the chief one being that separation is maintained between “us” and “them.”

We’d like to believe that attacks on interracial couples — especially those consisting of Black men and white women — are of the Jim Crow era and we are beyond that. We’re not. In 2019, a 37-year old Neo-Nazi was finally convicted of racially motivated murder for shooting and killing a white woman, while aiming at her Black boyfriend in Arizona in 2009. Also in 2019, a white Louisiana man went out of his way to swerve and hit an interracial couple with his car while yelling racial slurs. In 2017, a 30-year old Baltimore man stabbed and killed a Black senior citizen as “practice” for killing Black men who date white women. In 2017, a pair of white men in their 20’s brutally beat a Black man and his white girlfriend in Brooklyn, NY while yelling racial slurs. In 2016, a 32-year old white supremacist stabbed a Black man and his white girlfriend after seeing them kissing in Washington State. After recent commentary by an Indiana Senator concerning states’ rights and the Loving vs. Virginia case, some are speculating that the legal right to marry outside of one’s race, itself, may be under attack.

(Author’s note: I wrote this in April 2022, months after processing the day. I didn’t publish it, partially because I didn’t want to deal with the inevitable accusations of hyperbole and paranoia — the same dismissals I faced when warning political “experts” that Trump would be elected, that white supremacist terrorism was spreading, that it is unsafe in the US. Since that time, a white supremacist terrorist targeted Black people in a grocery store in upstate New York, murdering ten people and wounding three, and Roe v. Wade is likely to be overturned, calling into question the strength of the Loving case further. Maybe this time, the “experts” will shut their mouths, stop rolling their eyes, and listen.)

So when well-meaning but oblivious people urge that we don’t change our behavior to avoid encountering these situations, I know they don’t understand they are giving us dangerous advice, which we are thankfully wise enough to ignore.

When people demand from the comfort of their racially homogenous families that I use my white privilege to combat racism in every single circumstance, they don’t understand that when you’re deemed a “race traitor,” you have to constantly assess whether that privilege is “active,” in the moment, or whether your crossing of the color line has actually made you both even more of a target in that moment. This is particularly true in the sparsely populated, white-dominated, often isolated context of natural outdoor spaces.

When people outside of Black-white interracial relationships pontificate and advise and opine and judge the way we choose to move in the world, they don’t realize they have no idea what they’re talking about, and they’re applying rules that are often de-activated by the very particular dynamics of our situation. Even relationships between a white man and a Black woman are likely to be received much differently, as they have been historically; there have never been circumstances under which a Black man has been given societal “permission” to be romantically involved with a white woman.

We chose each other, it’s true. We didn’t have to. We both have been in interracial relationships before, and we knew what that entailed. I do think that in the last few years, overt racism in the US has gotten more prevalent, and the proliferation of white supremist terrorist groups since the Trump election is an undeniable fact. Interracial marriage is deemed a direct threat to the white supremacist agenda. In fact, white supremacists feel a particular “claim” and ownership over white women and our potential to breed more white people, so interracial relationships between white women and Black men, specifically, are a target of their ire. For the noncommittal racists, I suppose we are simply an aesthetic scourge, which they let us know with their stares, glares and microaggressions.

The problem is, you just never know which days will “only” present a threat, and which days will turn into a tragedy. We bring that awareness into our outdoor adventures, and some days, it’s too much. Some days, instead, we just stay inside.