"What is it like", says Francois, "Having a coloured child, you yourself being white?" And here at this table, no one but Francois, Rwandan Tutsi Canadian, would get away with asking that kind of question. "I'm sorry, I hope that wasn't indelicate of me."
"Coming from you, Francois, not indelicate in the least", she says. "While I think I've always been pretty aware, and also indifferent about race, I wish I could say the same about others. But first of all, John is not black, as if that should matter, but bi racial. But when someone is biracial, none of the white supremacists pay any attention at all to the Caucasian half of the genome, only the skin colour. And the worst offenders were my own Greek family.
"The first red flag was when I introducing Elias as my fiancee one Sunday afternoon when my stepfamily was hosting a garden party. No one knew at the time that he was African. I went in ahead of him while he delayed in the car searching for his camera. After a few minutes I noticed he still hadn't arrived. Also, Ari, my stepfather wasn't around. On a hunch I went out the front door, and there was Ari, staging some kind of verbal confrontation with my fiancé. I walked over and said, how's everything. Ari looked at me and said this man claimed to be my fiancé. And I said, because he is my fiancé. Ari, please meet my fiancé, Elias. But by this time, Elias was not about to shake his hand, and I didn't blame him one bit. My stepfather babbled something about a misunderstanding, and I replied that there was no misunderstanding, that clearly my stepfather was a racist, so I walked past him, and Elias and I went for lunch in a restaurant on West Broadway where we could debrief. It was so humiliating....
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