Letter to the Editor: Interracial Dating

Your Oct. 30 article in Fifteen Minutes about interracial dating on Harvard's campus, "With or Without Discrimination, Subverting Stereotypes Through Dating," presents the opinions of our experiences as a black-white couple as a series of critiques solely coming from the Harvard black community; in fact, our experiences with black students are only a part of our experiences here at Harvard and this article has falsely presented the black community as a monolithic entity with one negative voice regarding interracial relationships.

The way that this article is formatted presents our negative experiences as the main topic of the article. This is not what we agreed to do. We were approached by The Crimson, and after consideration, agreed to be featured, due to the fact that we love this campus, and genuinely believe that it can do better, and wanted to productively and positively contribute to the conversation. We were under the impression that we would be one of many couples of many racial combinations interviewed, and would have never agreed to do an expose on our qualms with Harvard black students alone, although this is what the article presents to readers.

Dami was emailed by Fifteen Minutes asking if we would be interested in being interviewed for an article about interracial relationships at Harvard. We agreed, and asked how many other couples would be featured, and were told the goal was three or four. Granted, three couples were featured, but there is a huge difference between dedicating a third of an article to each couple, and dedicating over half of a piece to one couple in particular, especially when the two couples barely written about are Asian and white, and the couple that is mainly highlighted is black and white, due to the strained history of race in the United States. When we sat down for the interview, we asked what the story was going to be and were told that although there wasn’t a story yet, it would arise from the comments of couples in the interviews. We are appalled that more sensitivity was not applied in portraying our comments with the nuances that we provided.

We do not regret doing this interview, nor are we apologizing for our experiences or pretending that they did not happen, but we do regret how our interview was represented. We talked about so much more than experiences with black students; we spoke about comments and experiences from the white side, in addition to telling a story about how Julie lost a close white friend during her time at Harvard due to her interracial relationship. These stories and experiences with students who are not black are either skimmed over or not mentioned at all, leading to a skewed and inaccurate portrayal of what we opened up about regarding our experiences on campus.

We believe that there is not enough nuance in portraying our story; if we had been interviewed by the The Crimson regarding our experiences as an interracial couple in general, our answers to questions would have been extremely different. We would have talked about instances that have occurred back home, with people who are much, much older than us. But that is not what our interview focused on: we were asked to talk about our experiences at Harvard, and we tried to open up best we could, and feel as if only bits and pieces of our responses were highlighted with no context provided.

Due to our experiences with loved ones back home, we recognize that racism is a multifaceted, complex thing and that many times, well-intentioned, good people of all races can still say problematic or hurtful things. We care about many of the people that we spoke about in this article, and that is why we were ambiguous with refusing to provide identities when telling these stories. We did not want any individuals to be publicly implicated, especially since many of them are friends. But by trying to avoid specifics, we feel as if the unintended consequence has been for the The Crimson to lump black students at Harvard into one angry, unsupportive group. Considering the heated and sensitive nature of race-related topics, and the courage and vulnerability that it took for us to come forward and interview about our experiences in the first place, we are disappointed in the coverage of our story.

We regret that the The Crimson has fumbled an opportunity to address an important topic, considering that according to 2010 Census data, 18 percent of heterosexual unmarried couples in the United States are of different races, and 21 percent of same-sex couples are mixed.  We feel that due to our sentiments being misrepresented, an opportunity for healthy dialogue concerning anxieties surrounding black-white relationships within the context of Harvard's campus has been lost in translation, resulting in understandable hurt and anger from many people that we care about on campus. Rather than becoming an article highlighting different couples at Harvard and their experiences, this article unfairly stereotypes an entire community as resentful towards us, which is the last thing we wanted to do, especially concerning the stereotypes that we have encountered as a black man and white woman who are romantically involved with one another.

As students, we fear that this misrepresentation will silence our peers in speaking out about their experiences, due to fear of being portrayed in an unfair manner. As a university committed to diversity and inclusion, we should be running more articles like this, facilitating discussion about what many students do not publicly talk about. But in order to do this, we must provide the whole story, not just isolated bits and pieces, especially considering the centuries of pain associated with race relations in this country.

Julie L. Coates ’15 is a government concentrator in Quincy House. Dami A. Aladesanmi ’15 is a history and science concentrator in Quincy House.