Decolonizing Marriage

Source: IG @babyyhairz

I always thought of marriage as a White thing. The older I got, the more I learned how people of color in the West were made to jump through hoops to have a bona fide marriage. Interracial marriage was illegal until 1967. Jumping the broom was the symbolic form of marriage during slavery when Black couples weren’t allowed to wed. Historically, marriage was just harder for minorities to obtain, attain, or sustain.

Because of colonization, it was also this oddly desirable thing of envy by many minority groups. It held white status, even if you weren’t married to a white person. It got people closer to the proximity of whiteness. Made people appear more stable. Made men more hire able. Made men more like able. (Neither can be said for minority women, and in fact, our income earning potential somewhat plummets when we start families and shit; ah, to have it all). Made women more feminine and both women and men more trustworthy.

But it still shut out mixed couples for too long. And LGBTQIA for way the hell too long. And trans people are still fighting for equity in partnership and marriage recognition in the West.

So I have always held my own on and off again relationship with my views on the Institution of marriage. I’m not a total bitter bish. I just think it’s definitely another form of power and control…