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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is Family Secrets, the secrets

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Speaker 2: that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

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Speaker 2: and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest today

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Speaker 2: is Dorothy Roberts, professor, legal scholar, activist, recipient of a

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty four MacArthur Genius Grant, and author of the

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Speaker 2: upcoming book The Mixed Marriage Project, a memoir of love, Race,

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Speaker 2: and Family. Dorothy's is a story, in a way, about

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Speaker 2: the stories we tell ourselves, about that most foundational element

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Speaker 2: of our lives, our own family, and the ways those

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Speaker 2: stories can radically change over time. It's also the story

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Speaker 2: of a remarkable daughter who is able to illuminate and

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Speaker 2: finish what her father never could, and in so doing,

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Speaker 2: learn more about herself as she deepens what is already

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Speaker 2: an extraordinary life's work.

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Speaker 3: I was born in Chicago, but when I was only

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Speaker 3: three months old, my parents moved to Liberia. My mother,

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Speaker 3: she was from Jamaica, but in her twenty she moved

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Speaker 3: to Liberia and then came to Chicago to attend Roosevelt University,

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Speaker 3: where my father was teaching. And that's where they met,

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Speaker 3: and my father was an anthropologist, so they decided to

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Speaker 3: spend a couple of years in Liberia where he would teach,

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Speaker 3: and that was a place she was familiar with, having

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Speaker 3: lived there before meeting him, and so at three months old,

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Speaker 3: my parents and I moved to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

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Speaker 3: This is in the nineteen fifties, and my two sisters,

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Speaker 3: twins were born a year later in Liberia, West Africa.

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Speaker 3: So our family itself is a very multi national, multi

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Speaker 3: racial white father, Black mother, Jamaican mother who was a

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Speaker 3: Liberian citizen. And then when I was two or three,

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Speaker 3: we moved back to Chicago, and that's where I grew up.

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Speaker 3: So I spent my entire childhood in Chicago in a

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Speaker 3: neighborhood called Kenwood, which is a very integrated, middle class

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Speaker 3: neighborhood next to Hyde Park where the University of Chicago is.

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Speaker 3: And I grew up in a big, giant Victorian house

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Speaker 3: on a beautiful block just a block away from my

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Speaker 3: elementary school and had a wonderful childhood in the sixties,

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Speaker 3: the era of the civil rights movement and anti Vietnam

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Speaker 3: War activism, and I lived there on that same block,

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Speaker 3: same house, from when I was three until we then

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Speaker 3: moved to Egypt when I was in eighth grade. At thirteen,

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Speaker 3: my first two years of high school, my father had

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Speaker 3: a Fulbright fellowship in Cairo, Egypt, and so my world

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Speaker 3: became very global once again.

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Speaker 2: You described that house on Kenwood Avenue in such beautiful,

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Speaker 2: magical terms, not just in terms of just the kind

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Speaker 2: of sprawling nature of it and the beautiful block, but

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Speaker 2: also you describe a very sort of magical time there

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Speaker 2: in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 4: Yes, that is exactly the word I used. Magical. It

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Speaker 4: was a house.

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Speaker 3: Built in the eighteen nineties, and it had turrets and

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Speaker 3: the cylindrical column going up and a big porch with columns,

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Speaker 3: and I looked like a castle. And inside it just

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Speaker 3: had so many fabulous features. So there was a grand

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Speaker 3: hall you walked into with a closet where my sisters

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Speaker 3: and I would pretend we were putting on plays. My

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Speaker 3: mother put up a velvet curtain in front of it,

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Speaker 3: and we could come out in front of this winding staircase,

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Speaker 3: and our audience of our parents and friends could sit

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Speaker 3: on the steps and watch us perform.

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Speaker 4: And then there was the beautiful living room and dining room,

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Speaker 4: a big kitchen.

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Speaker 3: And one of the most interesting things about the house

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Speaker 3: was that my parents bought it from a couple who

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Speaker 3: were African safari enthusiasts, and the wife was an artist,

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Speaker 3: and she painted several of the walls in our house

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Speaker 3: with scenes from their African safaris. So my sister's bedroom

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Speaker 3: had giraffes and elephants.

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Speaker 4: Roaming across the wall.

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Speaker 3: And they had a big bedroom, so we're talking about

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Speaker 3: a very large wall. My parents had a dressing room

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Speaker 3: off of their bedroom that had floor to ceiling mirrors

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Speaker 3: on the closets and you could open the door. If

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Speaker 3: you stood in the middle and opened the doors on

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Speaker 3: either side, you saw your reflection going on endlessly. And

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Speaker 3: one of those closets had a secret passageway into the hall,

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Speaker 3: and so you could just imagine the three of us

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Speaker 3: playing hide and seek. And then on the third floor,

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Speaker 3: homes had ballrooms on the third floor, and my parents

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Speaker 3: are probably the prior owners that converted the ballroom into

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Speaker 3: a big playroom for us. And but there was my

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Speaker 3: father's study also on the third floor, which he kept

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Speaker 3: locked up with an old fashioned key, and I would

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Speaker 3: when he wasn't around, pull a chair and stand on

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Speaker 3: my tippy toes and reach the key and go inside.

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Speaker 3: And he had a magnificent library of books, mostly about Africa.

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Speaker 4: And India, lining a wall.

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Speaker 3: And those are my earliest memories of reading to myself,

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Speaker 3: sitting on the floor and just pulling down books about

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Speaker 3: foreign lands that I would read and be mesmerized by.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think your father kept the door locked?

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Speaker 3: So my father was completely obsessed with writing a book

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Speaker 3: about interracial marriage, and the book really dominated our lives,

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Speaker 3: my mother's and my sisters and mine growing up.

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Speaker 4: He was.

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Speaker 3: Always up in his office if he wasn't having dinner

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Speaker 3: with us or going on outings. I have to say

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Speaker 3: my father spent a lot of time with us. My

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Speaker 3: mother cooked every single night, and so he had dinner

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Speaker 3: with us every night. And I also had lots of

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Speaker 3: discussions with my father, so I was very close to him.

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Speaker 4: It was important to him to spend time with us.

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Speaker 3: But he also spent a lot of time up in

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Speaker 3: his study working on this book, and I think he

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Speaker 3: locked it because he didn't want little kids messing with her.

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Speaker 3: First of all, it was right across from this playroom.

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Speaker 3: We would be playing over there, and maybe he didn't

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Speaker 3: want us to spill over into a study. And maybe

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Speaker 3: it was also just to have a sense of privacy.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, Danny, I have a similar habit.

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Speaker 3: I haven't thought about this before, but I keep the

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Speaker 3: door to my home study closed. And my husband thinks

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Speaker 3: it's very strange because his door is always open and

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Speaker 3: doesn't understand why would need to close it. But I

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Speaker 3: have this sense that while I'm writing, I want to

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Speaker 3: feel secluded, and I surround myself with books like my

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Speaker 3: father did, and piles of papers. And it might look

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Speaker 3: a little bit messy to some people who are too neat,

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Speaker 3: but it's just a correct to me now that I

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Speaker 3: probably got that habit, that sense from my father.

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Speaker 2: Your father's book very much was like almost its own

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Speaker 2: member of your family. Yes, and so there was you,

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Speaker 2: there were your two sisters, there was your mom, and

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Speaker 2: and there was this book and his relationship with this

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Speaker 2: book and his struggles, yes, growing up during those years

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Speaker 2: in that house. What did you think about that book?

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Speaker 2: And how would you describe each of your parents from

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Speaker 2: your childhood self.

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Speaker 3: So I knew that Daddy had to work on his book,

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Speaker 3: that it was very important to give him time to

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Speaker 3: work to not bother him. It was a very important

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Speaker 3: part of his life, his persona, and our family.

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Speaker 4: I could just hear my mother say, you know, be

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Speaker 4: more quiet.

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Speaker 3: Your father's working out the book. When we called it

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Speaker 3: the book, and it just came up. It came up

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Speaker 3: in dinner conversations. I knew he was interviewing couples for

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Speaker 3: the book. Many of the couples he interviewed became part

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Speaker 3: of our family life. So my piano teacher was the

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Speaker 3: husband of one of the couples, our plumber was his

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Speaker 3: closest friends were an intervi racial relationships. We would go

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Speaker 3: over to the homes to visit of interracial couples and

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Speaker 3: their children.

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Speaker 4: And so it.

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Speaker 3: Wasn't just the writing of the book up in his study,

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Speaker 3: it was also the people he interviewed became integral parts

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Speaker 3: of our lives. To me, my mother was she was

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Speaker 3: her own person. My mother had a very strong personality.

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Speaker 3: She was very elegant, very smart. My sisters and I

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Speaker 3: thought she could answer any question. Growing up, I knew

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Speaker 3: that any question I had about homework or anything about life,

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Speaker 3: I could go to my mother and she would have

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Speaker 3: an answer.

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Speaker 4: She went to a very selective British school in.

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Speaker 3: Jamaica that was free of charge, but you had to

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Speaker 3: qualify to be in this Wolmer's School for girls. Whenever

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Speaker 3: we came to her with questions or tell her what

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Speaker 3: we were studying, she'd always say, oh, I learned that

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Speaker 3: far earlier in my life at Woolmers. She had a

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Speaker 3: British accent combined with a Jamaican, you know, West Indian

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Speaker 3: lilt to it, but it was quite British and she

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Speaker 3: was very proper. So what I remember most about my mother,

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Speaker 3: other than her helping me with homework, is our shopping sprees.

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Speaker 3: My mother loved to go into downtown Chicago, into the Loop.

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Speaker 4: And go shopping.

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Speaker 3: And my mother was very glamorous and she would buy

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Speaker 3: designer clothes. You know, I feel like I'm giving this

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Speaker 3: impression that I came from a wealthy fathily, which isn't true.

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Speaker 3: My father was a professor at Roosevelt University, which is

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Speaker 3: not a very prestigious university, but one perfect for him

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Speaker 3: because it was very progressive at the time and very diverse,

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Speaker 3: and it really fit his interests in what he called

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Speaker 3: the racial cast system in America, our interracial relationship and

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Speaker 3: ships and my mother eventually worked. She was a homemaker

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Speaker 3: in my very young childhood, but she eventually worked for

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Speaker 3: the Chicago Department of Public Health and then became a

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Speaker 3: Chicago public school teacher. I'm not sure how she became

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Speaker 3: so glamorous, but she was, and she could entertain. She

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Speaker 3: put on fantastic dinner parties for my father's colleagues and

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Speaker 3: friends and her friends, and she was just a magnificent person.

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Speaker 4: So they were both quite a couple.

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Speaker 3: They were really the life of the party because my

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Speaker 3: father loved to talk. He's very friendly, gregarious person, very

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Speaker 3: put people at ease, and my mother just had this

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Speaker 3: sparkle about her.

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Speaker 2: Beneath Dorothy's family life, there is a low, constant thrumming

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Speaker 2: when is Bob going to finish his book? When is

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Speaker 2: Bob going to finish his book? It's a question that

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Speaker 2: never quite goes away. When Dorothy is in eighth grade,

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Speaker 2: Bob gets a full bright grant and the family moves

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Speaker 2: to Cairo. They are in the throes of some financial

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Speaker 2: strain and they need to sell their house before leaving

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Speaker 2: the country.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I definitely had

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Speaker 3: this sense when I was in eighth grade and my

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Speaker 3: father got this full bright fellowship that they were in

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Speaker 3: financial trouble, and the fellowship was it was almost as

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Speaker 3: if we were escaping to another country where we wouldn't

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Speaker 3: have those financial pressures, and my parents decided to sell

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Speaker 3: the house, I think because of the financial trouble they

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Speaker 3: were in. The one thing I remember is that my

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Speaker 3: father had invested have in Occidental Petroleum Corporation. I never

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Speaker 3: really learned the details of it, but my father would

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Speaker 3: talk about it. Here I'm talking about Accidental Petroleum and

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Speaker 3: as if he was going to make a lot of

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Speaker 3: money in this investment he made, and I know that

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Speaker 3: something terrible happened and he lost the money.

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Speaker 4: And then there was the book.

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Speaker 3: He got a contract from Simon and Schuster in nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty eight nineteen sixty nine, just before we were moving

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Speaker 3: to Cairo, and it was for two thousand dollars, which

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Speaker 3: was a fair amount of money.

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Speaker 4: Back then in the nineteen sixties.

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Speaker 3: And we were so excited about this that this book

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Speaker 3: my father had been working on my entire childhood was

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Speaker 3: finally going to come to fruition and be published by

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Speaker 3: a major publisher. And I found out later that he

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Speaker 3: had these aspirations so that it was going to be

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Speaker 3: made into a motion picture because another answer pologist whose

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Speaker 3: book had turned into a motion picture, and he'd written

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Speaker 3: to the to his editor to make sure there was

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Speaker 3: a clause in the contract about motion picture rights.

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Speaker 2: So he was dreaming big. There was dreaming big.

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Speaker 3: This was going to be the first major book about

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Speaker 3: interracial marriage, and at one point he was going to

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Speaker 3: call it something like Sex and Marriage in America. On

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Speaker 3: the one head, he had this idea of making it

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Speaker 3: a trade press book that was going to be a

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Speaker 3: big bestseller.

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Speaker 4: But he also and this is what.

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Speaker 3: Really doomed him finishing the book, was that, well, there

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Speaker 3: were lots of things that doomed it, but one was

234
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Speaker 3: he wanted to write a book about the history of

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Speaker 3: interracial marriage, and he got bogged down in that history.

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Speaker 3: I think he also really liked interviewing people and interacting

237
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Speaker 3: with them, and you wanted to keep doing interviews, and

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Speaker 3: he just couldn't stop and write the book. And so

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Speaker 3: when he didn't fulfill the contract and had to return

240
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Speaker 3: the advance he'd gotten, that just added to the financial disaster.

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Speaker 3: And so my parents never bought a house again, and

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Speaker 3: we went from this magnificent house, which they I suppose

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Speaker 3: they probably couldn't have afforded in the first place to.

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Speaker 2: Renting a house was when your father had to return

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Speaker 2: the advance. Was that something that you knew back then

246
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Speaker 2: or was that part of the discovery that you later make.

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Speaker 4: So I knew, we all knew, The whole family knew

248
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Speaker 4: when he got.

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Speaker 3: The advance, right, you celebrated, celebrated, but it was not

250
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:57,880
Speaker 3: so much that he had gotten advanced. I don't even

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Speaker 3: think I knew what that was at the time, what

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00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 3: an advance was. We knew he had a contract to

253
00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:06,960
Speaker 3: publish the book with a major publisher, and we went

254
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,359
Speaker 3: out to dinner, one of our rare dinner outings, to

255
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Speaker 3: Kantiki Ports and the Sheridan Hotel in downtown Chicago.

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Speaker 4: I'll never forget that.

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Speaker 3: That was the most exciting thing that happened to our

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Speaker 3: family throughout my entire childhood. You know, I write it

259
00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:22,000
Speaker 3: was bigger than when my mother became a US citizen.

260
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Speaker 3: I don't remember going out to celebrate that, but we

261
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Speaker 3: definitely it was just major jubilation in the house. And

262
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Speaker 3: then I also remember when he didn't meet the deadline

263
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Speaker 3: for the book, now. I learned later how much he

264
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:42,399
Speaker 3: had gotten and then he had to return it. That

265
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Speaker 3: those details I didn't know, but I did know that

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Speaker 3: it was very disappointing and disastrous that he did not

267
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Speaker 3: finish the book.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family seeks.

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Speaker 2: By Dorothy's senior year of high school, there's a quiet

270
00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:15,520
Speaker 2: sense of deflation in the family, an accumulation of compromises

271
00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:20,879
Speaker 2: and disappointments that no one quite names, but academically Dorothy

272
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:24,600
Speaker 2: is thriving. The family is living in Evanston, now a

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Speaker 2: suburb of Chicago, in a rented house, a move her

274
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Speaker 2: mother insisted on so Dorothy could attend Evanston Township High School,

275
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Speaker 2: one of the best public schools in the area. Private

276
00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:38,679
Speaker 2: school was never an option, but this was her mother's

277
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Speaker 2: way of opening doors, of positioning her daughter for something bigger.

278
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:47,960
Speaker 2: When Dorothy is accepted to Yale, her first choice, she

279
00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:52,600
Speaker 2: is thrilled, but the acceptance exposes a rare and visible

280
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Speaker 2: conflict between her parents. Yale means distance and significant expense.

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Speaker 2: Northwestern just blocked away means living at home and avoiding

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00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:05,919
Speaker 2: the cost of room and board. Her father wants the

283
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:10,960
Speaker 2: practical choice her mother doesn't hesitate. This is Dorothy's dream,

284
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Speaker 2: and she wants her to take it.

285
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Speaker 4: And I overheard my parents arguing, which was very rare.

286
00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:22,120
Speaker 3: My mother would fuss at my father all the time,

287
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Speaker 3: principally about writing the book.

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Speaker 4: You know, I can hear her.

289
00:19:25,520 --> 00:19:32,040
Speaker 3: Boom boom, finish the book well, which he never did,

290
00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:34,239
Speaker 3: so she would fuss with him. I always thought she

291
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:38,520
Speaker 3: was kind of mean to him. But they didn't argue.

292
00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:42,240
Speaker 3: They certainly didn't yell at each other. I never heard

293
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 3: either of my parents.

294
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Speaker 4: Curse at all, let alone curse at each other. My

295
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 4: father was very mild mannered.

296
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:53,040
Speaker 3: And I heard them arguing, which was so unusual for

297
00:19:53,119 --> 00:19:55,919
Speaker 3: them to be arguing back and forth. And I stood

298
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:57,919
Speaker 3: at the top of the stairs. They were on the

299
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:00,119
Speaker 3: first floor, sto at the top of the stairs listening,

300
00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:04,840
Speaker 3: and I realized they were arguing about my father not

301
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,159
Speaker 3: wanting to pay room and board at Yale.

302
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:11,640
Speaker 4: And they went back and forth, and my mother was.

303
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:15,280
Speaker 3: Accusing him of being stingy, and he was trying to

304
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:18,280
Speaker 3: tell her that he just the family couldn't afford it.

305
00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:23,120
Speaker 3: And I just will never forget the end of the argument.

306
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:29,680
Speaker 3: My mother said, ooh, you're dashing Dorothy's dreamed that was it.

307
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:34,920
Speaker 3: And what happened was the Evanston Township High School had

308
00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:41,119
Speaker 3: an academic scholarship for a senior who excelled, you know,

309
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:43,800
Speaker 3: in courses in leadership and that kind of thing, and

310
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:46,920
Speaker 3: my counselor told me that I.

311
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Speaker 4: Had been elected to receive it.

312
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Speaker 3: I don't remember the exact amount of money, but it

313
00:20:50,920 --> 00:20:53,320
Speaker 3: was substantial enough to make a difference, and it was

314
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:57,119
Speaker 3: for each of the four years of college. And so

315
00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 3: at that point my father had to give in and

316
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 3: I ended up going to Yale.

317
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Speaker 2: During this time, when you get to Yale, how are

318
00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 2: you thinking of yourself as the daughter of a white

319
00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 2: father and a black mother at this point in your life?

320
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:18,720
Speaker 2: How are you identifying and how are you experiencing yourself?

321
00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:26,359
Speaker 3: Well, when I was very little, I really adopted my parents'

322
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 3: view that there was something special and important about interracial relationships,

323
00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:41,639
Speaker 3: and that the children of interracial relationships were special in

324
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:48,440
Speaker 3: the sense that we were able to navigate different cultures better.

325
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Speaker 3: He was trying to contest the dominant view that children

326
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Speaker 3: of interracial relationships would, you know, bi racial children would

327
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 3: have some kind of psychological problems or social problems, they

328
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 3: wouldn't fit in to either community, and you know, the

329
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 3: tragic mulatto idea that was still present in the nineteen sixties.

330
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Speaker 3: So my father was very determined to challenge that, and

331
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 3: my parents imbued us with this idea that our family

332
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 3: represented the potential for racial harmony in America. And so

333
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 3: at that point, and this would be before I would

334
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 3: say ten years old, you know, I might have answered

335
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 3: I'm human and somebody asked.

336
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:43,119
Speaker 4: Me to choose. But I always thought of myself as black.

337
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 3: But the idea that it was more important I was

338
00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 3: a human being than my racial classification was the lesson

339
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:52,480
Speaker 3: my parents were teaching me.

340
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Speaker 4: And as I grew old, especially when I read the book.

341
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 3: Black Power in seventh grade, I began to question that view,

342
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 3: especially the idea that interracial intimacy was the answer to

343
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 3: racism in America, and I began to identify more strongly as.

344
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 4: A black girl.

345
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 3: Then when we went to Egypt, that really intensified. I think,

346
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:28,120
Speaker 3: maybe because I wasn't around black Americans.

347
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,919
Speaker 4: So I went to an international school.

348
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 3: And I think the only black students there were the

349
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 3: children of the Liberian ambassador. I think I was probably

350
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 3: the only black American student there. So that and reading

351
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 3: the autobiography of.

352
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,640
Speaker 4: Malcolm X, and.

353
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 3: Just growing up, you know, I began to feel much

354
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 3: more strongly that I identified as black. When I went

355
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 3: to college, I met a group of black students there

356
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:11,120
Speaker 3: who were very very close. We bonded almost immediately. We

357
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 3: hung out together, we studied together. They were really my

358
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: closest friendship group and classmates at Yale. And I went

359
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 3: to this period where I didn't want anyone to know

360
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 3: that I had a white father, so I'm brown from

361
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 3: when I was very young, being proud that my parents

362
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 3: were of different races and feeling that I represented some

363
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 3: kind of hope for.

364
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 2: America, you know, no pressure or anything.

365
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 3: In college, not wanting anyone to know that my father

366
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 3: was white. I even deliberately hit it. I hid it

367
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 3: to my boyfriend. It was black who I met very

368
00:24:56,200 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 3: soon after I got to Yale, and ever told him

369
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,719
Speaker 3: that I had a white father. Didn't even really come up.

370
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 3: He just assumed that my parents were black. And one

371
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 3: time I had taken some photos with my father over

372
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 3: the winter holidays and brought them back with me to

373
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 3: show my boyfriend. But I only wanted to show him

374
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 3: the photos that my father had taken of me alone.

375
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 3: I deliberately hid.

376
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 4: The photo of my.

377
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 3: Self with my father, and at one point I realized

378
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 3: that you could see my father in the mirror that

379
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 3: in the dress in his in the bedroom where we

380
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 3: had taken the photos. And as soon as I saw

381
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 3: his image, I breaked out.

382
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 4: If I can remember the sets I had, my sledging

383
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 4: and my stomach. Oh, my goodness, Bobby is going to

384
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 4: be that my father's white.

385
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 3: And I immediately snatched the photo from him and put

386
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 3: it down, face down on a table that was there.

387
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 3: And you know, he later told me that when he

388
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 3: did visit my home during spring break, this is now

389
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 3: several months later, when I got you know, I knew

390
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 3: him better. I wasn't so afraid to tell him more

391
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,920
Speaker 3: about me. When my father answered the door, he was shocked.

392
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 3: He had no idea that my father was white. And

393
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 3: then there was another situation. My first semester at you know,

394
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:39,360
Speaker 3: I took a sociology course on ethnicity, very basic ethnic

395
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 3: studies type of course, and there was a study group

396
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 3: that I belonged to where one of the assignments was

397
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 3: that we were supposed to guess each other's backgrounds, and

398
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:56,360
Speaker 3: everyone said for me, I was Black American. And there

399
00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 3: was one white student who said, I think she has

400
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 3: some white ancestry, and everyone looked at me, though, that

401
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 3: is that?

402
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 4: Then he get it right, and I.

403
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 3: Said, well, I do have a white grandmother, but I

404
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 3: never met her.

405
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 2: She died before I was born, which is true, just

406
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 2: not the whole truth.

407
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 4: Not the whole truth. I left that the part about

408
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 4: my father.

409
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 2: Was it fear of being sort of rejected or was

410
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 2: there some kind of shame just wanting, you know, at

411
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 2: that point in time, wanting things to be simpler, just

412
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: wanting the way that you identified to be the way

413
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 2: that it just really was.

414
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it.

415
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 5: Well.

416
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 3: First of all, even though it was so long ago,

417
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 3: I can still feel viscerally the fear that I had. Now,

418
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 3: what was that fear you're asking me, That's harder to remember.

419
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 3: But I think part of it was that this was

420
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:04,919
Speaker 3: really the first time I was with a group of

421
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 3: people where I identified completely as black, who didn't know

422
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 3: I had a white father, and I didn't want them

423
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 3: to question my identity as a black woman.

424
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 4: And there was also part of.

425
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 3: It was that I didn't want people to think that

426
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 3: I thought I was special because I had a white father,

427
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 3: that I.

428
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 4: Was different from them. I never liked that, you know that.

429
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 3: I'm thinking also even in high school, when I was

430
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 3: at Evanson Township High School, there was a situation where

431
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 3: my sisters and I were on the.

432
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 4: Bus riding home from school, and my parents.

433
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 3: Pulled up alongside the bus, and when the bus came

434
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 3: to a stop, my mother knocked on the bus door

435
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 3: and came up on the bus and she said, are

436
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 3: there three light skinned girls on the bus.

437
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 4: I was horrified. I was horrified.

438
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 3: I was so embarrassed, and because I didn't want the

439
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 3: other black girls on the bus to think that I

440
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 3: was any different from them. I identify so much with

441
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 3: my mother, who was dark skinned and had very African features.

442
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 4: I know, it seems.

443
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 3: Strange when I think of myself, I think of myself.

444
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 4: As looking like her.

445
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 3: So it was partly I'd never heard her described me

446
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 3: and my sisters like that before.

447
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 4: I'd never heard her refer to our color before.

448
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 2: Well, and it's almost like a you know, possibly an

449
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 2: indication of how she saw you and your sisters.

450
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 3: Maybe did it never occurred to me that she saw

451
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 3: us that way. Yeah, it don't recurred to me that

452
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 3: she saws that way. I just have this very strong

453
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 3: revulsion that the idea of black people who have lighter

454
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 3: skin being you know, any better than anybody else, or

455
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 3: you know.

456
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 4: I just I don't use that term to describe.

457
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 3: Me, and I don't feel that it describes me, even

458
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 3: though maybe it does.

459
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

460
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: There are other moments too, when Darcy is aware that

461
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 2: her father's whiteness comes into play outside their idyllic neighborhood

462
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 2: of Kenwood, moments that remain unspoken. A tacit agreement made

463
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 2: with outwards. When the family would take road trips, they

464
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 2: stayed in motels, not hotels, places where Drothy's mother and

465
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 2: the girls would remain in the car while their father

466
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 2: checked them in.

467
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 3: My sisters and I more recently, when we've talked about

468
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 3: our memories, both of them said that.

469
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 4: They knew that's why we never went to hotels.

470
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 3: We always went to motels where we could stay in

471
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 3: the car and.

472
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 4: It was just easier to.

473
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 3: Slip into the room without anybody seeing my mother and

474
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 3: my sisters and me.

475
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 4: And yeah, we just knew that that was.

476
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 3: Why that there might have been objections to us staying

477
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 3: at a motel, and we knew that that happened.

478
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 4: Again, this was the sixties.

479
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 3: Or were places that would say were full if they

480
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 3: saw black people trying to.

481
00:31:59,280 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 4: Rent a room.

482
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's so interesting. It's like, you know,

483
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 2: your ken Would experience was this idyllic bubble.

484
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because it was a bubble and

485
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 3: the sense that there was a lot of diversity and

486
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 3: integration and interracial relationships in Hyde Park, Kenwood.

487
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 4: But at the same time it was also a place.

488
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 3: Where we were very aware of the civil rights movement.

489
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 4: We're very aware of races name in America, and so.

490
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 3: It was a bubble with a lot of social consciousness

491
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 3: and awareness.

492
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that it was this very special place where there

493
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 2: was at one point you write something like apathy was

494
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 2: not an option. There wasn't a sense of any kind

495
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 2: of being separate from what was going on in the world.

496
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 4: That's right. That's right.

497
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 3: We were expected to keep up with the civil rights movement,

498
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 3: the anti war movement, to support it, and to feel

499
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 3: that we had to be engaged in some way with

500
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 3: social justice movements, and most of the parents were, and

501
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 3: our school was so I went to Beulah Shusmith Elementary School,

502
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 3: and that school was dedicated to teaching us lessons about

503
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 3: our common humanity, about the importance of social justice, the

504
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 3: civil rights movement, we participated in it. There was a

505
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 3: school boycott while I was in elementary school, and Shoe

506
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 3: Smith closed down, and we went to an alternative school

507
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 3: for the day at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, which was

508
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 3: also very involved in supporting the civil rights and anti

509
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 3: war movements.

510
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 4: We learned movement songs. We had assemblies where the whole school.

511
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 3: Would sing if I had a and I fell, this

512
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 3: land is your lab, and those kinds of things. We

513
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 3: had assemblies where civil rights leaders would come and talk

514
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 3: to us.

515
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 4: When Doctor King was assassinated the.

516
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 3: School, all the students were expected to write poems to

517
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 3: missus King to express our condolences and our love for

518
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 3: doctor King and our concern for her and her family.

519
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 4: It was just part of the school.

520
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 3: And I think about how different that was that compared

521
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 3: to how some children are being taught today, where all

522
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 3: of that is erased.

523
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 4: It's shocking.

524
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: Dorothy's mother has advised her, in no uncertain terms, that

525
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 2: she must get an advanced degree before marrying, and so

526
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:54,720
Speaker 2: Dorothy does. She goes to Harvard Law and receives a jd.

527
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 2: As an attorney. She practices for eight years, but what

528
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 2: she really wants to do, what really lights her up,

529
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 2: is teaching and research. So she returns to academia and

530
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 2: becomes a professor of law at Northwestern University. By now,

531
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 2: having heeded her mother's advice, Dorothy's married and has a daughter.

532
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 2: Dorothy's father dies in two thousand and two and her

533
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 2: mother passes away in two thousand and nine. Dorothy and

534
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 2: her sisters are all well into adulthood, now with busy,

535
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 2: jam packed lives. After their mother's death, their father's research,

536
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 2: comprised of many many boxes, assumedly all the work on

537
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,359
Speaker 2: the book he never published, are sent to Dorothy, as

538
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: she is the one with a most storage space. There

539
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: they sit for years. What is it about boxes? It's

540
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,280
Speaker 2: a bit of a motif on this podcast. The fear

541
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 2: about what they might contain or reveal, the resistance to

542
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 2: opening them. In twenty twelve, Dorothy accepts a new professorship

543
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 2: at the University of Pennsylvania, and the unopened boxes travel

544
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 2: with her. The thing about sealed boxes is that they

545
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 2: also continue to taunt to whisper. At some point, Dorothy

546
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 2: cracks the first one open, and it's here that she

547
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: realizes that there's so much about her father that she's

548
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 2: been flat out wrong about that she just doesn't know.

549
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 2: These boxes are a whole world that Dorothy needs time

550
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 2: and space to go through, painstakingly, using all her research

551
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 2: skills as an academic and all her daughter's love for

552
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 2: both her mother and her father. Dorothy's life is exciting

553
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,800
Speaker 2: and successful and rich, but she needs to go away

554
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: by herself to do this work. There is only one

555
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,919
Speaker 2: place she can imagine going. She finds a sublet right

556
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,919
Speaker 2: around the corner from her childhood home in Kent.

557
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 3: The first moment of revelation, the shock was when I

558
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 3: pulled out that very first document from the.

559
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 4: Boxes, and it was.

560
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 3: This yellowed crumbling the edges were literally crumbling. At Rusty

561
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 3: stapled several pages and I looked at the top of

562
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 3: it and it said February nineteenth, nineteen thirty.

563
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 4: Seven, and I thought to myself, Okay, this must.

564
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 3: Be when this couple was married. I could see that

565
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 3: it was a transcript of an interview. I had my

566
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 3: father's name on it. It had part of an address on it,

567
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 3: and as I saw that other interview transcripts also had

568
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty seven, I realized that these were interviews my

569
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 3: father conducted in nineteen thirty seven, and that that was

570
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 3: the most shocking discovery, that very first one.

571
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 5: Because it completely upended the way I viewed my father's

572
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 5: research on interracial marriage and my parents' relationship, because I

573
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 5: always thought that he had become.

574
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 3: Interested and so obsessed with interracial marriage when he met

575
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 3: my mother, and that falling in love with her and

576
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:46,879
Speaker 3: marrying her sparked this fascination with interracial marriage and then

577
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 3: he decided he was going to study it.

578
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 4: But nineteen thirty.

579
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,240
Speaker 3: Seven was when he was only twenty one years old,

580
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 3: a graduate student at University of Chicago, and that meant

581
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 3: that he first was interested in interracial marriage, had that

582
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 3: married my mother, which is a very different story. And

583
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 3: as I read the interviews, I discovered it he was

584
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 3: very interested in dating black women from when he was

585
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 3: very young, and so, you know, it wasn't that he

586
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 3: happened to fall in love with my mother.

587
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 4: It meant something that she was a black woman. He

588
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 4: was looking to meet.

589
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 3: Black women in his funnies, you know, that just it turns,

590
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 3: you know, at three sixty degrees, the way that I

591
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 3: thought about the relationship between their marriage and their love

592
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 3: for each other, and my father's interest in interracial marriage.

593
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 3: And that's when I realized that I really needed to

594
00:39:53,800 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 3: read through all the interviews, to spend time with them,

595
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 3: think about what they meant.

596
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 4: For my family, my relationship.

597
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 3: With my parents, what I thought about their marriage, I

598
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 3: thought about my own identity.

599
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 4: I did look at some of.

600
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 3: The interviews, but I didn't sit down and really immerse

601
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 3: myself in them until I found this apartment that was

602
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 3: owned by a couple who lived in Eastern Europe and

603
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 3: rented their place over the summer and over the academic year,

604
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 3: and the summer was available, and it was right.

605
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,359
Speaker 4: Around the corner from my old house.

606
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 3: I could see Shusmith Elementary School from the living room window.

607
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 3: It was just amazing. And I set up a whole procedure.

608
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 3: I put the six boxes of interviews nineteen thirties, nineteen fifties,

609
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties against.

610
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 4: The wall, and then I would take out stacks.

611
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 3: Lay them on the dining room table, and carrie a

612
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:14,359
Speaker 3: stack every day into the study that they had kind

613
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 3: of like my father's study. It was lined with books,

614
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 3: and so as I went through the transcripts and read them, well,

615
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 3: there were just so many discoveries because I learned so

616
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 3: much from the interviews in each era, you know, the

617
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 3: n thirties.

618
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 4: My father.

619
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 3: Had interviewed almost one hundred couples in the nineteen thirties,

620
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 3: and twenty five of them were married in the eighteen hundreds.

621
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 3: I just don't know of any other source of information

622
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 3: about interracial marriage in a northern city, especially in that era.

623
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 3: And there is a book, I should say, there is

624
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:02,479
Speaker 3: a book written by my father's close colleague, Saint Clair

625
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 3: Drake Black Metropolis, where he has a chapter based on

626
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 3: my father's interviews lest sy though they're not he doesn't

627
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,280
Speaker 3: discuss all of the interviews, and it's not the same

628
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:22,359
Speaker 3: as reading my father's notes as he met with these

629
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 3: black white couples in Chicago. So it wasn't just what

630
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 3: the couple said, it was all the notes my father

631
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 3: made about how he found the couples and the questions

632
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 3: he asked them and what else.

633
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 4: He was doing.

634
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 3: One other discovery is that the interviews became so much

635
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 3: part of his personal life, to the extent that I

636
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 3: could hardly tell the difference between whether he was writing

637
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 3: a diary entry and whether he was writing his notes

638
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 3: on an interview, because he's friends with these people he

639
00:42:58,600 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 3: was interviewing.

640
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 4: So that's one set of discoveries.

641
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 3: But then I get to the nineteen fifties, and of

642
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 3: course I want to find in these interviews, how did

643
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 3: Daddy meet mommy?

644
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:14,399
Speaker 4: Where does he talk about that?

645
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 3: And the first place I see my mother mention this

646
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 3: is after discovering him mentioning other black women he's dating,

647
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,919
Speaker 3: which you know, I not can real figure out we're

648
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:32,840
Speaker 3: not my mother. My mother first appears as someone interviewing

649
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 3: one of the couples, and I discovered that my mother

650
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 3: had become co investigator with him. She was more than

651
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 3: a research assistant. She was finding couples with him. She

652
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:52,319
Speaker 3: was interviewing the wives while he interviewed the husbands. And

653
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 3: I find in the nineteen fifties and even into the

654
00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties transcripts that she records and notes that she made,

655
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 3: and I see this completely different side of my mother

656
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 3: where she's an ethnographer and she's writing notes that sound

657
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 3: like a novel. I never knew that who was Daddy's project,

658
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 3: and now I discover it was mommy's too.

659
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 2: That's also throws into a new light the you know, Bob,

660
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 2: when you're going to finish the.

661
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 4: Book exactly exactly.

662
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 3: I realized Mommy wasn't being mean to Daddy when she

663
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 3: would nag him constantly about finishing the book. She had

664
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 3: put her own blood, sweat, and tears into this book.

665
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 3: And this is something I think so often career husbands

666
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 3: don't realize that their wives are helping their career, even

667
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 3: if they're not involved in the actual work of the career.

668
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 3: She was taken care of my father children. You know,

669
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 3: he was involved, but he wasn't combing our hair. He

670
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 3: wasn't getting his dressed in the morning. He wasn't making

671
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 3: sure that we were well behaved. That was all my

672
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 3: mother's doing. My mother was cooking his meals every night.

673
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:17,959
Speaker 3: She gave up her PhD in order to take care

674
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 3: of me and my sisters.

675
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 4: She gave up a lot, and not only her.

676
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 3: Contributions, but she expected that by marrying my father. At

677
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 3: the time, he was a junior professor, but he was

678
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 3: working on a book that she helped. She thought he

679
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 3: was going to publish the book and become a renowned

680
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 3: anthropologist and leave Roosevelt University and go like his friend

681
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 3: Saint Clair Drake to Stanford or Yale or Harford or something.

682
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:54,720
Speaker 3: She very ambitious, my mother. And it wasn't I realized

683
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 3: so much that she was putting.

684
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 4: All her hopes in my father. It was that she

685
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 4: had sacrificed so that he.

686
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 3: Could become this renowned professor, so that he could publish

687
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 3: this book.

688
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 4: It was part of her work that did it.

689
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 3: And so when he fans to publish the book and

690
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 3: he has no interest in climbing the academic ladder, you know,

691
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 3: it was perfectly satisfied.

692
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,720
Speaker 4: Which is fine. I mean, Roosevelt was a great.

693
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 3: University, became chair of the sociology anthropology department, He wrote

694
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 3: articles and published them. But he didn't achieve what my

695
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:37,879
Speaker 3: mother expected him to achieve. And it would be one

696
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 3: thing is she hadn't contriuted to it.

697
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:40,799
Speaker 4: But she did.

698
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 2: She never said a word, never said a.

699
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 3: Word about her, actually participated interviews exactly.

700
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 2: It's interesting because they stayed together the whole of their

701
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 2: shared lives. And the word that keeps on coming to

702
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 2: my mind in all the different ways that you described

703
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 2: her as your mother was very disciplined, yeah, yes, and

704
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 2: your father maybe not so much. And she wanted this

705
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:08,280
Speaker 2: certain kind of well, the same thing that she wanted

706
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 2: for you girls, right, yeah, And I mean fascinating that

707
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 2: she said to you, do not get married before you

708
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:18,240
Speaker 2: have your advanced degree, because she was protecting you. Whether

709
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 2: she was aware of this or not, she was protecting

710
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 2: you from her own fate.

711
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 4: I think so absolutely.

712
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 3: Maybe she didn't say it in so many words, but

713
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 3: we got the idea that she was disappointed in my

714
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 3: father's failure to write and publish the book, and she

715
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 3: didn't want anything like that to happen to us. She

716
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 3: had given up a lot to support his career, and

717
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 3: she wanted to make sure that we never did anything

718
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 3: like that. That we got our advanced degrees, we stood

719
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 3: on our own two feet, We had our own careers,

720
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 3: and we didn't rely on a husband to do that

721
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 3: or to let a husband interfere with it. When my

722
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 3: mother said to my father, you're dashing Dorothy's dreams.

723
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:09,799
Speaker 4: I can now hear in it.

724
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 3: You dashed my dreams, and I'm not gonna let you

725
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 3: do that to Dorothy too.

726
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 2: And at the same time, she also is protective of

727
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 2: him by never saying anything to the three of you

728
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 2: about you know, really how disappointed she was and how

729
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 2: she perceived his failure to wrangle that book into what

730
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 2: she and he believes that it could have been. It

731
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 2: was a kindness to him, right and to your family.

732
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 2: When we think about the things that we say and

733
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 2: the things that we don't say, you know that that

734
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 2: was maybe she just wanted to keep things because there

735
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 2: was a lot of There was a lot of beauty

736
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:47,399
Speaker 2: in all.

737
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 3: That, Yes there was, and we had a very happy family.

738
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 4: We did a lot together. We went on so many excursions.

739
00:48:56,640 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 3: Together, road trips and travel and going to the Field

740
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 3: Museum on Saturdays to watch movies about people's adventures and

741
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 3: all sorts of interesting escapades we went on together. We

742
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 3: went camping together. So our family was very harmonious. I

743
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 3: think she never wanted to degrade my father.

744
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:24,839
Speaker 4: He saw his potential, that's the thing.

745
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 3: She didn't think that he was incompetent or anything like that.

746
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 3: She thought he wasn't living up to the potential she

747
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 3: saw in him, and he was not as ambitious as

748
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 3: she was.

749
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 2: So Dorothy, what was it like for you being holed

750
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 2: up in this apartment? And your childhood neighborhood, you know,

751
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 2: like breathing the air, walking the street, seeing your old house,

752
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 2: seeing your old elementary school. Being alone with this history

753
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 2: and this research and these realizations. I don't know what

754
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 2: it must have taken. At one point, you write, when

755
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 2: you get to the nineteen fifties part of his research,

756
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 2: you write that you were filled with part curiosity, part trepidation,

757
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 2: And he wrote, I knew what I was stepping into.

758
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, because even though I was constantly surprised, I still

759
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 3: knew that when I was growing up, my father was

760
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 3: working on this book that he never finished, and I

761
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 3: knew that it had a big influence on my childhood.

762
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 4: So I realized. And by then, after.

763
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 3: Discovering the nineteen thirties interviews, I realized that even though

764
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 3: I was very familiar with his project, there were going

765
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 3: to be surprises as well. I've never spent this kind

766
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:55,839
Speaker 3: of intense time, really steeped in the research. That I've

767
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 3: never spent a whole summer where I practically did nothing

768
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 3: but work on the project.

769
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 4: You know, I did go get some groceries or went

770
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 4: for a run in the morning, but other than that,

771
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:10,280
Speaker 4: I did nothing else.

772
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 3: I just got up in the morning and made by

773
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 3: tea and yogurt and ran around the block, but then

774
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 3: spent hours upon hours all day reading and taking notes

775
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 3: about my reactions to the interviews.

776
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 4: And it was such.

777
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 3: A almost indescribable experience because of this combination of the

778
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 3: history that I uncovered in the interviews the couples my

779
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,359
Speaker 3: father interviewed and my mother later also interviewed, were just

780
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:53,280
Speaker 3: totally fascinating. But then there was also the personal aspect

781
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 3: of it, of learning about this part of my father's

782
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 3: life I know about at all, it was completely new

783
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 3: to me, and then discovering my mother's voice as well,

784
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 3: which was unaware of. And so there was that combination

785
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 3: of the historical insights that were so so path breaking.

786
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 4: The work my father was doing.

787
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 3: The fact that he was a twenty one year old

788
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 3: white graduate student going into the Black belts to interview

789
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 3: couples about this personal and taboo aspect of their lives,

790
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:43,239
Speaker 3: you know, that alone was so fascinating, But then to

791
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 3: learn these details about his life that I wasn't aware of,

792
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 3: and my mother's life as well, just added another aspect

793
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 3: to it. And on top of that that it had

794
00:52:55,800 --> 00:53:01,319
Speaker 3: to do with my own discovery about myself. Everything I

795
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 3: was reading not only taught me new revelations about my parents,

796
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:10,800
Speaker 3: but those revelations.

797
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 4: Were related to my own identity.

798
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:16,319
Speaker 3: So I'm learning about myself as much as I'm learning

799
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 3: about them as I'm reading it. That that just all

800
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 3: those layers were mind boggling, but also just very very satisfying,

801
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:32,320
Speaker 3: very gratifying to be able to dig so deeply into

802
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 3: my family history but also my own identity.

803
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 2: So where does this leave you in terms of your identity?

804
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 4: Now?

805
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 2: You know so much more, You have so much more

806
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 2: information about your parents, and you've interrogated so deeply the

807
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 2: complexities of coming from a biracial couple and the privilege

808
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 2: of your father's whiteness, which is something that you hadn't

809
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 2: really interrogated before, and the wanting to reject that, but

810
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 2: you know you can't. It is what it is. So

811
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 2: where does it sit with you?

812
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 4: Now?

813
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 2: Having finished the book and having really, like almost so

814
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 2: deeply communed with both of your parents like you research

815
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:14,280
Speaker 2: the research.

816
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 4: I like that term commune.

817
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:19,840
Speaker 3: It was a way of communing with them as I

818
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:23,800
Speaker 3: never had before after they both had passed away.

819
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 4: Well, what really got me to.

820
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 3: Grapple with the meaning of their research, their relationship and

821
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 3: my identity was what I discovered the file number two

822
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 3: to four on me that my father and I read

823
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 3: these a letter from him to me and an essay

824
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 3: I had written for college, and an essay I had,

825
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:54,240
Speaker 3: it seems written for him.

826
00:54:56,480 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 4: Where I made some I think, very hurtful statement about

827
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 4: wanting to hide his.

828
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 3: Identity, hide him from other people, and deny that he

829
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 3: was part of me. And that really forced me to

830
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 3: grapple deeply with what it means for me to identify

831
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:20,880
Speaker 3: as a black woman with a white father, and to

832
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:29,319
Speaker 3: realize that even though we disagreed about the role that

833
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:34,719
Speaker 3: interracial marriage could have in ending racism in America, that

834
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 3: the main lesson he taught me was about our common

835
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 3: humanity and how much that influence the work that I

836
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 3: do and how I view my role my commitment to

837
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:54,320
Speaker 3: ending racial injustice in America. I came to really appreciate

838
00:55:55,600 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 3: that the fact that he's white doesn't mean that he

839
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 3: could not contribute to my identity as a black woman

840
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:10,320
Speaker 3: and the way I think about my life and about

841
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 3: society and what I think that my mission in life

842
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 3: should be. Also, even though I still believe that interracial

843
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 3: intimacy and mariage alone cannot be the answer to racism.

844
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:34,840
Speaker 3: They cannot dismantle racism. One thing that comes out from

845
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 3: the interviews he conducted was how much racism governed the

846
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 3: lives of these interracial couples, and though they were courageous

847
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 3: enough to cross Chicago's color line, they were very much

848
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 3: constricted by Chicago's color line. But I became more open

849
00:56:54,440 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 3: to thinking about how love is an important part of

850
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 3: our struggle against racial and other forms of injustice, and

851
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 3: we need to really wrestle with how our personal relationships

852
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 3: relate to the social injustices that constrain us, and that

853
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 3: there were couples I read about, like my parents, whose

854
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:34,400
Speaker 3: love had a kind of transformative capacity. Even though it

855
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 3: could not end the racist structures that constrained it, it

856
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:48,440
Speaker 3: still could potentially contribute to that struggle. And so I

857
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 3: felt reconciled, even though I didn't feel I had all

858
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 3: the answers at the end. But I've definitely come to

859
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 3: a place obviously by writing this metok works.

860
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:01,760
Speaker 4: I don't believe I have the high that my father's white.

861
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 4: I don't think that that takes away from my identity.

862
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:09,920
Speaker 3: I want to embrace every aspect of my identity, and

863
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:15,000
Speaker 3: I don't think that that means that I'm any less

864
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 3: a black woman because I have a white father.

865
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 2: Here's Darcy reading a passage from her powerful memoir.

866
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:33,880
Speaker 3: I feel a weight of sadness thinking about all those

867
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 3: years my father poured into writing his book. I can

868
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 3: imagine the mounting disappointment was each missed deadline and canceled contract.

869
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 3: And yet that sadness is outweighed by the extraordinary adventure

870
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:48,720
Speaker 3: my parents' research gave our family while I.

871
00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 4: Was growing up.

872
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 3: I wonder if, in the end, my father felt that

873
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 3: the joy he found in interviewing couples over half his

874
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:59,680
Speaker 3: life was worth letting the book go unwritten. The world

875
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 3: was deprived of the text he worked so long to finish.

876
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 3: But I've had the gift of reading the stories he gathered,

877
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 3: and of caring with me the lessons they talk about, love, race,

878
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 3: and family. As I placed the folder filled with contracts

879
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 3: and letters back into its box, my heart is full

880
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 3: of gratitude for the mixed marriage project, which shaped who

881
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 3: I am and is still a defining.

882
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 4: Part of me.

883
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 2: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Z Acur

884
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 2: is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

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Speaker 2: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

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Speaker 2: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

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Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

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Speaker 2: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

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Speaker 2: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd

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Speaker 2: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,

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Speaker 2: check out my memoir Inheritance.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.