Over the past several episodes, we’ve mentioned several times that my friend and co-host for this series Yasmin is married to a white man. Yasmin has talked about how being part of an interracial marriage has given her a unique perspective on the dynamics of race in our culture, and I couldn’t think of a better way to conclude our series on bias than by asking her husband Jason to sit down and talk with us about his perspectives on the reality of racial bias in our country.
Jason and Yasmin’s relationship began in the sort of meet-cute way that most fans of romantic comedies could only ever dream about happening in real life. They laugh about how a mutual friend tricked them into dating each other, and they both acknowledge that with each of them being fresh from difficult relationships that ended painfully, their earliest days of dating were so hopeful and happy that the differences in their racial and cultural backgrounds didn’t cause much of a problem. As their relationship moved toward marriage, however, Jason realized that much of his life had existed in a white bubble and that it was only when he stepped outside of that bubble that he could even begin to understand the very real issues of racial bias that most of white culture chooses to ignore.
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