My husband and I are white-but we face racism a lot. He has albino traits

[demtenjeep]

Both of his parents are white-the recessive trait is not known in any family so we do not know why are where but it is there.

He has very white pigmentation, even his body hair is white. His eyes are beautiful blue but he is legally blind.


People look at him weird and make comments. We were married for 2 years before we had our child but even his side of the family said maybe we should adopt because god forbid we have a child with his issues. This was 32 years ago

People look at us funny. When I was pregnant, someone at a buffet we were eating at actually came to our table to ask if we were worried that the baby would have his hair. I said I hoped so.

For the record, she looks a lot like him in structure but she doesn't lack pigmentation.



Even though both of us are white, he and I get comments and looks all the time.

The color of someone's skin does not indicate what is inside their heart, mind and body.

I love my husband and wouldn't change a thing but we get crap all the time.


I am not crying. Just pointing out that it exists for a lot of people. My younger sister's husband didn't even come to our wedding because I married an albie.

[luvs2sing]

1. My ex's cousins..

were identical albino twins. And I still remember the stares and ignorant comments.

[Demovictory9]

2. wow. People are so ignorant

[LakeArenal]

3. Interesting post. I wish you all the best.

[demtenjeep]

6. thank you. We are doing well-except for my health

we live well, love well and do well .


I just wanted to share our experience.


People are cruel based on skin tone. All the time!

[LakeArenal]

10. Peace, Sister.

[wryter2000]

4. It's horrible that this happens to you

But it's not racism. Albinism isn't a race or ethnicity.

I don't mean to compare your experiences with anything else, because various forms of prejudice and hate don't compare with each other. Nor do I want to minimize the cruelty you've had to endure. It just isn't racism any more than misogyny is racism.

[hlthe2b]

5. There are those who are "innocently" ignorant and then those who are willfully ignorant

I think the people you describe are the latter. The older I get, the less tolerant I can be of them... Avoiding them is no loss, though. Life is too short.

I'm glad you found happiness, no matter what some ignorant people think.

[madaboutharry]

7. Your brother in law didn't come to the wedding?

That is so crazy.

I can’t get my head around the hurtful way some people behave.

[demtenjeep]

8. hes a jerk

always has been =always will be.


BUT at my sister's funeral my husband was the only one that would talk to him at the dinner.



imagine that.....................

[madaboutharry]

13. That doesn't surprise me.

Your husband sounds like a good guy.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

9. At least your husband isn't being killed for...

... witch doctor potions and such.

That's what happens too often to albinos in Africa. This is group that tries to help them: https://www.underthesamesun.com/

I understand your heartache about it, though, so please don't think that I'm downplaying your situation.

[demtenjeep]

12. wow- I had no idea

I will look into that.

[soldierant]

41. That was my first thought.

Then I realized people from all over the world read DU, so I wasn't sure he wasn't in danger.

I'm glad he isn't but terribly distressed that so many are.

And it may not technically be racism but it definitely is colorism - probably the only way it is possible for someone to be "too white."

Elsewhere in Africa (maybe in some of the same places also), pregnant women are ingesting dangerous chemical in the hope that they will make the babies' skin whiter than their own. They won't. And lest you think that doesn't happen in the United States - you would be wrong. It does.

[The_REAL_Ecumenist]

43. It's true that it happens in Africa BUT Not all of Africa because remember that it's a continent NOT

a country. You find it in places like Tanzania, Malawi, parts of South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Burundi & DRC, (aka), Congo-primarily East & Southern Africa.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

46. Yes, you're correct.

And it's a big continent too, with a large variety of languages and customs.

I got a bit lazy when identifying the location.

[Treefrog]

11. That's terrible you have to deal with that, but I don't think that is actually racism.

[demmiblue]

14. No, it isn't. n/t

[demtenjeep]

15. maybe it is just hate for the unknown?

when I first started dating him several in my family were like-are you sure?



but my mom adored him.



My dad just asked if he was good to me. I said very.

that was all they needed.

[Dan]

33. Your dad, what he said, was all that needed saying...

speaking as a father.

[demtenjeep]

49. yes

my daddy was 1 in a million


I miss him so very much

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. With gentleness, it's bigotry and discrimination, but not racism. I'm sorry for the hatred and fear

you and your husband have faced because of it in any case.

[Blue Owl]

17. Sometimes that famous quote "Hell is other people" really rings true...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. Is that a quote? It pretty much describes every workplace...

... for me since I was a grad research assistant in college.

Worked in a factory after college because I was desperate for income at the time, and I've been pretty much stuck with that kind of work ever since then. Yet it's the poorly-educated and mean coworkers that have made it seem like Hell sometimes, not so much the actual work.

[Blue Owl]

21. I believe it was the French philosopher Sartre who coined the phrase

[Buckeye_Democrat]

22. Thanks!

[Cal Carpenter]

36. From the play No Exit n/t

[demtenjeep]

18. it is hate based on skin color

prejudice

based on nothing but skin color


even today and he is 52

[wryter2000]

25. Certainly prejudice and hate

I wonder if it's also ignorance of perceived disability. Not that there's anything wrong with him, but they may think so.

It kind of sounds to me like the crap that happens to a blind friend of mine. Some evangelical type once told him God could fix him. The man has an advance degree and is a professor of music. He has perfect pitch and sings in our church choir. Nothing about him needs to be fixed.

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

19. People are horrid. Sounds like he deals with the same things as people with physical disabilities.

I have a blind friend and she deals with a lot of crap including her family.

Never occurred to me that there is a "to white" according to some people.

From the way you describe your husband it sounds like he is beautiful.

[demtenjeep]

23. he is wonderful

and treats me like I am the only woman in the world

[demtenjeep]

24. he is also CSO of a large city

he beat all odds

[wryter2000]

26. The way you describe him

He does sound physically beautiful

[demtenjeep]

28. he doesn't think so. He thinks he is a freak. I think he is gorgeous

the most beautiful blue eyes


his hair is so soft

his dimples when he smiles


his heart is huge


his love is huge



I got lucky!

[soldierant]

42. Francis Bacon said

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." And I say he was right. Extraordinary beauty is going to be extraordinary - not ordinary.

[Fla Dem]

27. People can be cruel. I'm sorry you & your husband, or anyone has to deal

with that level of ignorance and hate.

[Treefrog]

29. So who shows this racism to you and your husband? White people? Black people? All people?

I’m sorry, but I do not see this as racism.

[demtenjeep]

30. all people

from all sides


maybe it isn't racism. Maybe its just hate

[Treefrog]

32. Not hate probably. Don't you remember staring at people who were different when you were a child?

I remember doing so and my mother having quite a stern talk with me about it. But people turn and look at people who look ‘different’ whatever that difference might be. As you say, ‘all’ people do it, so you should be able to realize that’s not racism. Maybe you don’t realize it but you’re diminishing the real and vicious reality that is racism.

[Donkees]

40. Fear of the unfamiliar obstructs empathy. Mirror neurons are based on empathy, on being able to see

'ourselves' in the 'other'

[Jay25]

31. I'm sorry.

[Kali]

35. albinism isn't a race, it occurs in all races

what you are describing is rudeness, possibly a type of discrimination, but not racism. racism is quite a different type of bigotry. it is good that you and your husband have some understanding of what victims of racism suffer, and it is a sad commentary on people who treat others that look different in rude ways, but it is not the same thing as racism at all.

[Treefrog]

38. Yes, you have said what I couldn't figure out how to say lol. People stare at those who seem

different. Anyone in a wheelchair or has missing limbs knows this well. Usually it’s only children who do this. Certainly it’s only children who do it innocently. When I see adults staring at someone with a disability I have to wonder about them and their level of maturity.

[soldierant]

44. It's easy yo lump it in (thugh I agree erroneous) with racism

because so much of what we call "racism" is based, or justified, or identified, or something, with skin color. As is this.

[dianaredwing]

37. No one addresses this issue more strongly than Gerald Vizenor

Native America writer. From notes on his epic Earth Divers, in reference to just how 'Indian' an individual might be considered:
Captain Shammer introduce his colorwheel, a register of skin tones ranging from white through pink and tan to dark brown. The colors are numbered and refer to explanations in a manual on tribal skin tones and identities. Shammer, for instance, was a four, about which the manual reads:

Mixedbloods with the skin tone color wheel code four are too mixed to choose absolute breeds or terminal creeds. Fours are too light to dance in the traditional tribal world and too dark to escape their flesh in the white world…. Fours bear the potential to be four flushers, too much white in the hand and not enough in the tribal bush.

Although I would have to find it, there is an excellent academic article about the variations of racism depending on the relative darkness of an African American's skin tone.

People who judge each other in these ways are to be pitied (and avoided) as they cannot see truth beyond prejudice.

[demtenjeep]

39. oh interesting. Tell me more

or what to search!

[dianaredwing]

45. Here you go

file:///G:/Shades%20of%20Brown-%20The%20Law%20of%20Skin%20Color.pdf

Hope it opens for you. 2000 article by Duke Law professor.

[MustLoveBeagles]

47. I'm sorry that happened to you and your spouse

People can be very cruel sometimes without meaning to be. Based on your other postings your hubby sounds like a great guy.

[demtenjeep]

48. the most hurtful name he has been called is a f'n white N@#%r

that made him cry

[MustLoveBeagles]

50. ...

[I_UndergroundPanther]

51. I went through the lookism hatred

I had really bad bucked teeth. I got nine teeth pulled out to make room for my teeth to be corrected by braces in middle school. It was incredibly painful. Today my teeth are riddled with stress fractures and my teeth crack,abscess and they get pulled out.

For what? To not be abused by assholes who get a charge out of humiliating me over my teeth.

Oh I got looks,people stared,laughed pointed at me,made rabbit noises and said asshole things.

Now my teeth are falling out one by one.

Because other people couldn't deal with my different teeth.

If I was born in the Aztec culture a few thousand years ago my bucked teeth would have been seen as beautiful.

And I wouldn't be losing them.

I can relate to the suffering you and your husband go through..

Just because people cannot handle albinism. For the record I think albino people are so beautiful.