How To Talk To Your Partner About Race: Tips For Approaching A Difficult Topic
If you're in a romantic relationship, you may want to talk with your partner about race for a variety of reasons. Between 19% and 34% of US couples are interracial, so discussing race in this context can be important in ensuring both partners understand one another, feel seen, and have their respective life experiences understood. Even if you're not in an interracial partnership, you might still want to talk about race with your intimate partner because you're emotionally processing systemic racism and related life experiences, planning to talk with your children or parents about race, wanting to become more actively antiracist, or any number of other reasons.
The prospect of beginning a conversation about race can feel intimidating—and if you have experienced racism yourself, race-focused discussions might feel particularly vulnerable. Keeping in mind the following tips for before, during, and after the discussion may help you and your partner have a calm and constructive dialogue on this topic.
Before having the conversation
Adequately preparing for this conversation can help ensure things go smoothly and stay on track. Consider these tips before you begin.
Identify your purpose
Whatever your goal may be, keeping it clearly in mind and sharing it with your partner when you begin can help you guide the discussion and avoid getting sidetracked.
Pick the right time and place for the conversation
Since discussions about race can often be difficult, your partner might find it helpful if you give them a bit of advance notice and set aside a time together to have this talk. Instead of bombarding them with heavy questions related to race when they've just gotten home from work or right before bed, for instance, you might pick a future date and time when you know you’ll both be free and relaxed and have a quiet place where you won't be disturbed. Asking if your partner is willing to meet you then to discuss this topic can help ensure you’ll both have had time to organize your thoughts and will have the time and mental energy to fully and meaningfully engage at that moment.
Consider your roles in the situation
A person's own race—as well as their ethnicity, national origin, religion, location, political affiliation, and socioeconomic status—can significantly impact how they view race-related topics. If you and your partner are both Black women, for instance, your conversation about race will likely be very different than a conversation between two white partners, or partners with races that are different from each other. If you know your partner thinks of themselves as a white ally but you’ve noticed some blind spots they have, that's something else to be aware of before beginning your talk. Thinking about you and your partner’s roles and positions in this sense can help you decide how to approach the topic and what to cover.
That said, it can help to avoid going into the discussion assuming that you already know all of your partner’s beliefs and experiences. When figuring out how to talk to them about race, keeping an open mind is key. Even if they have shared certain beliefs in the past, those may have changed over time, or they may not have shared their full story. That’s why active listening during the conversation, as we’ll discuss next, will be key.
During the conversation
As you engage in this delicate discussion with your partner, it can be helpful to keep the following tips in mind for best results.
Practice active listening
Active listening is a technique that can often help serious conversations go more smoothly and lead to both people better understanding each other. With active listening, you seek to understand both the content of what a person is saying as well as what emotions they are conveying through details like their tone of voice and body language.
The key to active listening is to truly listen while the person is speaking—which means not interrupting or formulating judgments or potential responses in your mind while they have the floor. Instead, make eye contact and give signals that you're paying attention, such as by nodding your head. You might also summarize what a person says back to them to show you were listening and to clarify whether or not you understood them correctly.
Asking questions can also help you engage in active listening. If your partner says something that surprises you or doesn't make sense to you, instead of making assumptions, you might say something like, "Can you tell me more about that?" or "What led you to that conclusion?"
Be honest about your thoughts and feelings
While active listening is usually an important aspect of respectful conversations, sharing your own thoughts and feelings may be relevant at some point as well. When you perceive it’s right to do so, try to state them directly instead of hinting and hoping your partner picks up on your meaning. If you want to share your feelings about something your partner said, it can help to use "I" statements.
Take breaks if things get heated
If your conversation about race begins to turn into an argument, you might suggest taking a short break. Once a conversation is characterized by things like raised voices or emotional shutting down, it is unlikely to be productive. If you’re both getting upset, you’ll likely also struggle to continue active listening. In this case, calling a "time out" and having a snack or taking a short walk may help you each calm down so you can return to the conversation later in a more peaceful frame of mind.
After the conversation
What to do or prioritize after having a conversation with your partner about race depends on what the purpose of the conversation was and how it went. In general, however, such complex and deeply affecting topics are not one-and-done discussions between couples, so it’s likely that you’ll revisit the subject. You might also think about the following after your initial conversation has ended.
Consider learning more about race together
Although having a first conversation on race when you sense the need can be a big step in the right direction, it’s not always enough to reach the goal you set out to achieve. You and your partner might disagree and need more time to find common ground, for instance, or you might want to check in frequently about how either or both of you are feeling about a certain topic.
Learning more about race and racism together might help further these ongoing conversations. Books like How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, for example, focus on race-related topics—including having these kinds of conversations with loved ones. Engaging with materials like these and many others could help you and your partner figure out how to more productively discuss race with each other moving forward.
Seek therapy for emotional support
If you’re having trouble reaching a place of understanding with your partner on race or another important topic, you might seek the emotional support of a therapist. They can help you build skills and implement strategies for communicating effectively and approaching difficult conversations with your partner. They can also provide a safe space where you can express your feelings and process your experiences.
Those who have especially busy schedules might struggle to regularly attend in-person therapy sessions. In such cases, online therapy can be a more convenient option. When you use a platform like BetterHelp, you can get matched with a licensed therapist according to your preferences—such as someone who shares your cultural background and can understand your experiences, for instance. You can then meet with your provider via phone, video call, and/or in-app messaging from home or anywhere you have an internet connection. Research suggests that online and in-person therapy can generally offer similar benefits in most cases.
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