Adam x Eric: What’s Lost When We Center Whiteness in Interracial Relationship Narratives

Now, before I get into it, I want to say this: I don’t have the expectation of any single piece of media to be perfect at anything it’s trying to do. Specifically because there’s no such thing as a single, perfect piece of media. There are too many people with too many experiences regardless of whether they’re of similar or different identities. It’s impossible for one team of creatives to tell every single story ever told.

That said, it would also be wrong to never point out where any piece of media we consume falls short because no piece of media will ever be perfect. Calling attention to the ways the media perpetuates oppressive ideologies, misrepresents (intentionally or not) the problems it’s trying to critique, and ignores the realities of/fails to represent marginalized people.

SPOILER WARNING FOR SEX EDUCATION!

Just as a note, I’ve only finished the first three episodes of Sex Education season two, and this was “spoiled” for me-I say “spoiled” because I knew that this would be the outcome-so, again, turn back if you don’t want anything spoiled for you about this season of SE.

So.

Here goes.

Adam and Eric became a couple, and another opportunity (I haven’t been able to comfirm that Sami Outalbali is a PoC; however, I’m (obviously) placing my bets on the idea that he isn’t white because it would be even more mind-blowing for Eric to have chosen the abusive mediocre white man instead of the attractive white man who actually treated him like a human being, and that is not a sin I’m willing to allow to simultaneously exist alongside the take I’m about to get into) to show interracial love between two people of color from different racial groups is killed to make it so. This is such a disappointment for a number of reasons that I’ll try to explain.

1) The Myth of the Inherently Progressive Politics of Interracial PoC+White Relationship.

To begin, I’ll state that I have no issues with the existence of interracial PoC+white partner relationships-be they in real life or in the media we consume. My issue is with how we-because we live in a society-uncritically perpetuate the lie that white people and people of color falling in love is some monumental blow to racism and white supremacy and anti-Blackness. It is not. To continue to tell that lie is to reject the reality of how much self-hatred (on the part of PoC) and dehumanization (from both PoC and white people) that has conditioned many PoC to see having a white partner and rejecting not only the humanness of said PoC’s own racial group, it also requires them to also reject the humaness of all PoC because of the white supremacist idea that attaching oneself to whiteness and hating everything not white is a fundamental and inherent idea that we can’t change. It also continues to allow white people to (a) remain in power; (b) uncritically continue the normalization of the fetishization of bodies of color, and the inherent goodness of PoC literally and metaphorically killing themselves in order to be white; and © weaponize their discomfort and tears should a person of color dare challenge the status quo.

None of which is to say that there aren’t meaningful shifts in perception between PoC and themselves and PoC and their white partners in service of the dismantling of white supremacy, racism, and anti-Blackness-because there are cases where that does happen, and it’s another small victory in the war-however, to never publicly grapple with the literal and metaphoric deaths PoC go through in order to maintain this lie, to never see how cruel and inhumane it is to brainwash PoC into thinking they need to sacrifice themselves at the altar of white supremacy is to do a disservice to any and every liberation movement.

2) The Need to Rehabilitate White People, Especially White Men, at the Cost of a Character of Color.

As I’ve stated earlier, I haven’t seen past episode three, so I don’t know what character development Adam goes through in order for Eric to choose him; however, it doesn’t really matter that I didn’t because the narrative is that a white man gets to publicly abuse an out and proud gay Black man because said white man is abused by his father and is struggling with his sexual orientation, and will be absolved of doing any meaningful and fundamental changes to who he is as a person. And as for the out gay Black man, all of his growth just amounts to the currency said white man can use to be freed of doing even .10% of the work said gay Black man has done. Gay white men get to fail up, and gay Black men are the stairs on which gay white men to stumble up because love is love.

3) The Continued Practice of Ignoring The Fundamentally and Inherently More Radical Politics of Queer People of Color Challenging Each Other to Reject the White Gayze by Allowing Love to Happen.

(What does Anwar even mean by that?)

I will start by saying that it isn’t lost on me that in season one, Anwar is also antagonistic towards Eric. It was painful and annoying to see that relationship play out that way. And I know that people, myself at one time also, see that as more harmful than the relationship between Eric and Adam; however, I would like to propose this question: what does it say about us that we not only expect white people to be abusive and toxic towards us, we will also be tremendously more forgiving of what they do to us because we love them than we are and will ever be to PoC who are monumentally less abusive and toxic in comparison?

Putting that question aside, though: The failure to add any depth to the relationship between Eric and Anwar was an incredibly monumental missed opportunity to have the necessary conversations about the relationship between the Black community and the South Asian Diaspora. That not only would’ve made Eric a better character, it would’ve given a huge platform to how to navigate building solidarity between two communities of color.

(Rahim, speaking facts!)

And then to have Eric being torn away from a PoC gay character (Rahim) again in service of forcing the Eric x Andrew ship to sail despite the fact that the ship has holes literally everywhere . . . especially in the context that Rahim has been kind to and adored Eric since they first locked eyes (though his stalker vibes in the beginning were . . . eek!) . . . the writers have to think that we’re dumb. Have to.

There’s no legitimate reason why Eric should want Adam as badly as he does, and why Adam is so deserving of Eric’s love. And while there are people do choose the wrong person all the time and choose to be with people who’ve abused them, to not explore that/dismiss the concern as hypocrisy because the person bringing it up is also not in the healthiest and stable relationship-especially in a show called Sex Education that’s about getting people to have healthy conversations about sex and dating with their friends, partners, and family — feels like a cheap way to avoid exploring that.

Unless we’re also gonna make these interracial PoC+white relationships have real conversations about racism-and not those “wow I didn’t know my parents were so racist”/white savior + “I don’t get why my parents don’t like white people”/”wow I didn’t know white people also had a hard life I thought all white people had easy lives” ones either — I don’t think it’s right to continue to say that interracial PoC+white relationships are progressive while avoiding or misrepresenting the political landscape of the relationship. It’s dishonest to act as if the discrimination on both sides are equal, or act like the topic of racism just does not exist.

And it’ll always be to the detriment of people of color to never explore interracial love outside of its proximity to whiteness.

Originally published at https://medium.com on January 27, 2020.