Okay, I just discovered you, so I'm four years late in my response, but I enjoyed your article mightily, and almost fell off the chair laughing. Super Mr. C., an "ur-white" person from the Midwest, and I (East Coast urban as I can be) have been happily married for 38 years. It was the first time either of us had had a relationship with another race.

We've both learned a lot. I told him, "When you marry a black woman you marry her hair." I've learned that sometimes what Mr. C. does isn't a white thing, it's a male thing. At other times I have witnessed that there is such a thing as "scruffy white boy," which I, of course, try to correct.

If it's possible for a white person to be born with amazing racial sensitivity, then Super Mr. C. is that person. We discuss race frequently, because we're just talky people, and both black and white folks are surprised at how forthrightly he talks about race.

My family had no issue with him; they were just happy that anyone was finally going to marry me. Due to circumstances beyond our control, I met his mother for the first time only three days before our wedding, and I could sense no disdain or disapproval from her. She could certainly have had it and hidden it well, but her main concern was that I just look after her beloved boy. (She made me promise.) She also gladly joined my "I-have-to-have-KFC-at-least-once" meal when we visited her. It's not for everybody, but it's been a good 38 years.