When People Who Love You Are Also Racist (with Samira Mehta)

Why do racist comments from loved ones cut more deeply than overt racism from strangers? What makes it so difficult to name harm when it comes from someone who cares about you? And how do you respond when good intentions don’t match real impact? Samira Mehta says growing up in a mixed-race family showed her how love and harm can coexist in complicated, often invisible ways.

Through personal stories—about food, family expectations, code-switching, and cultural belonging—Mehta gives voice to the constant negotiations navigated by mixed-race people.

Samira Mehta is author of The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

About the Guest

Samira K. Mehta is the Director of Jewish Studies and an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the United States. Her first book, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) was a National Jewish book award finalist. She is also the author of a book of personal essays called The Racism of People Who Love You (Beacon Press, 2023) and her latest book, God Bless the Pill, which examines the role of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant voices in competing moral logics of contraception.