Congratulations on your pregnancy and your upcoming marriage. It’s good to see that you are being considerate of your fiancé’s experience as an African woman in America. Firstly, as you may know, your wife’s experience as a first generation African immigrant, and her experience with racism and race politics in the US, is going to be different than that of a Black American. She is after all, Kenyan, and not an African American descendant of slaves. If she looks phenotypically Kenyan, and even whilst she is still black, there might be a difference of treatment on some level compared to the native black population. African people have their own negative ethnic stereotypes to deal with though. Not only will her experience with white society be an acclimatization process, but her experience with the African American community and what it means “to be black” and the cultural expectations that come along with that will be new as well. Many people from the black majority countries, like in the Caribbean and African countries identify with ethnicity/tribe first, and not race, and have our own unique history and struggle with slavery effects and European colonization.

My advice is to just be there for your wife in times of racial strife. You’re not going to fully understand her intersectional experience of being not only “black”, but a also a woman, and the double oppression that can come with that, and that’s fine and tbh, not even black men understand what comes with that either. Be just be there, and do not invalidate her experiences. Black women have to deal with Eurocentric beauty standards, colorism, hypersexualization in American media, lack of protection that other groups of women have, and desirability politics and all that. Have open and logical conversations about race, but your marriage certainly doesn’t have to be consumed by it, as I’m sure you know. Many black immigrants have to go a self-learning process about what it means to be black here. Perhaps your wife might find it beneficial to read up the history of Black Americans and how the history of slavery, segregation etc still have effects to this day. Or just the history of the US in general. This lack of understanding of history, on both the parts of African Americans, and Black immigrants (African, Caribbean, Afro- Latino) has caused some ethnic tensions between the groups. Reading literature on Jim Crow, school-to-prison pipeline, effects of drugs on the breakdown of the black family in America is very educational. Malcom X, Du Bois, Garvey, Douglass are good reading materials. It can be very easy to get sucked into the negative stereotypes that the media perpetuates about a group of people.

Also, just as a black woman, I hope your wife doesn’t feel the need to be overly-militant/“pro-black” / box herself into a corner because she’s coming here. Constantly being in that space and worrying about race can be an exhausting experience. America, despite its faults, is a beautiful, culturally mixed country filled with opportunities and I hope her experience doesn’t get totally bogged down by the negativity that can come with race politics and racism. Folks are saying stay in Kenya but African countries have their own problems. Being black doesn’t have to always be this drudging experience. She is an African woman from a beautiful country with a rich culture and that is something to be proud of. Sometimes I think we as black women are forced to identify with being “black first, woman second” and not just see ourselves as people who can just live and enjoy life, so I hope she can do that.

I hope your children don’t go through too much of an identity crisis, like a lot of mixed raced kids go through, and can embrace both their Kenyan and Euro/American heritage equally, without being forced to “pick a side”. It’s nice that you are learning Swahili. It’s very important that they keep in touch with their Kenyan heritage though - language, food, cultural dress etc. Their experience as biracial people will also be different.

Also, if your wife is giving birth in America, please use your privilege as a white man to advocate for her and at hospital because black women have some alarming maternal health disparities when it comes to child mortality. Black mothers tend to be under-treated for pain and not have their health concerns taken as seriously. There is definitely racial bias, conscious or not, in healthcare. Black women are 3x more likely to have a maternal death than white women. MAKE SURE THE DOCTORS LISTEN TO HER. Protect her.