Interracial dating and marriage in professional sports is nothing new, but Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs star QB Patrick Mahomes, has exposed a rift that might exist in these relationships behind closed doors.
Last week, Brittany liked a post by the former president and the internet exploded.
Support and criticism erupted quickly, after which she posted a response to the matter.
“I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult you have to have some deep rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood,” she wrote. “There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.”
The situation immediately dragged her husband, her family and her friend, Taylor Swift, into the mix, which in turn brought sports and the Swifties into the fiercely divided and polarized American political arena.
But the incident also touched on an issue that isn’t traditionally spotlighted in interracial marriages.
What happens when political views clash?
No one knows what goes on in their houses, and most don’t even care. But Brittany’s click of a button has changed that.
Patrick Mahomes comes from an interracial marriage that bloomed before the rise of social media, so while we don’t know what his parents went through, we can assume, based on history, that it wasn’t always easy.
But with the birth of social media, where lives are on full display for all to see and judge, Brittany’s action has raised many questions.
Will this cause a rift between the couple?
Does Patrick Mahomes support the former president?
Does Brittany have hidden racist tendencies?
Is Patrick actually in the “you’re not like those Blacks” category?
Regardless of the answers, this social media dilemma adds another issue to the list of challenges interracial couples already face and have always faced.
You can go back to heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, whose love for a white woman, second wife Lucille Cameron, got him convicted in 1913 for violating the Mann Act for transporting Cameron across state lines for “immoral purposes.” He was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison but was released on bond, after which he secretly fled to Canada and eventually to Europe.
If Cameron had had the right to vote at the time, what would her political beliefs have been?
Many Black professional athletes are seen with white women nowadays, so much so that it’s become part of many jokes.
When Tyrese Haliburton arrived at Team USA’s gold medal-winning afterparty with a vanload of white women, one X user commented that he “brought snow to the party.”
While it’s funny to some, others become uncomfortable, frustrated, or angry at seeing Black male athletes with white women, especially when they leave their spouses for white women. Look at Michael Jordan, The Rock and Tiki Barber for reference.
Many aspects are questioned in interracial relationships, but politics had never really publically inserted itself into the equation.
Because of Brittany Mahomes, now it has.
Many are wondering how a white woman who is married to a Black man can support the former president.
To be fair, Brittany did appear to call out the former president back in a 2017 tweet after he went after Colin Kaepernick and players kneeling over police brutality.
“Trump, you have now offended waaaay too many people,” she tweeted at the time.
It’s unclear what Brittany meant in her response to the current situation.
Was she referring to haters of the former president or those who now have hate for her? Was she saying that everyone should just get over things they’ve suffered through like racism? Was she being condescending and pointing out that they’re successful (her and Patrick) so stop hating on their lifestyle?
Or was she saying all of these things?
It’s still uncertain, but her decision now has many questioning her husband’s politics as well, especially after seeing that he had thanked the Secret Service after the assassination attempt on the former president (note- Patrick hasn’t endorsed either presidential candidate).
Brittany has since removed the like from her Instagram account and doesn’t, according to the NY Post as of Friday, follow the former president.
But through her single action, she has waded into the political spectrum and now both she and her marriage are under a racial and political microscope because of it. It’s another situation that exemplifies the intimate relationship sports has always had with society, especially race and politics.
And it shows why you can’t just “stick to sports.”
