A white woman reports living seasonally on a Midwestern family farm with her Black husband to maintain the property and save money. The husband, a city-raised man who dislikes the rural area, referred to the modest farmhouse as "the plantation," which the wife experienced as a deeply racialized and accusatory remark after more than thirty years of marriage. The husband claimed he meant the word literally and professed ignorance of its slavery association; the wife doubts that explanation. An advised response characterizes her enraged reaction as an overreaction while recommending immediate divorce, arguing the reaction reveals deeper incompatibility and racial intolerance.
For the past couple of years, we've been living on the family farm in the Midwest for a few months a year, to make sure the pipes don't freeze, keep the vermin down, etc., before another family comes for the summer. My husband isn't crazy about this arrangement (he's a city kid, and the farm is in a rural, red area), but loves the family, and realizes we save hella money this way. For the record, we are both progressive politically, feminist, anti-racist, etc.
We have been married for over 30 years. I honestly thought I loved and could trust him. But this comment enraged me and felt like a nasty, deep playing of the race card in some primal, unforgivable way. I felt accused, disrespected, and smeared. When called on it, he protested first that he genuinely thought the farmhouse was a plantation (because it's "so big," which it is not) and then that he had no idea the word "plantation" is associated with slavery.
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