And, of course, I agree with this. My point is, that the intention is far more important than imperfect wording. Yes, it's bad form to compare your wife to other women. But it's also bad form not to accept somebody's imperfect attempt to be loving with grace. Especially if you're still bringing it up years later.

But hey, that's really none of my business. I only mentioned it because you brought up the story. The wider point is that your story is an almost perfect metaphor for this discussion about race.

Your husband looks into your eyes and says two things. "You may not be the most beautiful woman in the world" and "I love you." And your attention seems to be almost entirely on the clumsiness of the former instead of on the beauty of the latter.

Some black people still face hardships and injustice in 2023, but as a whole, we've also overcome a great deal of struggle and are achieving great things despite the obstacles we face. The collective attention of society is almost entirely on the former. To such an extent that I believe it's disabling. So my article was an attempt to highlight this problem. And also to point out the beauty of the latter.

As I predicted, and as you’re ably demonstrating, some people, black and white, feel intense resistance to recognising the latter. And I think it’s worth looking inwards as to what might be causing that reaction.

As for boasts, I'm not talking about your professional achievements. I'm very happy for you and your success. Although yes, it's not really relevant to this discussion so one might reasonably wonder why you're talking about it.

I'm just finding it extraordinarily difficult to believe that you have a nearly 200 IQ (this would place you at around 6th in the entire world). Or that, as you said in a reply to somebody else, that your son was reading at a college freshman level while in kindergarten and was told more than 3500 times (seriously?? Did you count?!) that he would only get into college because he's black. Or that every white person who doesn't know him demands to "see his test scores."

Again, I don't know you. Maybe these one in a billion rare things are true in your case, but I have to admit I'm skeptical. This kind of hyperbolic narrative of mistreatment is another good example of the problem I'm talking about.