I think we all understand that there can be certain risks dating and marrying outside of your race. If you’re a Black person, man or woman, there is the likelihood that your spouse’s family, regardless of race will not accept you. Hopefully though, you have a spouse who will come to your defense and prevent their family from making your life a living hell.
Sadly, that hasn’t been the case for one woman. Her in-laws have become such terrors that they’ve been in and out of court trying to determine if she, the Black woman, poses a threat to her husband’s White family members.
The legal costs associated with all the drama have depleted the couple’s financial resources to the point where Vandreena Cotton-Meeks, the wife, has launched a Go Fund Me petitioning people who may see her story to donate.
In the description for the page, she explained all of the things her husband’s family has done to tear them apart.
* Joel & I are an interracial couple. After 8 years of dating (and an extremely negative reaction from his parents), we got married in late 2016.

* Approximately 6 weeks into our marriage, Joel’s brother & his brother’s wife accused me of sending death threats (but had zero evidence or forensics). Their reasoning for blaming me was because we “don’t get along”.

* Between January 2017 – April 2017, my brother-in-law & his wife called my job, stalked me at work and complained about me to my manager (whom they didn’t know).
* A day shy of our 5 month wedding anniversary, my in-laws had me arrested for ‘sending terroristic threats’. During this, we learned that they did not have evidence and the police went through my phone without a warrant. My bond at the time: $50,000. I ended up missing a day of work, but was released after 21 hours.

* A month later, I was served and had to appear in DeKalb County court for the same charges, but as a TPO. The judge in that case ruled in my sister-in-law’s favor “to help her sleep at night” and my husband & I were barred from having direct & indirect contact with his family, extended family & their friends – or being within 100 yards of them – for one year.
* Just before the scheduled date of the trial (October 2017), I was fired from my day job. When I asked the manager why, he stated I was no longer a good fit “after speaking with your in-laws”. Yes, my in-laws complained to my manager enough to get me fired from my well-paying job (that I had a stellar review for one week prior).
* Since I am a caregiver for my mom – and I know how the justice system can behave towards people of color – I made the decision with my lawyer to forego the trial and take several months of anger management instead. This allowed me to avoid one year in prison if I would have lost the case.
* Around January 2018, my lawyer received notice that I was being charged with contempt in Fulton & DeKalb counties. If I were found guilty of contempt, I would be listed as a felon & would be required to serve one year in prison. The reason for the contempt allegation: my in-laws claimed I ‘liked’ an Instagram post of theirs. After going to a bench trial in Fulton, the judge found I was NOT in contempt and informed my in-laws they could not send me to jail because they didn’t like me (especially since they never presented evidence or forensics that I had done anything they alleged).

* In February 2018, we had the contempt hearing in DeKalb and the judge agreed with Fulton that there was no contempt. However, when we met back in his courtroom in May 2018, the judge reiterated the ‘help her sleep at night’ narrative and agreed to extended the aforementioned TPO through May 2021.
* In early November 2018 – after Joel & I captured a promo video for a state park – we saw his mother, father, brother, sister-in-law & his parents’ best friends at a restaurant in Helen, GA. Luckily, we saw them immediately after we arrived at the hostess stand and left to eat at another restaurant, which we have on video from the restaurant security camera, (but not before his brother chased after us with his phone to take pictures, told the staff not to serve us and asked an employee to follow us; he talked very loudly).
* In December 2018 – we started receiving harassment in 2 ways: police & process servers were coming to our house daily (and trying to tamper with our security cameras) and we were receiving fake, negative reviews on WeddingWire for our photography business (which is one of our only sources of income). Unfortunately, gigs aren’t guaranteed & a negative review could ruin our business. Luckily, WW removed the reviews, but we were also receiving harassing comments on our blog (which we moderate, so the public never saw them).
* In January 2019, the harassment continued – this time with a phone number registered to his mother’s best friend. The messages started with “don’t have a baby”, “we’ll ruin you & your livelihood” and statements along those lines, but they soon turned to us receiving pictures of a shot up bulls-eye and promises to “hang [me] from a tree” (i.e. lynching). We never engaged with these messages and they always came from his mother’s best friend (even though she did CC his family on a few messages as well, but her tone was 180 degrees on those).
* And that brings us to today when I received a letter for a felony indictment in the mail. From what I’ve read & been told, that means they went to a prosecutor, which had a grand jury hearing in order to file these felony charges against me. The charges: terroristic threats & stalking. The dates these allegedly took place: the same dates they sent us death threats.”
When our sister site Bossip wrote about this story, they were disheartened by what appeared to be a complete lack of effort on Vandreena’s husband’s part. Afterward, she updated the information on the webpage to include Joel’s efforts to keep his family in line.
Aside from voluntarily having zero contact with his family for over 2 years (including missing his grandmother’s funeral), when the initial arrest happened, my husband paid my bail ($5,500 of the $50,000 bond; you pay a percentage to the bail bondsman). Additionally, he has assisted me in taking care of my sick parents (preparing meals, buying medical supplies, driving to doctor’s appointments, etc). He has also been by my side at every court proceeding and been involved with every attorney meeting (even if he was at work & had to participate by phone). Also, he has kept working to keep a roof over our head. Joel has also been a witness at every hearing and helped compile evidence (he, too, has received threatening communications). For those that say he should have confronted them years ago, he did confront them about their racism & actions on multiple occasions, but it feel on deaf ears. We decided not to let their hatred affect our relationship. As for confronting them after April 2017, that would be considered “indirect contact”, so I would go to prison for a year.
So, before you assume that he is sitting idly by and “letting” this happen to me, know that Joel has sacrificed so much to help me prove my innocence and vows to stay by my side through it all (and beyond).
If it’s good enough for her, then alright. God bless them both. But it sounds like what they need to do is leave the city where his family lives altogether. Because if they do stay together and even have children, things will likely only get worse.
If you’d like to donate to Vandreena and Joel, you can do here.
