<p>“We are all of one race”</p>
<p>and I always finish last.</p>
<p>Princedog, I was surprised that my friend thinks her husband would have a problem with interracial dating, so my question is how would you react if it were your child. I don’t know her husband well, but his attitude is not what I would have expected from him.</p>
<p>Like many of you, my husband and I are more concerned with how someone treats our daughter. (Opie, I loved your comment! I’ll have to share that one with my husband.) It makes me sad that someone today still thinks that way. I understand that geographically there might be some issues (still sad), but this family is from the Midwest.</p>
<p>Racism, while not as overt as pre-civil rights, is still rampant in the US. Even those who <em>claim</em> they would have no problem if their kid brought home a boy/girlfriend of another race would likely have more problem with the situation if it weren’t just hypothetical.</p>
<p>Did I wake up in the 1950’s this morning?</p>
<p>At least in the African-American community, white women dating black men can be an issue for black women, especially among college students and graduates, because of the comparative paucity of college-educated black men vs. black women, and the comparatve paucity of white men dating black women. And, many years ago, one of my college roommates, a white man, came under a lot of pressure from black fellow students for dating a black woman (to whom he has been married for 25 years now). I’m talking scary, physical-intimidation pressure – it took a lot of guts for him to stay with the relationship for the first year.</p>
<p>JHS, was I surprised when I became aware of that issue. I took my daughter’s prom pics over to her brother’s apartment to share with him. He had a few friends over and they looked at the pics, too. One of the girls, who is black, looked at me and said, “So your daughter likes black guys?” To tell you the truth, I about fell over. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I simply said, “No, she doesn’t like black guys. She doesn’t like white guys, either. She likes this guy right here in the picture.”</p>
<p>My parents would care more about religion or lack there of.</p>
<p>The only problem I see is if one member of the couple is very strongly identified with his or her particular cultural/ethnic/racial/religious group and the other is an outsider to that group. That can cause some friction, especially with the family with the strong ethnic identification.</p>
<p>If they do get married, suggest that they come to live in the Washington, DC suburbs. There are LOTS of families here with mixed heritages of all sorts. The kids will not be “different.” Sometimes it seems as though most of my kids’ friends are half one thing and half another thing.</p>
<p>citygirlsmom I totally relate to your description of your D and her friends. I call my Ds friends the United Nations. There’s a smattering of everyone, and everything. She has been raised to think with her head and her heart, and she does both very well.</p>
<p>There was a thread (kind of) about this in the College Life forum a couple of days ago which eventually devolved into personal threats and namecalling, but here’s my .02 -</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with dating people of a different race, seeing as how races don’t even really exist, and we’re all pink inside. It is NOT racist if you’ve never been attracted to a person of a different race. It IS racist if you have been, but dismiss them based on their race.</p>
<p>And in terms of being racist - we all are, at least a little bit. (The Avenue Q song is playing through my head.) The only real question is will we confront and accept/possibly try to change that racism within ourselves, or deny it?</p>
<p>luckycharmed, I hope this thread does not develop into personal threats or name calling. That was not my purpose. I was just surprised at my friend’s husband’s feelings and wondered what other people thought. Maybe I was hoping to see that his attitude was atypical because it really unsettled me.</p>
<p>I agree completely with what luckycharmed said</p>
<p>Dating people of different races? What will think of next - dating folks of the same gender? Multiple marriages? Marriages with animals? </p>
<p>It’s a slippery slope. :eek:</p>
<p>Two of my 4 Ds have dated boys of different races. It was never an issue in our household, maybe because they’ve had friends of so many different races/ethnicities/backgrounds their entire lives. We have two family members who have spouses of a different race, in addition to three longterm family friends, so they have certainly been exposed to it since a very young age. </p>
<p>As others have said, how the boys treat my Ds is the foremost issue, not the color of the boys’ skin. Interestingly, the most horrible b/f experiences have been with Caucasian boys.</p>
<p>I’m in a mixed marriage myself. TheMom is a Cardinals fan and I’m a Cubs fan. D shows occasional signs of being a Red Sox fan, which leaves both of us shaking our heads. So there you have it.</p>
<p>The Dad…lol
Recently D moved to Boston and is now a die-hard Sox fan and it is causing us to bleed Dodger blue here…and Angel red!</p>
<p>H is a republican and i am a democrat. Is that a mixed marriage?</p>
<p>Back to the original question: As long as they will raise the kids Jewish, I am ok with any other race :)</p>
<p>Seems to me that my parents generation – a mixed marriage was the Irish Catholics intermarrying with the Italian Catholics or the Polish Catholics.</p>
<p>My generation – current parents – a mixed marriage was the Catholic child marrying a protestatant or a jew.</p>
<p>Now … the mixed marriage is black-white. Or Asian-White. Etc.</p>
<p>What’s next?</p>
<p>Please God, don’t let my boys marry Yankees fans. Amen.</p>
<p>This is how you know that the U.S. has become multiracial:</p>
<p>My daughter was sitting around with a bunch of her school friends one day, most of whom happened to be African American, Hispanic, or Indian, and one of them suddenly noticed that my daughter was the only one in the group who didn’t have a color line on her hands. Unlike the situation with most of the human species, the skin on the palms of my daughter’s hands is the same color as the skin on the rest of her.</p>
<p>The group decided that this was really weird. </p>
<p>This is what happens at high schools where white kids are in the minority.</p>
<p>Many New York suburbs are fine too. I know lots and lots of interracial couples. In fact I think the sooner we mix it up and everyone becomes toffee colored the better off we’ll be. All are stupid AA debates won’t matter anymore.</p>