Interracial Dating

Parent Cafe
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<p>btm, </p>

<p>as an african american female, the issue with interracial dating for black people is not that they don’t want to disappear as a race (hell, black people come in all shades and it is sometimes hard to tell who’s black and who isn’t). many black people don’t mind interracial dating of a black woman and a different race man. but when black men marry “outside of their race,” it is seen as an attack on black women. it’s as if these few good black men (few because so many black many are on drugs or in jail) are saying that black women aren’t good enough. and the couple can expect to get looks and snide comments about the relationship.</p>

<p>i don’t necessarily support it, but that’s how it is.</p>

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<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with IR dating - however, having said that, IR dating based on stereotypes (or a belief that one race is superior or inferior) is another thing.</p>

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<p>Regardless of race, gender or religion, I just don’t see a Marine falling in love with a boat driver.</p>

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<p>Variations of this reasoning were basically used to justify segregation, slavery, and the Holocaust. I am not really concerned with preserving anything. Culture isn’t going anywhere if American picks up more bi-racial people. Look at how African American culture has endured and been handed down despite attempts to stamp it out. Because a kid is half white does not mean culture cannot be preserved. I know you don’t mean it to be but you have to understand this is basically an insult to everyone biracial that they have less legitimacy as a “culture.” My mother was raised Catholic, my father is Jewish. Spiritually, I am not religious. However culturally I follow many Jewish traditions, and also share experiences and traditions with my mother. People are very interested in this when it comes up but it is just how life is for us, it is not a big deal and it is not like by “mixing” my family is some cultural void that just started over and “destroyed” things. </p>

<p>I hope that doesn’t sound defensive because I don’t mean it to, I just mean to be realistic here, you must see how silly that sounds. Maybe it is more obvious to me. The funny thing is, when you take features as a whole, there is less variation AMONG races than there is with more specific characteristics WITHIN races. I have “full” black friends that are lighter skinned than “half” black friends, does culture change when the person has lighter skin? Heritage only GROWS with mixture, you have more to discover, it does not disappear. </p>

<p>But, basically since my existence has apparently already screwed ethnicity over, the rule wouldn’t apply to me anyway. I’ll marry whoever I want and not feel bad that I’m diluting the gene pool or whatever. There are many different cultures within American anyway - it is clear that geographic areas develop their own identities. Even in smaller units, culture at different schools, for example, is different with different traditions and such. So I am not worried about diversity going anywhere. There are still going to be different cultures and there will still be different communities and probably different races. I anticipate it will be some time before this changes (everyone I know now who’s not biracial would have to die, for one). The only reason this seems strange or scary to us is because race has a very palpable presence in our society and as adults we are aware of this. It is a fact we are used to. Segregation used to be a fact people are used to and they would have been astonished at the thought of the very world we live today, but you can’t stop time.</p>

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<p>I have a friend who is Hispanic- in our area- we have , many, many people that are some sort of brownish/olivish/tanish complexion.
4th generation Asian americans among others- lots of multiple blends in families.</p>

<p>She has zero accent- and really if you didn’t know her, you would see little that you could pin on “latina” culture.
However, she commented that on a recent trip to Puerto Rico, she was identified immediately as being Hispanic.</p>

<p>She found that very interesting and curious.</p>

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<p>I saw the title of this thread and had to peek at my calendar to double check what year this was. Wow, I gotta repair that flux capacitor and get back to the future.</p>

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<p>bullwinkle,that’s why I was so surprised when I got this call from my friend. It’s hard for me to understand.</p>

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As much as we hope that we live in an Utopian society where racism doesn’t exist, it just isn’t the case. Keep in mind that racism is still very prevalent, whether it be someone calling me racist slurs to my face or making assumptions about my life and abilities just because I’m black. America has changed a lot during the last hundred years, but it still hasn’t changed enough for this topic to be a non-issue.</p>

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<p>I think everyone should do what’s comfortable for them. I have been in an IR marriage for 25 yrs. It only works because my husband is a very accepting person (he is white, but he knows that he got a better deal :slight_smile: ), and I am less tolerant or accepting, my parents are even less so. When you get marry, you marry the person, his family, his religion, and all the good, bad, and ugly. Every race has its own culture, believes, custom, etc. Why is it so bad to admit that you could respect other race/culture, but you may not be able to live with it day to day. At the same time, it is perfectly acceptable for everyone in this country to say “I would never marry outside of my religion.” Why?</p>

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<p>Hotpiece, agreed. This insistence that we’re all peachy, race-blind, equal only serves to let us off the hook from confronting the issue.</p>

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<p>Agreed, Hotpiece.</p>

<p>Many years ago (ok, it was a bazillion, at least) when I was a teen, I asked my dad if it would be ok if I ever dated a black guy. To put it mildly, words like, “over my dead body”, “shotgun”, “disowned”, “never live in this house”, maybe “shotgun” again…well, you get the idea. Fast-forward to about 8 years ago, my dad developed a serious heart condition and went for several opinions. The upshot of it all was that consistently one doc was mentioned over and over as being the best in the area. So, you get where this is going, don’t you?! I so wished I had been a fly on the wall when he finally met this doc face to face and realized that his heart was in the hands of a black man.</p>

<p>And fast-forward a little more to present day, two of his granddaughters dated black guys, and it didn’t faze him in the least. So, in my family, that’s progress.</p>

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<p>hotpiece, thank you for your explanation. I did read about it somewhere, I’ve also read about single women in general having difficulties finding “good” educated man and “marrying outside of their socioeconomic level”. Indeed, in several interracial marriages I know the women are black and men are white, I never really thought about it, but why would I… BTW, both marriages are extremely fortunate and seem like a very good match. </p>

<p>Princedog, I think we are talking from different perspectives. First of all, it is more important for the minorities to preserve their heritage – predominant cultures will always prevail and adsorb the others. I have recently traveled to Australia and met some aborigines – their heritage is likely to disappear in just one or two generations. They have undergone a massive depopulation and extinction of some tribes as a result of forced assimilation in the late XIX century. Not so long ago some of aborigine children were forcefully taken from their families and institutionalized in order to modernize them and overcome their past They learnt how to count and use computers, but lost their families and are about to loose their ancestry… </p>

<p>Second, I agree that it’s silly to talk about gene pools, eugenics or skin color and I am certainly not concerned about it (I tried to make it as clear as I could), so I appreciate you not portraying me as a defender of slavery and the Holocaust. Traditions are not inherited – they are passed on from generation to generation. In fact, most heritages and cultures happily absorb people of any origin and I see this happening in many places. So, I am talking about traditions, not about their carriers. I think some of the previous posters on this thread expressed similar sentiments when they wished their grandchildren to share their religion, to raise the kids Jewish and so on… All I have to add to these is that this is much less likely to happen in mixed marriages and we have to be realistic about it. Per your own example, your kids will be different from you and from your parents – this is not going to make them worst or better, it will make them different. Things will get lost in translation. </p>

<p>Let me try to give you another perspective: my position seems insulting to the people of mixed ancestry, though I really did not mean to insult anyone. On the other hand, I’d find it insulting when an 88 year old Jewish man who has witnessed 2 million of jews disappear during the Holocaust a racist for trying to preserve whatever was left of his heritage. It does not seem that his grandchildren are merely familiar with any jewish traditions, which is a much more realistic outcome of mixed marriages – exactly my point. At the same time, I am sure that tanyanubin did not really mean any harm or insult to her FIL – she just has a different “culture” and different perspective. Similarly, CGM said that “politically would be a big deal breaker for (daughters), but as that often has to do with morals and ethics and how others or treated that is a very fair distinction to make- ie they both, as well as I do, have arguments with those that are politically to the right…” Did she really mean to say that all politically right people in the US are unethical and immoral? I don’t think so, I hope not, otherwise I’d be extremely offended. This is a pretty sensitive thread and most people are wise to stay away from it – it’s very easy to send a wrong message.</p>

<p>An awkward thing is that my position really endorses and protects diversity. I find it amazing when the posters specifically point out how diverse is their immediate surrounding – in the US it comes so naturally. My kids and my own friends and colleagues come in all sorts, shapes and colors. We travel together, they visit, come for a sleepover, most important we talk. I learn about their families, their homelands, their holidays, their recipes, wedding traditions, religions, travels… I don’t want to sound pathetic, but I enjoy to be surrounded by different cultures and I am convinced that they must be preserved – there is just too much history and wisdom in it. Similarly, I don’t want to travel to Europe one day to find out that it became one country with undefined polulation of “europeans” - I want France and Germany to remain just the way they are. Of course there are some mixed marriages, but ethnicities and traditions were mostly preserved. I don’t want my kids to learn about other cultures in the museum of natural history or from textbooks. I also want my kids to have their own story to share. Interestingly, I’ve just realized that while all of kids friends socialize together without any distinctions, they date (I mean serious dating, not just hanging out) exclusively with someone of their own heritage, and I am talking about a very big sample.</p>

<p>When I responded to the OP question about MY THOUGHTS, I was fully aware about the responses I’d get. Many people on this forum share their backgrounds and their views, and me… my life story is very different and I’ve never been politically correct :), but this does not preclude me from speaking up my mind. I do not want to convince anyone, but I am trying to show you the other side of the coin. So if you ever meet a person who is not in favor of mixed marriages don’t assume, don’t stereotype – he/she may not be a racist :)</p>

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<p>I did not say you were a racist and do not think that. I said variations of that reasoning have been used to justify those things, which is true, and scary. </p>

<p>We are not likely to protect the status quo. People have tried. The country still integrated. It still happened. France and Germany will change - just like they’ve changed from 50 years ago. Just like America has changed. </p>

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<p>This is exactly why I do not believe that mixed marriages will harm diversity. It doesn’t have to do with the amount of genetics in your blood. </p>

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<p>Maybe, maybe not. My (paternal) grandparents were raised by orthodox families but they rejected a lot of it. My mother went to Catholic schools exclusively growing up but hasn’t set foot in a church since. Our best friends are also a mixed marriage (albeit the non jew was disowned for marrying a Jewish man) and one of their kids is basically Orthodox. My rejection of the spiritual side of Judaism has basically to do with my pragmatism. I’m not Christian either by a long shot. My father was raised by two Jewish parents with orthodox grandparents and doesn’t think anything all that different from me, so IME life gets in the way anyway. Many Jewish people aren’t all that religious. BTW I am not “merely familiar” just because we don’t engage in religious activities (although I am free to if I wish), we celebrate much of the culture and observe all of the holidays. I think that undoubtedly my great grandparents would have wanted my father to be happy and he’s had a long successful marriage. </p>

<p>Also more like 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, not that the point is really all that important to the conversation. </p>

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<p>Personally I have no problem with the political right. I am extremely liberal. So of my closest friends (actually almost all of them, per the behavioral standard I adhere to) are conservative, and several are super religious. This is really not a problem for me, and I don’t exactly predict it would be a problem in a marriage, provided we both could put up with each other. It would be a problem if they disagreed on some absolutes I have about how my children would be raised (none of these have to do with religion or politics). But that’s kind of obvious. This would really be my major problem where I would need someone to mesh with me (mostly anyway, I’m not talking about small differences) in terms of marriage.</p>

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<p>I’m the child of a ‘mixed-marriage’ I guess, although I never think of it that way! My mother is from a very strict Orthodox Jewish family, my father is from a very lax Anglican family. My father’s family welcomed my mother with open arms; my mother’s family (barring her parents and sister) cut my mother off completely and when my grandfather passed away a few years ago threatened to boycott the funeral and stone-setting ceremony if my father was invited. My grandmother politely reminded them that her husband of 53 years had just died and if they couldn’t show respect to his son-in-law they weren’t welcome anyway. As far as I know, neither my mother nor her sister has had any contact with any of them since my grandmother passed away several months later. They refer to my brother and myself as ‘those poor orphans’. </p>

<p>So yes. I actually do self-identify as Jewish and so associate myself with them, despite their disgusting behaviour. But it’s a Judaism based on acceptance and tolerance, not the bigotted, self-righteous rubbish they spout. Their hatred towards my father and his family have turned my little brother away from Judaism entirely, as he belives that since their motives were religious, the religion itself must be tainted. I completely understand his point of view, even if I don’t share it. Not ever will I forget that they called us orphans.</p>

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<p>er…are you talking about white-black dating and marriage or interracial ones?
there are other minority groups besides black,like…Asian?</p>

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<p>I started this thread after I received a call from my friend who was worried about her husband’s reaction to their white daughter dating an African American guy. I don’t see myself as particularly liberal or conservative and I was shocked that someone living in the Midwest would react this way. (As others have said, I wondered what decade I was in.) </p>

<p>The conversation was started to talk about dating, but since dating can sometimes lead to marriage, the conversation took that turn.</p>

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<p>WashDad, obviously you didn’t realize that my marine dad married my “boat driver” (sailor) mom! LOL</p>

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<p>Mixed marriages are mixed for many reasons other than race, or sometimes even religion. Sometimes, it’s the everyday things that make or break a marriage: different ideas about home decor; food likes, how to discipline children (beyond which religion to raise children in), where to go on vacation, etc…
It’s true that traditions are not inherited; they are nurtured and passed on. By the same token, they do not inhere in specific individuals.<br>
Many years ago, we met a mixed couple. She was from Taiwan, and he was of Scot and Italian ancestry. The wedding reception was held in a Chinese restaurant–which was owned by the Scot/Italian parents of the groom. The bride did not know how to cook, so she turned to her Italian mother-in-law to learn.</p>

<p>The issue of aborigines losing their culture is very different from that of mixed marriages or dating. It is the result of deliberate government policy.
Those who have watched Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals will recall the scene where one guy berates the other for watching “Dancing with Wolves” 200 times. The other guy retorts: “How else would I know how to behave like a proper Indian?”</p>

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<p>Marite, thanks for those two stories.</p>

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<p>And now for a lighthearted interlude;</p>

<p>Lake Jr. will not be permitted to date or otherwise engage any alumni of Harvard, Yale or Princeton. And then we will have peace throughout the galaxy.</p>