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<p>I think it depends on the area. I don’t think bigotry is going away completely even in 1 million years.
I do feel sorry for people living in that part of the world(LI) and also for people who still worry if they have to belong to a certain country club. Thank goodness it’s not important around here is all I can say.</p>
<p>I live in NYC and hubby is from an extremely Italian American family. Some of the members are Italy-Italian, rather than Growing up Gotti-Like, but they are all uncomfortable to varying degrees with relatives marrying anyone other than Italian Catholic. My grandmother-in-law wore black and wailed at my wedding and things haven’t progressed that much since. The NY Times did an article a couple of years ago calling the Staten Island Expressway the “Mason Dixon Line” of New York because people of color aren’t really welcome on the South Shore. Cross burnings aren’t that far in the past.</p>
<p>I can’t stand people who say that people who are against interracial relationships are racists. That is just their preference in life, and if the person (interracial dater) doesn’t like that opinion, then they should just ignore that person. </p>
<p>As far as biracial kids being teased more and having a tough time in life, wah! Cry me a river, kids will tease kids as long as they are able to communicate with each other, that is just part of being a kid. If I said that we should feel sorry for white school kids who shoot up the place because they were teased, I would be laughed out of the building.</p>
<p>The final deal comes down to money. If you are from money, or relatively well off, you don’t want your son/daughter marrying down into poordom. Would you want to be hit up for money every six months because someone couldn’t pay their bills with a guitar? Didn’t think so! So don’t hate on people who don’t want their kids marrying outside of their race or class, they are just looking out for the best interests of the child.</p>
<p>I intentionally raised my daughter to be friends with people of many cultures and ethnicities because I was raised in a racist neighborhood with racist family values (traditional Italian Catholics who did not want me to date or marry anyone not Italian and Catholic).</p>
<p>Until recently, I always said that it did not matter whom my daughter dated and married. I only cared that the person is well-mannered, intelligent, has good values, and good goals.</p>
<p>However, I have come to realize that this was naive. </p>
<p>Anyone ever read “Not Without My Daughter”? I can honestly say that there are many attractive and intelligent Indian men. But I would not ever want my daughter to marry and have children with any man who is a citizen of a country where women are subservient and whose rights to children are nonexistent. This would seem to exclude a lot of cultures. It’s not even really enough to say “Make sure he’s from the U.S.”, because he might have family in an oppressive country with family members more than willing to help him in a child custody dispute.</p>
<p>I know of two Irish Catholic teachers who adopted a Korean girl as a baby. She likes white men. You know what her brother said to me recently? “Korean men are notorious for beating their women”. This guy is not a stupid man, or a bigot. He married a Thai woman. </p>
<p>Nobody will admit it but many steretypes are true. I am of Italian heritage and I would NEVER date an Italian man because every one that I’ve met is a macho, domineering, bigot, mama’s boy.</p>
<p>Where I live, it is possible to meet a decent black male, but I would not call it a frequent occurence. At the local university, there were few black graduate school and doctoral candidates. This is not about poverty because I was poor. I went to the same inner city public schools, I became a single mother on public assistance at one point. Yet I still managed to get a doctorate. The problem is the family that is brought along. I have this problem as well. I have a family that behaves inappropriately, who are an embarrasment to me professionally. My own history is embarrassing. The problem is that in my area, the decent black male still tends to have family that behave in ways that I would not welcome into my family.</p>
<p>Not to stray too far from the original topic, but when I hear folks say, “what about the children,” I shudder. I say the children will survive it. I think what people cannot cope with is that their belief system won’t survive it, be it classism, or prejudice. I don’t think that love can conquer all, but it should. Again, I say that we must not excuse away the fact that prejudice still exists in all cultures.</p>
<p>The one thing I always tell my girls is to never, ever marry a man with citizenship or close family in another country. My decades-long best friend married an attractive, successful man from Norway who is very fond of alcohol. Whenever they fight, he threatens to take the kids to Norway and stay there.</p>
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It is to most Jews, including to myself. I identify as a Jew the way my best friend identifies as a Puerto Rican.</p>
<p>I’m 18 year old. I’m pretty open-minded and liberal, but I fully intend on marrying a Jew. My heritage and cultural identity are too important to me for me to risk having children that would not be raised as Jews.</p>
<p>In response to post #36, I’d just like to point out that white people aren’t the only ones who oppose interracial–or even interethnic relationships. A LOT of Asian immigrant parents are VERY opposed to them, for example.</p>
<p>I know that some Asian immigrant parents really, resent the fact that most Caucasian/Asian marriages involve Caucasian males and Asian females. They–understandably–see this as creating difficulties for young Asian men looking for wives. </p>
<p>I also know a lot of African-American parents who are ADAMANT that their children marry within their race. They tend to feel especially strong about it when it is a college-educated male who marries outside his race, in part because the ratio of African-American women with college degrees to African-American males with college degrees is about 2 to 1. </p>
<p>All I’m trying to say is that it anyone who things that the only parents who oppose interracial marriages are Caucasians hasn’t spent much time around parents of other races.</p>
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<p>This quote from bazcat89 is important, I think, because it reflects a point of view that is not uncommon. </p>
<p>When I was in college, I knew several people who felt exactly the same way about their heritage. Some were Jewish; some were of other backgrounds. Several of them had made the decision that they not only would they never marry a person from a different background, they also would never date one.</p>
<p>That sounds bigoted, doesn’t it? But they didn’t mean it that way. Their rationale was that if you don’t date someone, you won’t have the opportunity to fall in love with them. And if you don’t fall in love with them, you will never face the situation of being in love with a person whom you are unwilling to marry. Thus, these people were restricting their dating choices in order to decrease the possibility of being in a very unhappy situation later.</p>
<p>I have a very dear Jewish friend who fell desperately in love with a Catholic man. They explored many different possibilities regarding how to merge their lives and beliefs and raise their children – and gave it up. She subsequently married a wonderful Jewish man – and they have been happily married for almost 30 years. </p>
<p>But I still remember what she said when she had broken up with the first, and was just starting to date the second. “He’s Jewish and that’s really important to me. I didn’t know before, but now I do.”</p>
<p>My mother always said “Never date a man you cannot marry.” I always thought she was talking about men already married – but there’s really a lot more to the theme.</p>
<p>Culture and ethnicity do matter. Yesterday I made lasagne for Christmas dinner, as I have for the past 20 years. You can never experience lasagne in the way an Italian makes it by going to the Olive Garden. I’ve had just about every frozen lasagne and the only one that comes close is Marie Callendar’s.
My daughter was asking me when the lasagne tradition started, and I told her that when I was growing up, my Italian grandmother always made homemade manicotti. Nobody ever sat me down and explained how to make the lasagne, but over the years of watching the pastas made, and shelving away little tips from my grandmother on the special ingredients that make it different, when the time came, I was just able to make it. Family recipes were extremely coveted and not even given out to the in-laws. For example, I was told that my family made fruitcake in a way that nobody else did in “the neighborhood”. When my grandmother died, I got the one and only thing that I wanted – her recipe box.</p>
<p>In thinking of this, I am reminded that my Italian heritage has been “diluted” in that my husband is not Italian at all. Neither of my children share my thick wavy hair or olive complexion. Some of the stereotypes are true. I do have a fiery temper and I probably do use my hands to gesture when I talk. I remember a time when I’d go to church and get my cheeks pinched by little old ladies speaking Italian. I know what the malocchio is. While my daughter looks a little like me, my son looks like I might have adopted him. My daughter has sat with me over the years and watched me make the lasagne, and I hope that my son will too. But they do not have my mannerisms nor any sense of culture, because they have been raised in the WASP suburbs. </p>
<p>While I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a traditional Italian man, I wouldn’t mind my son marrying an Italian woman because they are fiercely loyal and loving mothers. If I had to pick for my daughter, I’d like her to marry a Jewish man because they are raised to believe in equality of the sexes and they value education and intelligence. </p>
<p>However, my daughter is agnostic and very moral, but I am not sure that any Jewish male would want to date her because of her agnosticism. I am not really happy with the idea of her dating an atheist or agnostic though, because many of them have an “anything that pleases me” set of morals which would not be compatible with our moral beliefs.</p>
<p>(Throwing my hands up in the air in defeat).</p>
<p>cnp55 hit the nail on the head. Even if I fall in love with and marry a non-Jew, and even if he agrees to raise the children as Jews, then there will still be in-laws to deal with; people who will expect for the kids to come up for Christmas or whatever and who will be offended if they don’t. It’s a small sort of thing, but it’s also the kind of thing that could put a strain on the marriage, strain on relations with in-laws, and would (most likely) create general stress for all involved paries. I wouldn’t want to put anyone through that sort of thing.
(Yes, I have put a lot of thought into this).</p>
<p>On a side note…has anyone noticed that all the really hot chicks are a result of interracial marriages? Beyonce` (half black half white), Hallie Berry (same thing), and some other Asian chicks especially ones at my school, the hot ones are half white, half something else. For that reason, I plan on marrying a white girl!!</p>
<p>Haha ignore that, just a random male moment. On a more serious note, my mom (I am Indian, from Asia) has told me that I should marry an Indian girl because she doesn’t trust American girls much, which is a legitimate point seeing how many American girls just divorce right when the marriage hits a bump rather than stick it through. So, in that case, I can see her concern for me, she doesn’t want to see me in a divorce. With other Indian girls (a lot, but not all), I can say more confidently they will stick with me and not ditch me when a rough spot comes up in the marriage.</p>
<p>I think it would be best if people got their geography correct before making wild assumptions. The movie “Not without my Daughter” is not about India. India is in South Asia. The movie is about someone from the middle east/muslim country. The majority of the Indians are Hindus and not muslim. India is a secular democracy. In fact, it is the largest democracy in the world. There are laws in place to protect any citizen. I think it would be great if people look at a map or the globe before writing about things they seem to know nothing about. I am a educated Hindu woman married to another Hindu. I’ve had no problems with exercising my rights in any way. Once again, the movie “Not without my Daughter” is not about India at all. Get your geography right!</p>
<p>^yeah, I did not think it was India. Wikipedia says Iran
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<p>Bazcat, I appreciate your perspective on Jewish heritage and dating.</p>
<p>The only point I was intending to express when I posted that “Jewish is not a racial identiity” is that it’s a religion, a way of life, a heritage, a culture that is OPEN to include many races, not just hypothetically but in fact around the globe.</p>
<p>There are Asian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, African American Jews, Caucasian Jews. Some by birth, some by adoption. </p>
<p>That’s all the point I wanted to say.</p>
<p>If you are choosing to date within your faith heritage, I happen to agree with your decision for you. I wanted to distinguish that whole discussion of interfaith dating from interracial dating.</p>
<p>As you continue to date Jewish…you might travel to Israel and there fall in love with an Israeli whose family was airlifted to Israel from the Gondor region of Ethiopia in the early l980’s. Their race is African (and a better anthropological term might be Negroid if we’re talking about a racial technical category). Or, you might go to an American college and meet an Asian person who was adopted, raised and educated as a Jew by a Jewish family. That is a fully Jewish person whose race is Asian! Or you might meet someone who came from the Jews of Kaifeng, or the Jewish community in India…and these families go back hundreds of years.</p>
<p>All of those guys (datable for you:) are Jewish, but not white/Caucasian.</p>
<p>Does that make some sense? I hope so. Am trying to keep minds wide open.
Not all Jews are Caucasians, in other words.</p>
<p>Judaism has always been open to anyone by conversion. Similarly some Jews assimilate or convert away to other faiths decisively. There’s an open door that swings both ways. As such, Jews do not comprise a race of people. Nazis called Jews a “race” but that didn’t help us much.</p>
<p>In North America, several years ago, the estimate for new “Jews By Choice” was 10,000 per year. Some come from races other than Caucasian. There is no racial barrier whatsoever to becoming Jewish, as well as the historic communities mentioned above from around the globe dating back centuries in China, India and Africa.</p>
<p>I am multiracial. My mother is half Italian and half French. She identifies herself mostly Italian because she grew up there. My dad is African American but he also has Native American blood in him. I lived in Italy for 7 years, France for 2 and I have lived in the states for a total of 8 years and counting. Race is not important on my household…actually they encourage me to date outside my race.</p>
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<p>It is racist. It’s discriminating (choosing) against a group of people based on a racial/cultural classification. You may not see it as “bad” but that doesn’t mean it’s not racist. The label “racist” gets a knee jerk “bad” reaction, but it really just means treating someone differently based on their race. That’s what you’re doing here. And ignoring it doesn’t make it not racist.</p>
<p>There are some very strict laws in India for wife beaters, dowry demanding grooms and so on. It has gotten to the point where unscrupulous women are abusing these laws against men who reject them and as tit for tat. Wife beaters and bad men exist in every culture. What is important are laws that should be in place to protect such women and women should have the courage to enforce them. India has tons of laws in place. Sorry, to digress from the topic but I wanted to correct a misconception here.</p>
<p>You are absolutely right; those scheming, knavish foreigners just can not be trusted. Maybe we should build a fence around the U.S. (apart from the South of course) to keep them in.</p>