The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an interesting article on interracial dating that made me feel good: finally issues like this are being discussed beyond Oprah and the latest issue of Ebony. Atlanta is a mostly-black city, but still, it's nice to see issues like this being disussed in the general press. I hate the way we often feel we have to tiptoe around race issues.
I've dated black women, including one relationship that was...
...pretty intense for a few months. We got dirty looks fairly regularly, but it was almost always from black people, most especially from black women. Having lived and worked in predominantly black communities, I kind of knew to expect that, although it was still disappointing. I grew up believing we're supposed to look beyond trivial things like skin color, and as an adult it came as a shock to realize that countless people in the black community reject that notion.
Remember all the hubbub about Bob Jones University back during the campaign of 2000? One of the little things that rarely got mentioned was that Bob Jones University does have black students. Their famous ban on interracial dating was one thing that made the place attractive to some black parents who were looking for a Christian college for their kids. I guess pointing that out wouldn't have played so well with the "Bush snuggles with bigots/Hero McCain trying to rescue his evil party" line that the press was so fond of back then. Nor would pointing out that black Republican Alan Keyes also spoke at Bob Jones, even though he's both Catholic and married to a white woman.
But anyway, the article is pretty interesting. One thing they missed in all their talk about how black women have trouble finding mates: the number of black men who like to date white women would also contribute to the "problem." I've known a lot of black men who date or are married to white women. Including some of my in-laws.
To me this shouldn't be a problem, since color shouldn't matter so much. But to the extent that it's perceived as a problem, I guess we should note that one of the reasons young black women have a hard time finding a black man is that a lot of them are already pairing with white girls.
Anyway, I sure wish people didn't care so much about these things. If my wife were black, I still would have married her. Although come to think of it, that means I'd have missed out on a lot of good Polish cooking, so maybe I'd better rethink that. Nah, I guess I'd still keep her if she could make grits and collards. As a Southern Boy I can do soul food too. ;-)
Now the next taboo: why do we automatically consider a kid with one black parent to be black? Why are we so obsessed with wanting to label kids that way? Ah, but maybe we'd better not open up that can of worms just yet.
At the risk of replaying arguments raised here before, allow me to humbly submit the review below which raises an interesting question: Is race over?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0207.sleeper.html
If anyone cares, my answer is "no". Race is not over, but considering the above and with the shifting political demographics outlined in the Rosa Parks Laments posting below, I think that by the time my 6 year old is ready to step into the voting booth it very well may be. As a middle class refugee from Detroit, I hope so.
I have a few quibbles with Sleeper's article. First off, we really need to do something about this business of Bill Clinton executing a "retarded" man during the 1992 campaign. This man was not "retarded," he was brain-damaged. And he was brain-damaged because, after he shot a doorman over an argument over two dollars (a cover charge, I believe), he shot the police officer investigating the murder, then shot himself in the head. Whatever your feelings on the death penalty, it's misleading to portray the whole thing as some poor mentally retarded man who may not have known what he was doing when he blew away his victims.
Similarly, if George H.W. Bush's 1988 "Willy Horton tactics" are to be "forever remembered" in history books, let us remind ourselves of a few things:
1) It was Al Gore Jr. who first used William Horton against Mike Dukakis.
2) Black or white, Willie Horton was/is genuinely a monster.
Some mailings in some areas of the country from the Bush campaign used Horton's picture in conjunction with descriptions of his brutal crimes, in discussion of Bush's opponent's record on crime and his defense of the prison furlough program that allowed Horton, already a convicted murderer, to get out of jail and violent assault and batter and innocent couple, raping one of them in front of her bound boyfriend.
Later on, on his deathbed, campaign manager Lee Atwater tearfully confessed that they had played racial politics with those mailings. He begged forgiveness from his many friends in the black community. Which he really did have, by the way, having spent much of his life working as an R&B musician and working on charitable projects in the inner cities. He cut a (seriously) very good classic R&B album with B.B. King, Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Billy Preston, and other friends.
Bush-bashers love to point to that tearful deathbed confession by Atwater as proof of the racist nature of the Bush operation. They rarely point out that Atwater was just days away from dying from a brain tumor, which may say something about his state of mind. They never point out just how limited use of Horton's image really was, and only get snotty when you try to get them to acknowledge the possibility that a candidate does not see every single mailing that his campaign uses.
They also rarely acknowledge that the facts about William Horton were never in dispute: he was a brutal convicted murderer who got out on a prison furlough program in Massachussetts and proceeded to terrorize an innocent couple, twice raping the woman in front of her boyfriend, who he savagely beat and pistol-whipped.
They even more rarely acknowledge that Al Gore used Horton against Dukakis in the primaries. That didn't make national news, but when the Bushies picked up where Gore left off, Democrats called it racism. The broadcast news reported on the accusations against the Bushies with a straight face, regularly showing pictures of Horton in the nightly news.
I don't think that any of this grants George H.W. Bush or the late Lee Atwater absolution, by the way. But it would be nice if we could see a little less glibness about who turned Horton into a national issue, or how exactly he became one.
On the other hand, Sleeper is honest enough to note that John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter were men with far less than sterling records on race issues, while Nixon's was generally excellent. He deserves high praise for that honesty.
He's far too glib on Reagan's record, but I suppose that, as a self-described "social democrat" he probably couldn't help himself. Ditto on his reflexive-seeming need to portray Democrats as being about policy proposals but Republicans only about emotional issues like the ten commandments and the rebel flag. But maybe I quibble too much.
I do think race issues will change over the next two generations. Let's hope so. The 2000 campaign was by far the ugliest I can ever remember. I hope it marks the final high-water mark for that kind of hateful racial vitriol. (Or should I say low-water mark?)
"If my wife were black, I still would have married her. Although come to think of it, that means I'd have missed out on a lot of good Polish cooking, so maybe I'd better rethink that. Nah, I guess I'd still keep her if she could make grits and collards. As a Southern Boy I can do soul food too. ;-) "
There are quite a few black people in Poland, so, you could have your kielbasa and eat it too!
1) alan keyes is married to an indian (south asian) woman-not a white women. as a south asian-i object any of us being lumped with you pale-skins :)
2) race matters. culture matters. the two are usually considered to have some relationship-ergo adoptions of black children by whites is considered cultural genocide by some.
3) the rule of hypodescent was instituted by whites erect a barrier against mixing black blood in the white community. blacks have picked up on it for several reasons.
* it keeps their numbers up-note how tiger woods is 1/4 black-but blacks get enraged when he asserts his mixed-race heritage (he is 1/2 asian and a believing buddhist)
* the black elite is disproportionately "mulatto"-w.e.b. dubois' (who was a mulatto) talented tenth. elijah muhammed liked the idea of maclom X as a leader partly because of his light skin and reddish hair. blacks are well aware of their caste system-words like red-bone and high-yellow as well as skillet blonde have a resonance with them. "If you're light, you're alright, if you're brown stay around, if you're black stay back...." light-skinned blacks are well aware of their advantage socially-but they respresent themselves as just blacks to society at large because they serve as the mediating caste. the "good blacks"
Let's cast aside prejudiced talks about racial differences in intelligence and temperament, but instead consider the following disparity:
Many black men are attracted to white women. But I haven't found many white men attracted to black women.
So, which race is genetically more attractive?
If you want to know the real reason behind all this racism just go to www.onehumanrace.com
I am a white woman who is deeply in love with her black fiance', who is the father of my two adorable boys. I just want to say that the only true Americans are the Native Americans and the rest of us are all from different cultures that came over here from other countries. I see alot of interracial couples here and no one says a word except one very vocal person and his followers (M. Hale). Recently we had a unity gathering that was for all races and abilities and he and his group stood outside and protested it. Then one by one, people gathered on the otherside of the street and protested them. It was a beautiful thing to see the people of our town standing up this this hatred.
I would say that it matters more how the two people of the different races act rather than what color their skin is. When it come to marriage there are alot of things you have to think about especially if you are planning on having children. Depending on what area you live in bi-raced children might be treated differently.
i think that interracial dating is cool. and it really bother's me that we as a people ,after all this time has'nt come to realize that people are people are people and that we all came from the same blood.
Yes mixing of the races is such a wonderful thing. We have dumbed down our generation with stupid mixed children. Black people have significantly smaller brains then whites. We will be a third world country by the year 2050! That is such wonderful news. We are living in a pipe dream to think we can have a utopian society. That is why God separated the races to begin with. These issues are always brought up by stupid naive white people. Go live in any predominatly black area in the WORLD and you will see poverty, rape, theft and murder. What a wonderful culture. Blacks will bring this country down into the gutter. Prove where I am wrong in my analysis. But I am sure the intellectual midgets will call me a racist, or bigot because they cannot win the argument. The United states has opened pandoras box, and now we will all suffer. There are reasons why our ancestors didn't want this. Wake up, we are losing our country and political correctness has proselytized everybody.
But I haven't found many white men attracted to black women.
I have. :-)
I am tired of people who want to date only their own race being considered bigots and prejudiced. I am white, and I only date white men. I just prefer them.
I know that looks should not matter, but culture does matter. I know that people of different cultures can get married and be happy, but sometimes we can be too different to live together peacefully.
I would be very angry if I refused a black man and he called me a racist just because I did not want to go out with him. I am not a racist, but I am all for letting people have their own preferences.
Hmmm.. I have found MANY white men attracted to black women...all over the world..not just in the US..I would venture to say MORE outside of the US...And, people can come from the same race and different cultures as well as different cultures and the SAME race.
To christine, I would not call you racist becuse you perfer to date guys of only your race...and no one would be STUPID enough to think that calling you a racist will make you date them out of guilt..so I perfer to date guys atleast 5 inches taller than me..am I 'heightist'? no..its just my choice. But, I would call you racist or closeminded if you saw me and my boyfriend (I'm a black Jamaican and he's a white Itlian) and you objected to our choice to be together.
SO, a bystander I say you are not looking in the right place...and did you consier that maybe these black women just don't perfer white guys, maybe they don't find them attractive...your statement proves nothing : ) And, there is no such thing as being 'genetically more attaractive'. Less than 100 years ago a round plump woman was the height of beauty. Now a tall thin one is. Could our genes have changed so fast? No..but opinion does change quickly. Beauty is a social constuct. Take a white woman and bring her to a place where they have never seen white people and they will either be scared or call her a monster...Is she genetically inferior to them?
As for culture etc. being a factor. I agree completely. I could never date or marry a republican, no matter what color..I think he'd be upset at my 'Impeach Bush' T-shirt.
As for blacks being less intelligent than whites, of course I dissagree..and I would call you a racist if you truly believe this. God never seperated the races...this is a laughable lie. People have always migrated and had children with the people who happen to be around. Even if you are white, if you go back far enough there will be two people in your lineage that were not fron the same 'tribe' or 'group'. Not long ago Irish and English were considered RACES and not nationalities. Are all those people who have one Irish parent and one English parent stupid??? No. Race is a concept we change and redefine to suit our personal needs. If you need an 'other' to be against, someone percieved to be a different race is a perfect target. Intrestingly enough, while I was in Itlay to meet my BF's parents, there was a report of some German skinheads who tired to beat a guy to death. They thought that becuse of his brown skin and curly black hair that he was an african immagrant! But, he was just an Itlain guy with a nice tan..how mistaken they were!
Next John will tell me that becuse women have smaller brains than men, heterosexual marriges should be banned and that when you tan your brain gets smaller. (OH, and brian size is pretty constant across all races and sexes too.)
Hey John, are there tons of black people in South America, the Middle east or Eastern europe? How about the inlands of China and other asian countries and India too? Well, there must be since they have areas of EXTREAM poverty..just like many places in the south and midwest of this dear country as well as cities like NYC also...Poverty (being in 3rd world conditions) is not caused by race, its caused by money. Funny, many of the richest countries in the world are those that made their riches from the soil and labor of others...who happened to be black, brown, red, and yellow. But, atleast in ancient Greece they saw that 'white' people make great slaves too!
Oh My! How close minded some people can be! I a date black men and I am white. I dont care what society thinks. I have had the stares, the glares, and the comments from more people than I care to think about, but in my life only I can make myself happy, therefor, please dont judge me or try to change my mind. If one does not agree with a lifestyle, then be thankful it is not themselves living it!
This subject makes my eyes bug out.
I wonder if people in an interracial relationship
have any racial pride at all? Is it not genocide,
to mix races ? No matter what race you are, be aware that mixed raced children will wind up feeling like outsiders, I know several. Those
who don't know themselves, or their heritage are
easily controlled.
I'm against interracial dating. I find personally it gruesome and appauling to betray your race and culture for someone elses. BUT I agree people should have the right to choose who they want to date regardless of race. I'm a White male and would only date white females. You may call me racist, close minded, etc...I could care less, I'm proud of my culture and heritage and want to preserve it
tremendous site
"I wonder if people in an interracial relationship
have any racial pride at all?"
Strom Thurmond anyone?
I find personally it gruesome and appauling to betray your race and culture for someone elses.
Race does not = culture. White race is an American construct, because most white Americans betrayed their culture and ancestry, ie., Norwegian, Swede, Anglo-Saxon, Italian, etc to become generic white Americans. The concept of race is a fraud, but the concept of culture is genuine.