Interracial Relationships

A friend requested my next blog be on this topic, so I felt honored that he wanted to hear my opinion.  The funny thing is over the years my opinion has changed dramatically.

Prior Thought Process

I used to be very militant and against the whole mixing of races concept.  I guess growing up in Massachusetts (in my opinion a very racist place) defined my militant persona over the years.  It was covert racism but very much present.  Here’s where it all began.  I was bussed to a white suburban neighborhood for school by the METCO program (Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity).   In the sixth grade I first began to experience the idea that I was not an equal when a white student told me that all black people lived in the projects.  I argued that I was black and I lived in a house and not the projects.  I was allowed to go to my white peer’s homes to hang out; however they were never allowed to come to mine for fear of the dangers of urban living.  In college during a lecture on slander, as an example my professor called me a nigger bitch which she felt wasn’t offensive.

With all these experiences under my belt I had to come up with a method of combating the racist world, so I took pride in battling them with intelligence and research.  I soon found out that you can’t fight ignorance with ignorance.  Through my research I developed a sense of pride in being a Black American and what we have done for this country.  I have never allowed the harsh reality of the racist world we live in to hold me back in any way.

It’s almost funny now that I live in Atlanta when I meet other minorities that have visited the Boston area.  A few people have mentioned the racism they experienced during their brief visits to the Boston area.

My thoughts opposing the mixing of races started very young.  To fully comprehend my rationale, I will have to begin by explaining my cultural background.  I’ve always hated when black people recited a laundry list of all their nationalities.  I believed it was a way of distinguishing themselves from being what the world saw them as, just black.  For the purposes of this blog my nationality is important.  My mother’s family is from Petersburg Virginia.  As far as I know we are descendants of slaves.  Obviously as with most black people there are probably other cultures that could be mixed in, but I have no direct knowledge of that on my mother’s side of the family.  My father’s side of the family is another story.  My grandfather was half white and half black.  My great grandfather was a black man who married a white French Canadian woman and had a lot of children.  I’m not quite sure how many.  My grandmother is from a chain of islands off the coast of Africa called the Cape Verde Islands.  Massachusetts has a big population of Cape Verde island immigrants, so I decided to research culture since it is my heritage as well.  These African islands were taken over by the Portuguese and approximately 71% of the population is considered Creole, meaning a mixture of black African and Portuguese descendants.  People have always tossed around the word Creole, so I wanted to figure out what exactly the word Creole means.  I discovered that Creole is defined as a person of mixed Black and European ancestry who speaks a creolized language.  My grandmother clearly fit this definition because she spoke creolized Portuguese and was a translator for the court system in Boston.  Her position was very important because of the increased population of these immigrants.

Around the age of ten, my race defining moment occurred while visiting an older cousin on my father’s side of the family.  I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but she made a negative comment regarding the huge number of people in the family that married white people.  Although her husband was black, she felt the family believed marrying white was better.  I also noticed that there were several of my many family members that never claimed to be black.  They always referred to themselves as Portuguese.  Usually we stereotype black men when it comes to marrying outside of their race, but on this side of my family I had just as many female cousins in relationships with white men.  I’m sure my older cousin didn’t realize what she was saying to me would impact my life in such a great way, nor did she understand how much her negative comments of the family belief system would stick in my brain for years to come.  My loyalty to my mom was great and having the family look down on her because she was black made me believe that if we stuck to our own race this would not occur.  I’m not saying my father’s entire family adheres to this belief system.  I haven’t asked each member their opinions of the subject.  This was just a defining moment in my life.

Evolution

When I finally reached college I still held onto my races should not mix beliefs.  When I got back to school to start my sophomore year, I learned that a friend of mine had dated a white guy over the summer.  I blasted her for doing such a thing because I was so strong in my convictions.  After I finished blasting her she looked wounded by my tongue lashing and I could tell she wished she had never mentioned it.

Life went on and I started a business management class.  I was sitting there minding my own business and this guy walked in.  To say he had traffic stopping good looks, doesn’t come close to doing him justice.  He introduced himself as John and I was so attracted to him I could feel my heart thumping.  Now this was an unusual feeling for me because John was a blond haired; blue eyed; white guy.  I really didn’t know what to do with these feelings, so I kept them at bay despite his obvious flirtations throughout the entire semester.  I shrugged it off as him just being nice.  I told my friend about my feelings and she was in disbelief since I gave her a verbal beat down earlier that year.  John was a real cool guy and I started to rethink my position although I didn’t just have my thoughts to contend with.  Remember, I was still in Massachusetts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  There were a lot of other racial issues on campus that I didn’t even want to get into dating outside of my race.  A year later a black girl on the track team started to date a White guy.  I mulled it over and thought that if she can do it, then so can I.  It took me several days, but I called John and admitted to having a crush on him.  He admitted the same, but he was now dating someone else.  We both got a good laugh out of the fact that neither one of us had enough nerve to confess our crush the year before.

During that year before my confession to John, I had to rethink why I was so opposed to interracial relationships.  I came to the conclusion that if interracial relationships did not exist I would not exist considering the racial makeup of my family.  Now I was open to date a man of any race, yet another defining moment in my life.

Reality of Choice

Even though I am very open to dating outside of my race now, I do have hang-ups that don’t make it an entirely easy process.  When I was in high school I did some volunteer work with a fellow classmate.  Since I went to school in the suburbs (remember I was bussed) this friends’ father offered to drive me home even though my neighborhood was considered “not so safe” by suburban folks standards.  He was a black man married to a white woman.  He was very militant in his beliefs which shocked me considering his choice to have a white wife.  His son and I were in the backseat on the way to my house and since I was young and had no tact, we got on the subject of his marriage to this white woman.  This was a very sensitive subject since his son was in the car and this was his mother we were discussing.  He admitted that if he died he would want his children to go live with his family because he didn’t feel his wife could raise black children.  His son was floored because he never heard something like that come out of his father’s mouth.  His statement piqued my interest so I had to ask him, then why did you marry a white woman in the first place?  He said you can’t control who you love.  I found his confession very interesting and I didn’t press the issue further.  It was obvious father and son were going to have a major discussion once I was dropped off.

Now that’s a good subject to discuss.  Can a white person successfully raise a black child?  For years this issue has been fought in many court battles all over the country. Considering the disproportionate numbers of unwanted minority children I feel it’s better to be raised in a home surrounded by love than for those children to be raised in the system based on the principle that black people should be the only ones to parent black children.  My belief is yes white people can successfully raise minority children.  They just have to be aware of the realities of the world and teach the realities of the world to their children.  Racism is very much alive and well in the United States.  Yes we have made a lot of progress but racism is real.

A few years ago a black teenage boy that was adopted as a baby and raised by a white family was jailed for sleeping with a teenaged white girl.  Even though there was only a few years age difference they through the book at him under some antiquated statutory rape law.  Even the white girl’s family thought the consequences were too severe, but that fact was never acknowledged.  It was obvious that if that teenage girl had been black it would have not hit the front page of the news and he probably wouldn’t have even been arrested.  Having sex with a white girl caused a major life changing experience in that young man’s life.  His parents fought the good fight and stressed the racial injustice behind their son’s incarceration and he was eventually set free.  What stayed with me about this situation was what his parents said to him during a press conference upon his release.  They apologized to their son for not teaching him the harsh realities of being black in America.  I believe they loved this boy as if he was born from their own flesh, but not teaching him the realities of the world is what they apologized for.

Both the father and son exchange I had in high school and this wrongfully accused young man have caused me to think long and hard about interracial dating.  Marrying outside my race and having children does present issues that would have to be dealt with.  A while ago, I went out on a date with a white man I met in my travels.  The date started out great.  I asked him specific questions to see if I would be comfortable venturing beyond friendship.  I said that if I had children with a man outside my race I would have to teach my child the realities of life.  I then went on to explain in depth what my realities were, specifically even if a person is half white society will always consider them black.  He disagreed and politely told me racism doesn’t exist and that black people were too dramatic with their thoughts on racism.  When the words came out of his mouth I was in shock.  I told him that it doesn’t exist to him because it doesn’t affect him. I’m not in the business of changing anyone’s mind, so after our debate that evening I knew we would just remain friends.  He could live in his bubble if he wanted to but I couldn’t share the space with him.  Not to say that he wasn’t a great guy.  I have met black people that share his same beliefs.  I totally disagree and feel racism is alive but his opinion is just like mine, an opinion.  We had a non argumentative debate and we left it that. I’ve learned over the years that I’m not a lawyer trying to argue my case and change anyone’s mind.  We respected the difference in our views and let it be.  I knew with the depth and weight of my perspective on life, he was not someone I could seriously date.  He lacked understanding of my point of view regarding the challenges interracial children may face.  I don’t suggest everyone should share my belief system; however, for me to venture outside of my race there has to be a shared understanding of being black in America today.  Yes as a country we have jumped over many hurdles since slavery.  I personally never thought I would live to see a black president, but in all fairness, our president is not just black he is half white.  I have yet to hear an interview that defines him as a white man.  They focus on his African lineage.  He is interracial but in this country he is a black man regardless of the fact that his mother is white.  Maybe one day we will look beyond definitions of skin color and just call ourselves people.  Who knows what the future holds.

If you have a suggested topic please feel free to leave it in the comments section of this blog.  I love to hear your opinions of my blog good or bad.  This is a forum to exchange opinions.  Anyone whom shares my same opinion or is strongly opposed, I would love to hear from you.  Leave them in the comments and I will post them.

November 7, 2009. Tags: Dating, Interracial, Racial, Relationships, View Points. Dating, Friends, People Relations. 4 comments.