for loving day

It’s Loving Day!  Interracial Marriage has been legal nationwide for an entire 43 years!  Imagine that.  A few days agao CNN.com ran this piece giving us an idea of what people really think about interracial marriage today.  I think it an appropriate post for the occasion.

Your views on interracial marriages

SOURCE

(CNN) — “Interracial/interethnic marriage is a great way of fighting war, hatred and prejudice. Think about it. If we all are mixed, who can we hate?” wrote a reader about a CNN.com story on race and marriage.

That comment was one of the thousands of responses to the story about a new study from the Pew Research Center that found interracial and interethnic marriages are at a record high of about one in seven.

About 14.6 percent of newly married couples reported in 2008 that they married outside their race or ethnicity, according to the Pew report released Friday. In 1980, about 6.8 percent of newlywed couples surveyed said their spouse was of another race or ethnicity.

Overall, reader reactions voiced support for mixed relationships, with many commenters proudly identifying themselves as being in an interracial or interethnic relationship.

“I’ve been happily married in a mixed race marriage for seven years. To anyone who would like to oppose mixed race marriage: What gives you the right? I pay taxes, served in the U.S. military (where I was disabled) and watched all kinds of races die in service to the pledge to protect every American’s freedom. So as far as I’m concerned, blood only has one color: RED, and there’s only one race: the human one,” wrote BeerMan5000.

Reader RippedJeans, a black woman, talked about marrying her white boyfriend of three years. She wrote, “I could not be happier! I love him for the MAN that he is, and I’m truly grateful for having him in my life. Love is colorblind. …”

Danchar821 was also in support of interracial marriages. Reflecting on her personal experience, Danchar821 wrote. “We met online through mutual friends. I went to Mexico every month last year and we were married. I could not be happier. There are cultural differences, but if anything, they have helped me to grow as a person. She is wonderful and so loving and I feel truly blessed and happy. The racism that some people show on here is truly sad. We are expecting our first child — a boy — in September.”

Another couple talked about their wedding ceremony, which celebrated their cultural differences. Reader cellblock131 wrote, “I am Hispanic and married a white woman. … When it came to our wedding, we had a mixture of both cultural practices. For example, my dad read passages in Spanish, then her dad read them in English. The reception had traditional white American dances, plus Mexican in the mix. It was a wonderful wedding.”

One reader identified only as Guest said he won’t date outside his race.

“I care what race the women I date are. I am a white male. I date only white females. Sure there are attractive women in other races but I stick with my own. It’s America land of the free,” wrote Guest.

AntigoneR ignores people’s objections.”I can only speak for myself, but I really don’t care how many people accept or do not accept my interracial relationship. I don’t recall asking their opinion. Having said that, I’m glad to see that the trend in society is more accepting, and that racial barriers are crumbling. I wish it were faster.”

(fwiw: i’m realizing at this very moment that none of these people are American by birth)

One commenter echoed a common view among the Millennial Generation, found in an earlier study this year from the Pew Center that reported 85 percent of 19- to 28-year-olds accept interracial and interethnic relationships. SIR10LY wrote: “It’s 2010. I can’t even believe this is still an issue! If two people love each other, let them be. … If you’re opposed to it, get with the times already!”

Children of mixed marriages also shared their views.

Reader Anex wrote, “Product of an Interracial marriage and darn proud of it! I’m a happy mutt!”

Other readers pointed to the challenges of marrying someone outside their race.

“But one thing the article does not mention is divorce among interracial couples is much higher than same-race couples. Challenges in understanding, family relations and pressures overall are higher. People should know what they’re getting into,” warned a reader.

WHATRU wrote, “I’m an Arab, my husband is white. It gets more complicated after you have kids. The cultures and beliefs are just too different. It is easier to marry your own kind.”

Reader Toadlife wrote that racial discrimination can also be difficult. “Race matters because racial discrimination continues to happen all around us to this day. If you think otherwise, you are naive and probably white and have all white relatives. Thankfully, we’ve come to a point in our society where race is not a determining factor in one’s fate, but it can still be an obstacle from time to time,” Toadlife wrote.

Reader nal4america said her decision about whom to date is influenced by what race she grew up with. “I’m of West Indian decent and I grew up in a small town in Utah. I am so used to dating outside of my race that I don’t even date men of my race simply because I am not attracted to them. I think the environment you grow up in plays a huge factor in the mate you select. I am 95 percent certain my husband will be of a race other than my own and that’s fine because I believe in the American Race.”

Native Americans had yet another take on the situation.

“… [T]here can never truly be justice and real harmony on stolen land … just like there can never be peace and harmony in a house that’s been burglarized and its inhabitants marginalized and oppressed … ask an Apache or Navaho or black American if they are happy to live in a society dominated by white people. The indigenous were here for many thousands of years before the Europeans destroyed the culture and lands of the indigenous almost worldwide,” wrote hotepk. “…What must happen is either they go back to Europe or pay restitution — like any other convict guilty of a crime — otherwise there will continue to be struggle.”

Ndngirl2010 responded: @hotepk–I am full blooded Navajo and I’m fine with living alongside whites and get this –*gasp*– I married one! A majority of my family doesn’t harbor any animosity toward any other race. Let bygones be bygones and, instead, focus on the future.”

The readers who responded to CNN’s coverage on the Pew Research Center study seemed to acknowledge the growing blurring of races and ethnicities.

Reader HalfBaked shared: “My wife’s biological mother is Filipino/Mexican and her biological father is Scottish. She was adopted at birth into a German-Jewish family. My mother’s side is Italian/Turkish and my father was Hungarian. Our kids are about as ‘mixed’ as you can get.”

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decreasingly on the rise

This article raises more questions for me than it imparts information.  That may be it’s purpose.  I want to know why there is a decrease in the rate of increase of interracial marriages.  Ever since my “a-ha” moment surrounding my biracialness, I’ve been super-interested in the greater number of white women/black men couplings as opposed to black women/white men.  I realized on that day that having a black mom/white dad made me a “minority” within a “minority” within a “minority” (and a majority?).  What!?  I don’t even like the word minority.  Let’s use anomaly.  I perceive myself to be an anomaly within an anomaly.  That’s better.  Anyway, I would love to conduct a study on why exactly the trend in gender and race of black/white couples is as it is.  Lastly, what really stands out to me in the information below is that U.S. born Hispanics and U.S. born Asians are marrying (I assume) U.S. born whites.  What does this mean?  Americans are marrying Americans.  That should be the paradigm that we as a nation collectively shift toward.  Race doesn’t exist. Nationality does.

Interracial Marriage: Who is More Likely to Wed Outside Their Race?

by Lynnette Khalfani-Cox

Interracial marriages are on the rise in the U.S., although they’ve slowed somewhat over the past decade. The latest census figures show that interracial marriages in America now account for 8 percent of all marriages, up from 7 percent in 2000. During the decade from 1990 until 2000, there was a sharp increase in mixed-race marriages, with such couplings growing by 65 percent. Since the year 2000, however, mixed-raced marriages have grown by just 20 percent to about 4.5 million couples.

Looking at the data over the past three decades, which groups are more likely to marry outside their race? According to federal statistics, African Americans are three times more likely to marry whites than they were back in 1980. Some attribute this to an increase in African American educational attainment and more professional interaction among blacks and whites.

Other findings from the census data include:

*14.5 percent of black men and 6.5 percent of black women now marry whites

*38 percent of U.S.-born Hispanics marry whites, compared with 30 percent in 1980

*40 percent of U.S.-born Asians marry whites, a number unchanged since 1980

It would have been interesting to see other data that looked at interracial couples of all kinds, not just a look at which “minority” groups marry whites. In this sense, this data is skewed and rather limited when talking about the full scope of interracial marriages.

We all know that the world is fast becoming multicultural, global in nature and interdependent in numerous ways. From the adventurous traveler who meets and marries someone of a different race and culture in another country to the investor who buys stocks and bonds from companies all around the globe, the world is at once becoming smaller, yet bigger and with more possibilities.

The challenge going forward will be how do we deal with the social, economic and political realities of living in an increasingly multiethnic, interracial society? And will we ever get to a point where race will simply cease to matter — all matters personal, professional and otherwise?

SOURCE

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hundreds of illegitimate mulatto babies

Woweee!!  This article contains two phrases that I totally admire for the vagueness contained there-in: “the social pressure of British provincial respectability” and “if the infant evidence was removed.”

“Is There Anywhere? . . .”

Monday, Mar. 11, 1946

Prewar Britain’s Negro problem was as minuscule as prewar Britain’s Negro population. But the 70,000 U.S. Negro troops who served in Britain during the war left behind hundreds of illegitimate mulatto babies. Last fortnight London’s League of Colored Peoples reported that already 544 children of U.S. Negro soldiers and British women were in social or economic straits.So long as the Negro fathers were in the U.S. Army and acknowledged paternity, the mothers received support allowances. In the British provinces $85 a month was comparative riches. But when Negro soldiers were demobilized in the U.S., allowances ceased; some Negro fathers neglected to make any other provision. Then the social pressure of British provincial respectability became unbearable. Said one British mother of a Negro’s child: “I am shunned by the whole village. . . . The inspector for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has told my friend to keep her children away from my house … as didn’t she know that I had two illegitimate colored children? Is there anywhere I can go where my children will not get… pushed around?”

Some returning British husbands were willing to forgive their erring wives if the infant evidence was removed. Mothers sought to have their children adopted. “If I only had someone to take the baby for me and look after him . . .” wrote one mother, “but it must be someone kind—you see I love him.”

Adoption, however, was all but impossible. Like British village matrons, British charitable institutions were turning up suddenly race-conscious noses at illegitimate mulatto babies. Even when the father and mother were married, U.S. custom sometimes intervened to prevent reunion. The League of Colored Peoples asked one Southern Negro father if he wanted to take his white wife to America. “Brother,” he replied, “if I did, I would have to leave her in New York when I went home.”

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no difference between them

Here’s a new book full of beautiful black and white portraits of interracial couples!  The foreward is written by one of my favorite mixed chicks, Heidi Durrow.  The photos are stunning.  Thank you, Robert Kalman, for this wonderful book that will no doubt help us break our subconscious instinct to assume that these people do not belong together.  You can purchase your copy here.

 

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the secrets can be yours for only $28.99

buy it now

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i was like, ‘are you serious!?’

Yet another disheartening story of hatred in the form of racism.  Maybe instead of naivety it’s because of who and what I am that I find it shocking that so-called “racial purity” is an obsession for some.  A crusade.  A cause to kill and die for.

Harrowing Story of Racism

Staff
Charleston

http://www.wvmetronews.com/index.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=32733

Meredith Harris is white.  Her husband is black.  She has white friends and black friends.  She says the color of their skin has never really mattered to her, but she says it does to some… Harris, 22, has what some may call an unbelievable story about racism. But it is true,  and it happened in Charleston, WV. The story ended with a man named Darrell Fierce pleading guilty to violating Harris’ civil rights.  Fierce was never sentenced because he died after shooting himself on the day of  his sentencing hearing.

It began in late June 2007 when Harris found a house to rent. Next door was Fierce and his partner, both older white men.  After signing a lease with Fierce’s partner, it was move in day for Meredith. Her white friends were there to help.

“That was actually the first day I met Darrell. I was carryin’ stuff in and out of the house.  He came up and walked over in the yard and introduced himself. He actually gave me a bottle of champagne with like a red ribbon and everything. (He) told me ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ (and) if there was anything I need to let him know…  He was just really friendly to me the first day….he was very friendly. Ben had always been friendly. Darrel was friendly. So, I thought everything was going to be fine.”

But everything wasn’t fine.  Two days after moving in Meredtih Harris brought a young mixed-race girl to the house along with who is now her father-in-law, a black man.

“My goddaughter…she’s mixed.  And she was over there and as soon as they saw her the next chance they got they confronted me in the front yard.  (They) called my goddaughter some very inappropriate things.  (They) said that they weren’t having a day care for ‘mixed monkeys.’  (They) said they didn’t like my kind and that I was going to have to leave. (They) pretty much called me white trash. At that point, that was when they tried to evict me. “

Harris says that after a wonderful initial reception things had changed suddenly.

“When they first said it I didn’t believe them. I was like ‘are you serious?’  But once it like clicked to me that they were being serious -that they were really that racist and this wasn’t like a joke- that’s when I called my dad. He came over and he confronted them. Once he got there they pretty much said the same thing to him. ‘We know why you don’t want her. She’s white trash. We know you’re probably ashamed of her. I’d be ashamed of her too.’  (They) just said things like that that were really inapproriate.  At this point i didn’t want to live there anymore.”

Having been given an eviction notice by the men for what they called “incapability” Meredith began looking for a new place to live. Then came the night of July 15th, 2007. As she often did, Meredith went to bed late. Her wake up call on July 16th was scary.

“It was about five o’clock in the morning when I woke up and my dog woke me up. By the time she did, the smoke was so thick in my room I could hardly see,” Harris said. “I usually sleep with my door closed, but it was actually open that night. As soon as I woke up I knew it was him (Fierce) that did it.”

“He made like a little brush pile with trash and flammable stuff,” she remembered. “They started the fire right outside my bedroom and at the front and backdoor, I guess, to try and trap me in there.”

Harris would later find her and her boyfriend’s cars had slashed tires and sugar-filled gasoline tanks.

That was her last night in the house, but she kept her belongings there as she looked for a new place to live. She says within a week the house was empty and when she returned she says Fierce reminded her what he had said before that he was going to evict her.

“I walked inside the house and everything that I owned was gone. Everything from by shower curtain, to my toothbrush, to my hairdryer, everything was gone,” Harris said.

“After he said those things about me and my goddaughter I knew he was crazy, but I never thought my life would be in danger for staying there until I found another place,” Harris recently said in an exclusive interview with MetroNews.

Harris was waiting for Fierce to go to trial and she admits today she was surprised when he agreed to plead guilty to the charges. He did so earlier this year, although when the plea hearing began before a federal judge he made up a story about why he set the house on fire. Before the hearing was over, Harris says Fierce told the truth, but she could tell he wasn’t sorry.

“Even after the fact he felt no remorse,” Harris said. “He didn’t think there was anything wrong with what he did.”

The 69-year-old Fierce was scheduled to be sentenced in late July, but he didn’t show up for his hearing. Federal marshals soon discovered he had shot himself in the stomach in a Kanawha City motel room. Fierce was hospitalized for several days, before passing away.

“I didn’t want him to die. I would have much rather seen him go to jail to be honest,” Harris said. “I guess everybody else thought I would feel safer. I just felt bad and it made me feel worse.”

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marriage license refused

I guess it’s not really a big deal seeing as he’s let a black person use his bathroom and all.  Of course I do not mean that at all and I am appalled by this.  Especially because his reason is to prevent the creation of miserable people like me.  Good God!  I think when this man sees and interracial couple he sees (in his mind) something like this:

rather than this:

No Marriage License for Interracial Couple

By MARY FOSTER, AP

HAMMOND, La. (Oct. 15) – A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.

“I try to treat everyone equally,” he said.

Bardwell estimates that he has refused to marry about four couples during his career, all in the past 2 1/2 years.

Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay, both of Hammond, say they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.

Humphrey, an account manager for a marketing firm, said she and McKay, a welder, just returned to Louisiana. She is white and he is black. She plans to enroll in the University of New Orleans to pursue a masters degree in minority politics.

“That was one thing that made this so unbelievable,” she said. “It’s not something you expect in this day and age.”

…”It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009,” said American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann. She said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 “that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry.”

The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending “the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice.”

“He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it,” Schwartzmann said.

…”I’ve been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don’t think I’ve mistreated anybody,” Bardwell said. “I’ve made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn’t tell this couple they couldn’t get married. I just told them I wouldn’t do it.”

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non-interracial couples

If these two are not in an interracial relationship…..

Then neither are these couples…

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further proof that we are far from post-racial

Though this (hopefully) isn’t something that happens every day in America, the fact that it has happened in 2009 is so very disheartening.  This is why we keep talking about these issues.  Many of us have risen above the confines of race, many of us have not.  Many reside somewhere in between.  All I know for sure is that this country has still got a long way to go in healing from our sordid racial history.  And I think it would help if they would just admit that this was a hate crime.  I just don’t understand the benefit of pretending that this was just some random act of violence.  The truth will set us free, right?

Mixed-Race Couple Confronted With Racist Question, Stalked, Then Gunned Down In Arizona Park

by Dawn Teo

PHOENIX, AZ — Phoenix police say the gunning down of an interracial couple by a stranger in a local Phoenix park is being investigated as a possible hate crime. A 39-year-old white female was shot to death after being confronted with a racist question about being with her black boyfriend, Jeffrey Wellmaker.

The couple was out for a walk in La Palma Park in Phoenix early Saturday morning when a heavily tattooed man with a shaved head approached them and asked Wellmaker, “What are you doing with that white woman?”

The couple tried to ignore the question and immediately walked away. The gunman followed on foot for a short distance, then got into the passenger seat of a nearby car. The car followed the couple for approximately half a mile before the gunman fired two shots from the passenger window, and the car sped away.

Both the 39-year-old woman and 48-year-old Wellmaker were hit. The woman, who has not yet been identified by police, was transported to the hospital where she died later Saturday. Wellmaker did not sustain serious physical injury.

Phoenix police officer James Holmes says he cannot say for certain that the shooting was a hate crime, “but it does lead us in that direction just because of the fact that the suspect made a comment to the race of both victims,” explaining, “He’s bald. He’s got tattoos. He’s making a comment about a white woman with a black man. One could assume that it might be a hate crime.”

The suspect has not been identified and is described as a white male, about 5’6″, heavily tattooed. The suspect fled the scene in a white four-door car with tinted windows.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/mixed-race-couple-confron_b_308842.html

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prom night in mississippi

ONE TOWN. TWO PROMS.
UNTIL NOW.

1954
The U.S. Supreme Court orders the integration of all segregated schools in America, including all their events.

1970
The town of Charleston, Mississippi, finally allows black students into their one high school. White parents refuse to integrate the school Graduation Dance, starting a tradition of separate, parent-organized White Proms and Black Proms.

2008
Change happens.

Oh. My. Goodness. Guys did you see this!?  Last night was the premiere of the HBO documentary Prom Night in Mississippi.  It was just so darn good.  One of my favorite documentaries ever!  In case you haven’t heard, the town of Charleston, MS had been holding two separate, segregated proms since the schools integrated in 1970.  Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the prom in 2007 if  they would just hold one for all of the students.  His offer was declined.  He tried again in 2008 and his offer was accepted.  The film exposes the climate of race relations in Mississippi and makes clear that this up and coming generation must make a conscious choice to break the cycle of division.

I have long been a fan of Morgan Freeman.  Probably since the first time I saw the movie Glory. Then he sealed the deal with Robin Hood and Shawshank.  Anyway, I was inspired by the way he spoke to the students and handled the adults on the school board, but the most poignant Morgan moment for me was when he said “If I go around hating you because you have blond hair and blue eyes, I’m doomed. You’re fine, but I’m doomed.”  I believe that with all my heart.  I’m always saying that this racism thing is a double edged sword.  On the surface it may seem like it’s just those being discriminated against who are being hurt by it, but I’ve always felt that most of the damage is done to the discriminator.  I just loved hearing him say that.

There is a section of the film where the students are so openly talking about the ways they’ve been taught to be racist and pondering why this could be.  Some of the white kids come to the conclusion that it must be that their people don’t want mixed kids in their family.  That’s why the adults are so afraid of an integrated prom.  We’re told that one parent said, “I don’t want no n****r grinding up on my daughter.  I won’t have no mixed kids in this family.”  The fact that people think this way is certainly not news to me.  It’s my history.  I know it well.  And yet, I was so uncomfortable hearing it spoken aloud.  Like kinda squirmy.

There is one interracial couple in the film.  Heck, there is probably one interracial couple in the whole town, and they happen to be students at the school.  They do not hold hands in public.  They have never been on a date because her father, who insists that he is not racist, will not allow it.  He hasn’t “whooped her or nothin”, but he grounded her and took her phone away.  To his dismay she overcame it all and is still dating Jeremy.  They got the most applause during the senior walk at the prom.

There are so many things I want to relay, but really I think you should just see the film.  Please.

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