- How much would a negative reaction from a family member to you dating interracially impact your decision to continue dating a) the same individual, and b) any future individual of a different race?
This is a really good question. I probably have a bit of a different take than other responders. As I mentioned in my response to your previous questions upthread, my parents are an interracial couple. Because of the difficulties and outright racism they experienced when my siblings and I were children in the '60s and early to mid '70s, and even before they were married, they were extremely concerned with who we would choose to socialize with in our teens, and strongly discouraged dating for as long as they could. Their rationale was if we don’t date we won’t have to experience what they did.
Once it became obvious that my parents weren’t going to be able to control our every move 24 hours a day, my mother switched gears a little and decided if we were going to socialize at all, with the same or opposite sex, that it should be with black people. Somehow my mother convinced herself that we, who bore closer features and pigmentation to our father than to her, especially my sisters, would be welcomed and accepted better by blacks than whites. Both my sisters, however, had other things in mind, and dated white guys without my parent’s knowledge. My younger sister was able to hide that our mother is black from her friends for a surprisingly long time, maybe two years, before the inevitable slip-up happened, and her social life changed overnight.
I didn’t begin dating until college, I’m convinced, because of the years of emotional conflict and racial identity confusion my parents, in an attempt to protect us from making the mistakes they did, unknowingly afflicted me and my siblings with. One pronounced lasting effect is that none of my siblings or I have had children, and we’re all in our 40s. Another is although we all dated whites and blacks when we were younger, the 5 of us are each currently in long-term, committed relationships or marriages with people who are not of either race.
In recent years, now that my siblings and I are adults with lives of our own, both my mother and father have each, on different occasions, discussed with us how our lives probably would have been easier if they were both either black or white. It saddens me that they still feel this way because although being raised as a biracial kid in Kansas in the 1960s was pretty unique, to say the least, the experience has molded me into a person with, if not unique perspectives, perhaps a heightened sensitivity to racial issues, and definitely a strong desire to assist others who may be in conflict.
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- Do any of you feel that it’s completely inappropriate for you to date outside of your race (or for anyone to date outside of his or her own race)? There was some discussion earlier of the idea of black women perhaps getting the short end of the stick when black men date interracially, and I’d love to explore that further, particularly if it relates to other races, as well.**
As the child of two people who dated and married outside of their race, I don’t think it’s inappropriate, no. I do, however, believe that once the relationship crosses the threshold into the desire for permanence and couplehood planning, especially as relates to the prospect of children, it’s important to research the challenges other interracial couples experience that couples of the same race don’t.
