I still think this is totally weird. As you know, SZ, my HS back in KY integrated in 1964, the year I was born. I have never known anything different, and I am thankful for that.
It was strange going on choir tour to AL back in 1985. The director was asked by a church music minister if there were any blacks in our choir. He responded yes, there was one lady. The music minister said we could sing if we left her behind. Our director told the minister where to get off and we sang elsewhere.
I took a look on Slate and couldn’t find anything. Would you kindly point me to your source? Since you got me re-interested ‘n’ all…
That would be a shaky assumption. A lot of the black women I know are strongly opposed to interracial dating. (At least where black man/white woman relationships are concerned.) The thinking seems to be that it reduces the available pool of men for them. (White men don’t seem to factor into their thinking, either because they’re not attracted to white men or they just don’t consider white men a viable option.)
Now I don’t know whether these women feel strongly enough about the subject to vote to outlaw the practice, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Having said that, and having lived in the rural South for most of my life, it also wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the vote among whites approached 50-50. A lot of Southerners who would not otherwise consider themselves racist (and who do not otherwise behave in a racist manner) seem to have a lingering and visceral opposition to interracial dating.
This sparked me to think about all the interracial couples I’ve ever known. I know of one white man/black woman couple. Yet I know quite a few black man/white woman couples. In fact, one of the families close to mine when I grew up was an interracial family.
I wonder why this is? It would be wonderful to have someone who is a part of either demographic of couples to pop in here and say a piece.
Well, Gundy I’ve pored over my history cache looking for the article. Apparantly I stumbled over the conjecture while I was at Joshua Micah Marshall’s website. From an old digest on his “Talking Points” weblog, he made the conjecture that is more or less paraphrased in my post. That it is quite within the possible that the bill narrowly failed among the whites. I also fell upon the news in some the newspaper bulletins (which of course treated it like “Wee-hell shioot, them rednecks dug on up an old eighteenth century law theys fo’got to unwrite.”)
Which is why I’d like to do some investigating on this little bit of trivia.
spoke-, I do agree that my assumptions are on a weak foundation, but I think for different reasons.
I don’t think the black women described would feel strongly
enough here to vote to ban interracial dating.I don’t think a perceived lack of eligible bachlors would motivate one to write (or keep) a law on the books that sasy “We, the white people of Alabama do not think the black people are our equivalants. We don’t marry our livestock. Why should we marry our negroe.” Anyway while I’d believe that there are some militant black-separatists down there who’d endorse the law, I’d doubt there are large numbers of them to vote for this law.
Of course that final sentence may be contrary to the theory I have on the results: “The people who voted on this bill are skewed disproportionately to those who’d protest things on race. The white people who wear the hoods and robes would make especially sure to vote to keep this law on the books. A symbolic victory, if you will. Blacks probably would vote disproportionately to kill it, since it’s our civil rights at stake.”
Or course I’d wouldn’t discount the visceral “ickyness” of interracial relationships many Southerners have, black & white. (I have family in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.)
Oh and Melpomene I’m sure there’s several threads about the demographics of interracial relationships (One of my school buddies is the product of a white man/black woman union). I’d do a search, but I having a bad connection.
[sub](I have a 56k modem, but thanks to Bell Atlan…I mean Verizon ever-staticky lines I’m getting pre-1990 connection speeds. At one point I got a 4,800 bps connection. 4,800 bps. No, not 48k! 4,800 bps. One-sixth the speed of all the crappy modems on the market!)[/sub]
Thanks Sterling! I was actually doing a bit of that searching last night! So many threads to sift through!! Still, I haven’t found much that addresses white man/black women unions of any kind. It is a lot less prevalent than black man/white woman unions.
Speaking of black men/white women…my poor artistic director of a theatre group I work with at my University…he’s a young, good-looking, smart & funny black man. He has recently been put under scrutinization by the Theatre Dept. because he “has too many white female students” around him. It’s f***ing ridiculous. He works at a university were the majority of females are white. Most students in the Theatre dept. are female. So, yes, it is no surprise that most of the students that work with him are white females. The things that the dept implies by this statement, combined with the fact that he is an attractive, successful black male…just gets my goat. ugh Anyway, I just had to vent that while we were on a similar topic.
Thanks again Sterling. 
Except that “white people who wear hoods” are a tiny, tiny minority in the South. I would guesstimate much less than a tenth of one percent. (Contrary to the image of the South that some may have.) In fact, I believe the numbers would probably show that KKK membership is greater in Northern states and on the West Coast than in the South these days.
A majority of white Southerners these days (though perhaps not an overwhelming majority) at least think of themselves as non-racist. At the same time, many still harbor lingering prejudices. And many white Southerners who are otherwise non-racist in their thinking and in their actions still have that visceral negative reaction to interracial unions.
I am certainly not endorsing that view, only reporting the facts as I see them.
And I do have a front-row seat.
Melpomene, there was a thread not too long ago on the very topic of your inquiry. Sorry I don’t have time to help you track it down.
If anyone is interesetd, these threads address the issue, too:
White Man/Black Woman vs Black Man/White Woman
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41557
White Men-African Women
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=25629
"Mixed" marriage - which race is more disapproving?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=17817
The last one deals more with all sorts of mixed marriages, but is still relevant.
FWIW
I can think of three explanations for the behavior of 40% of the Alabama legislature.
They don’t believe black people should be allowed to marry people of other races. Could be, but it feels to me more like a cheap shot than an explanation. “It’s Alabama; of course they’re all rednecks down there” is a statement of prejudice in itself.
They do believe interracial marriage is OK, but they think their constituents don’t, and they’re too cowardly to stick up for their own beliefs. I think this is likeliest. It certainly matches better with the politicians in my neck of the woods.
They do believe interracial marriage is OK, but they think repealing the law is useless grandstanding because Loving v. Virginia has already nullified it. This is the most flattering explanation. However, it requires me to believe that 40% of the legislature passed up a chance to look good for free, even if their action was of no import at all. This doesn’t match political behavior as I know it.
Danimal, it wasn’t a legislative vote, it was a popular referendum. See Alabama repeals century-old ban on interracial marriages.
As to the discussion of the racial breakdown of the 40% opposed:
Could it be that the vote came out 60-40 because of voter apathy? Think about it: we’re talking about a law that isn’t enforced, and if it ever were enforced, the courts would immediately declare it unconstitutional. So nothing is technically at stake here, so there’s not much of a reason to vote.
Well, I don’t know what the turnout was; i.e., what percent of eligible voters bothered to show up and vote. But, of the ones who did vote, 40% voted to keep interracial marriage illegal. (Of course, even if 51% had voted to keep the ban, it would have made no difference, since the law is unenforceable in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia.)
Maybe Alabama was using one of those “butterfly” ballots for the referendum…
I remember looking this up on the day after the election. Slightly over 300,000 people voted against repealing the ban.
Quite right. Should be more correctly stated as "“It’s Alabama; of course 40% are rednecks down.”
Um.
Is there a “blush” smiley?
OK. I retract my feeble effort to understand what happened.
There are many people, many good and wonderful people, smart and open-minded people I have posted with on this board who believe that racial relations are as good as they are ever going to get. I have been told that many black people are over sensitive (some are) and that it has been 135 years since there have been legal slaves in this country and black people need to get over themselves (this is also not completely erroneous).
But it’s still out there. I read here and I see how dumbfounded some posters are by this. They are looking for some kind of explanation. Something to tell them that 40% of the voting public in Alabama are not racists.
Those 40% of voters in Alabama had their reasons for wanting to keep interratial marriages illegal. I know what they were, and if you all would stop looking for excuses, so would you.
What are those reasons then? How can any of us be expected to disagree or agree with you when you make such an ambiguous statement?
As for my own HO…
I live in Georgia, so I am, of course, very familiar with the southern culture. My parents have made it abundantly clear to me that they disapprove of interracial marriages, an opinion that I not only do not share, but am ardently opposed to. I personally believe that God (or whatever higher force you choose to believe in) would not have created different races of people and put them on the Earth all together, only to keep them separated in matrimony and otherwise. I think my generation is significantly more open-minded toward this issue than those generations preceding us; however, those generations are still around and, as of now, are the ones running our respective local governments. So while I disagree with this view that, for some reason, interracial marriages are inherently “sinful” or “wrong” or what have you, I understand that my parents and grandparents were raised in a society that was still highly discriminatory of other races, namely African-Americans. I feel ashamed that my particular region of the country has fallen so far behind in social views, and I realize that when these legislations are so tardy in being revoked, it makes the entire region look “redneck.” Let me say, that that view is false, that southerners are not all rednecks. Yes, if you travel to highly rural or mountain regions, you will find your definition of “redneck,” but do not forget that poverty exists everywhere, and it takes on different forms that fit different cultures.
And that’s my 2 cents…
Ok, so it was more like 10 cents…but I feel very strong about this topic, as I am constantly debating stubborn southerners with seemingly antebellum views of society.
Well, because once you go Black, you’ll never come back.
OK I should stop being cute.
I’m guessing Biggirl is saying that there is no good reason that doesn’t have a kernel of racist thought down somewhere. Anyway I’ve always thought tribalistic thought to be quite silly. But that was always because I never belonged to any tribes in my life. (They call them cliques.) I wasn’t even a member of the ‘outcasts’ group of my schools. Made for some lonely nights, don’t ya know.
Anyway, a concern that I’ve happened to come across is that interracial relationships are discouraged because they feel ‘society isn’t ready.’ That they aren’t up to dealing with the various disapprovals that may be dished out. That may have racism at the root, but it’s a little difficult to blame that on either member of the coupling.
spoke-, point taken. Anyway, my argument was that the turnout was low enough (I know this is in a middle of a presidential election, but think down-ballot proposals) so that just the cranks and the blacks voted on this proposal. However 300K would be a high number to attribute to the Klan of one state. But I’ve rambled on too much about race issues. I don’t like to do that…
What SterlingNorth said. And also, what you said Just. My post was in reaction to some of the theories in this thread of why 40% of the voters voted against repealing this law.
It was only the politicians, it was the redneck hillbillies, it was voter turnout and (my personal favorite) it was black women. Having just participated in another thread --moved from GD to the Pit-- where posters that I respect insisted that racism is mostly a thing of the past and race relations are all hunky-dory. Or would be if minorities would just stop crying racism.
There is a kind of ingrained racism shared by both blacks and whites in this country. My father is much like yours, Just, in his view of white people. I, too, understand how a black man growing up under Jim Crow laws can come to the conclusion that whites cannot be trusted, just as you understand why your elders feel the way they do.
But it’s wrong. It is racism.