If my son wanted to date a transexual midget with buck teeth I would definately disown him.
Anyone else would probably be okay, though.
Dang, I wish I weren’t so predjudiced.
prejudiced…ah, bigoted
What do you have against buck teeth?
If I may throw in another consideration: I would literally fear for my life if I had ever brought home a person of another race (not to mention the life of that person!) My family has more than its share of good old-fashioned scary bigots. Fortunately, I haven’t been attracted to anyone of another race (at least not enough to dream of taking that risk.)
If one of my kids brought home one of the same gender or one of a different race, I would have to take the child and their SO and flee! So I suppose the answer is that I would have to talk with the child very seriously about the relationship to find out if they understood just what they getting into, and whether they were willing to deal with the complications.
Actually, between a very hectic week at work and home and a recent Pit thread, I did miss the words “some Christians”, so I did bridle when I first read your first post. That’s why I made sure I pointed out I was a Christian who agreed with you on some of your points. I consider myself a “hard-core Christian”, as much so as anyone out there denouncing evolution or saying “Jesus” every other word, and part of my Christian duty is to oppose neo-Nazis, white supremacists, etc., not to mention trying to contradict the impression that Christianity is somehow inherently sexist.
I have always preferred to measure a person by all of the things which make up him or her, rather than just one or two aspects. I’d hope my niece and nephew do the same thing when it comes time to choose who to date, and that includes that old stand-by, looks.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, another Christian duty calls – choir practice!
CJ
I know of people who have found themselves in these circumstances. A former teacher of mine, who is African-American, is married to a Jewish man. She has said that she did not envision being married to a white guy, but that the other black people around her were not interested in her and did not ask her out. She became friends with her husband and eventually fell in love. It isn’t settling or marrying down any more than someone accepting the fact that thier spouse won’t look like Halle Berry or Brad Pitt and marrying them anyway. Kalhoun, although you may be incredoulous, it does happen more often than you would think. It’s not that people of other races/ethnicities are more tolerant, its just that it usually exists as a matter of percentages. If you grow up around more X people, you will find more of them that are tolerant, interesting, and compatible.
As a general point, I think few people are really as open-minded as they claim to be. As a black person, I feel comfortable speaking on the way such matters pertain to African-Americans in this country. Most people have an ideal of what they see as “authentically” black. The further from that ideal an AA is, they more likely they are to be shunned by other AAs. This makes socialization much harder for people, like my former teacher, who have these expectations (expectations they often cannot, or will not meet) foisted upon them. Often times, the way these people are treated has little to do with their actions or what they believe in their heart. I know know that members of other minority groups have similar problems.
I’m from Fremont too. The broadcast referred to was a two part story on Morning Edition on Mission High, which made it sound like the boundary change dispute was very recent. (It was a very misleading story, btw. Details available if anyone cares.)
I think the parents attitude is very common for new immigrants. Look at Abie’s Irish Rose! My grandfather was quite daring in not caring that one of his Jewish daughters married a Catholic - but I think he was an atheist, though in the closet, and was not as crazy about it.
I know these parents quite well since I’m on a district wide Gate parent group. I think they are going to really freak out when their little controlled kids go off to college and burn out, and start dating just anyone.
On my side of town things are a bit looser - except the Mormon parents freak out if their kids want to date anyone non-Mormon.
Many a true word is spoken in jest, Kalhoun. Not exactly ‘shunned’ (your word, not mine - naughty Kal!), but sometimes it seems that the person who will recognise who you really are is able to do so because he or she is NOT from the same cultural background.
brickbacon appears to be talking about the same kind of thing.
[Just seen this.]
I think that for many British people at any rate a major issue is the class difference between the kids. There is a real chasm between someone educated well (top state schools and private schools) and someone who plays truant from school and then leaves barely literate at 15 (is that still school leaving age in UK?)
As for acceptable races for white British kids to marry (mine’s mixed Chinese-English so I’m not really speaking to her situation specifically), there’s definitely a rank order, although no one would admit it.
As far as expats in Hong Kong go (and I don’t feel it’s much different in the UK), Chinese (girls especially) as potential wife for your white kid is essentially no problem, because a) the colour of her skin is generally fair b) the kids are considered beautiful (reflected in the lingustic choice of ‘mixed’ rather than ‘half-caste’) and c) Chinese are considered very bright. Indians/Pakistanis/Sri Lankans (also large communities of those) are not high on the shopping list (colour first, I guess, cultural differences second maybe), while Filipinos are probably down at the bottom with black people because the vast majority of Filipinos living here are domestic helpers (full-time live-in helps). The stigma against black partners for your white kid is still as big as ever, I’d say.
So, yes, there most definitely is a pecking order, but isn’t there in every cultural/ethnic group? And isn’t it natural to some extent, as a pecking order among chickens is?
I recall thinking that the teaser at least was very misleading. They sold it as something along the lines of new immigrants wanting to keep whites out. But from the story I inferred it more as a matter of wanting to have good schools for their kids. When the school zones were changed they freaked that they’d done things to get their kids in the best schools, perhaps spent a lot on a house to get in the “right” zone, and then the boundaries were moved.
I’d love to here your take on it, although I don’t know whether it would be a hijack of the thread.
Apparently I should have gone to a better school. :smack:
I wouldn’t care about background or culture, as long as the relationship was based on trust and respect.
If you’re in a relationship with someone who expects you to compromise some of your core values, I think it demonstrates their lack of respect for your beliefs, and ultimately you. I don’t mean minor disagreements, I mean the values that make you the person you are.
So if background, culture or beliefs became an issue, and it was my child who was expected to do all the changing…then yes, I’d have problems with the relationship.
I’d try and talk to them about my concerns, rather than lay down some sort of blanket ban on who they could date, because I don’t think that kind of situation tends to end well.
Gotchya.
Minor hijack - because the theme of this thread has nothing to do with the story, which is the fault of NPR, since they added in the quote.
The parents in question bought their houses just as you said - and a big issue was their concern that their values would go down if their kids went to Irvington, the underused school they were transferred to. (Or rather they would be - no kid in Mission at the time of the change got moved.) They care only about the test scores - the teachers in Mission are no better than the other schools, and the physical plant is worse. Mission was also very badly overcrowded, while other schools were underutilzed. One reason was that attempts at boundary changes got knocked down for this very reason before. What seemed beyond them was that the school had high test scores because of their kids, not that their kids had high scores because of the school. The Equity commission, which was mentioned briefly, was set up so that kids at any school would have access to AP and honors classes, not just Mission.
I hate to say it, but I think there was a fair degree of racism involved. I went to one meeting about this where the Mission parents waved signs and shouted down speakers and behaved like a bunch of Nazis. More on topic, I got the feeling that they felt that their kids going to a school with a large number of dumb white kids was bad - and that white kids in general are not as smart as their kids. The Mission parents claimed the change was an attack on them, but such a change would have been totally routine in most districts. There have always been people protesting boundary changes, but never like this.
Another thing not mentioned much in the report is the pressure these kids feel. One of the many valedictorians, who went to Berkley, later said in an article in the local paper that she had cheated all through high school because of the pressure to get good grades. The attacks on here were more for ruining the reputation of the school rather than actually having cheated.
The odd thing about the report is that this all happened several years ago, and is no longer a big issue. The test scores at Irvington are rising, and boundary
Oh crap. I did preview, and it gave me an error, then I hit submit. 
I meant to conclude that the changes have been pretty well accepted - at least they were not an issue in the recent election. But to show the problem, an Asian woman from Mission running for school board got endorsed by the local paper because she was Asian from Mission, though her opponent had a much better and longer school board attendance record, as an observer. This person even said, about teacher contract negotiations, that the district was negotiating in the interest of the teachers. 
which must be one the most clueless comments on labor negotiations ever.
She won.
First, I’d like to state that I would never condemn my son’s choice of spouse, no matter HOW horrible I felt she might be for him.
Color, schmolor… who cares? But even if she were an intolerant fundamentalist who thought that the theory of evolution was a conspiracy and that Jesus watches her bathe, I’d still do my damnedest to put on a smile and lovingly welcome her into our family.
I say this because I put alot of faith in my son. I hope that I am raising him to be a strong person who wouldn’t accept a relationship with a woman (or man, if that’s the case) who treated him or his family (or our beliefs) poorly. BUT! I’m not Karnac or God, and I don’t know for sure that his choices won’t be different from what I’d imagined they would have been.
On the bright side, a tragically fundamentalist girlfriend would get along GREAT with both sets of my sons grandparents. :rolleyes:
I’d like to wave the huge liberal flag and tell you that as long as they love eachother, I’d be Happy McJoyful… but I really think that’s a bunch of crap.
What if my son “reallytrulycan’thelpitohgodIlovehersomuch” fell in love with my sister’s daughter? Or my own (hypothetical) daughter? “It’s okay, mom. We don’t intend to have children” would not be enough to assuage my abject terror of the situation.
Everyone’s acceptance has a limit, I believe.
But the truth is, I might say my piece to him (privately, of course) once and only once. After that, I would hope that I am a strong and loving enough mother to accept his choices with a smile.
I just couldn’t imagine alienating my little angel, you know? He truly is my world and I would be crushed if my decisions ever led to him distancing himself from me. I can’t imagine a worse fate than losing a child over your own actions.
On the bright side, if things continue to go as they’ve gone for the first ten years of his life, he will either be marrying Princess Toadstool or Samas Aran.
My sister-in-law is in love with, and living with, her mother’s brother. What are you gonna do? No one likes it, but you can’t alienate half the freakin’ family. It’s one of those ugly sitations that you simply have to learn to live with. Or you lose your child/sibling.
As a Jewish man, I’m really curious: Why would your Hindu parents prefer someone Jewish over other kinds of intermarriages?
Ed
Years ago an ABC friend of mine explained to me her parents’ hierarchy of potential suitors (IIRC):
1 - Taiwanese Chinese
2 - Mainland Chinese
3 - Other Chinese Asians (Asians of ethnic Chinese heritage)
4 - Other ABCs
5 - Non-Chinese Asians (except Indians)
6 - Indians
7 - Jews
8 - White Americans/Europeans
9 - Latinos and Blacks
The thinking with Jews was that they had very similar values on education and family. Personally, I found this whole concept put me off a bit. It’s just so far from the way I think about these things. After more experience I can better appreciate the thought process, even if I still find it prejudiced and disagree with it.
Abbie, you sound exactly like my dad. My sister just spent 2 years with an athiest, and while Dad was never unpolite to the boy, he did tell my sister in private that he thought she was doing a “very stupid thing.”
I do see a lot of couples start to fight when they have kids and can’t decide how to raise them, religiously speaking. That’s just one of those things that I think you should talk about before the wedding, but hey…
And FTR, I would and do date any religion or ethnicity at all, but when I want to find a husband, I’ll probably stay within the Christian/Catholic circle. That alone will keep me from marrying Arab Muslims, or Indian Hindus, but I don’t think it is about intolerance so much as compatibility.