Yeah, I kind of found that comment a bit odd. I would love to live in that kind of post-racial universe, but I don’t see it where I’m at (of course, Chicago is not highly known for its history of great race relations), and it’s not just “white people” who care. There are a lot of ethnicities/cultures/reglion I deal with in my work as a wedding photographer where I see marrying outside the ethnicity/culture/religion clearly causes friction within the families and it would be a bit surprising to introduce an SO to the family for the first time and conveniently leave out the part that the SO is not “a good XXX boy/girl” like mom and dad are expecting. Should it matter? Of course not. But I’m somewhat surprised that so many people grew up in such great families where it is completely a non-issue. If that’s truly the case, that’s awesome. We’ve gotten a lot farther than I thought.
I live in a different universe from everyone.
And miss out on the spit take?!
Well, my WW2 pacific theater and Korean war decorated combat vet father wasn’t overly thrilled when I called to a) introduce him to my Chinese fiancé and b) inform him we’d be getting married in a few days in Japan. He covered well and was gracious on the phone and then later in real life when he met my wife and came to Hong Kong to perform the wedding (he was a minister). My mother was thrilled I was getting married but gave the lecture on how international marriages are challenging.
For me, it’s part of the background. Actually, I don’t care about the race so much as what languages they speak. “Oh, how convenient, a Mandarin speaker” or “cool, maybe I can practice my Japanese.”
I didn’t date anyone who wasn’t my race, so it didn’t come up. But then, I hardly dated at all before meeting Suburban Plankton 23 yrs ago. 
If my son told me he was dating someone or had a girlfriend (he’s only 15), I wouldn’t assume she was any particular race. His school district is one of the most ethnically diverse in the state. I might be able to guess her race by her name, though. His group of friends sounds like roll call at the UN.
I wouldn’t have brought it up just to inform them–it was part of the discussion about who the person was, including the people I dated who were similar to us. If anything, I think my mother is still a little envious that I get to celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. I don’t think they had any feelings about ethnic or racial differences or similarities at all. It took them awhile to deal with the lesbian thing, but they managed.
When I asked a cute black guy to turnabout dance in high school, my mom calmly flipped out. Then she flipped out about her own flipping out and suddenly realized she had racial issues. We talked about it, because she was genuinely surprised she had an issue until it came to her daughter dating a black guy. That was in the 80’s. She’s gotten over it.
Mexican-American here.
My parents knew of my first girlfriend (Chinese-American) in high school in the late 80’s. Their reaction, “Oh, she’s cute.”
They knew of my first “adult” relationship with an African-American in college. Reaction: “Oh, she’s pretty.”
Some years later, I met and proposed to JpnGal (Japanese) before my parents knew anything about her. Upon telling them, they said: “Oh, wow!”
The fact that you feel you must tell someone else this means that you know they are going to have an issue with it. The best policy is to not say anything. They will figure it out when they meet this person or see a photo. I see no need for an advanced warning.
OR Are you dating someone from another race because this is your best way to get attention from family and friends and even hope to shock them to show how different you are or to show you are “grown up”? That’s the other thing you have to consider is why you are dating this person who is from another race, is it because you truly want to be with them and it is you that doesn’t have the problem, or this is the best weapon you can think of to get back at your parents for forcing you to go to boarding school or whatever?
People who bring up race, religion, wealth, or celebrity is because they have issues with those things. If doing so for external people not themselves, then don’t mention it.
scratches head in confusion
Dunnow, does answering my mother’s question of “where’s he from” count? The issue in the OP had never occurred to me.
So now you aren’t even supposed to mention to your family that your new SO is a celebrity? Makes sense.
I didn’t have to tell my parents about Mrs. J. They already figured something was up, what with the beeping and flashing lights.
Huh? Race, ethnic identity, religion and thinks like that can be a strong part of a person’s identity and their story. You can mention it as part of legitimately describing the person without it being an “issue” to you or the listener.
Celebrity is even sillier (and off the topic) since the entire definition of celebrity is having people talking about you.
My last long time girlfriend was (and still is, as far as I know) Hispanic and I did bring it up, but similar to Jophiel, it was more part of her story than a “and by the way…” moment. We met on vacation in Europe and her background was very different from mine so it naturally kind of just came out in the telling. None of my family gave a crap.
It’s not something I have to worry about since I’ve been married 23 years, and I expect it to last the rest of my life.
If I were suddenly single and got serious about a black woman, I’d let my parents know her race before I brought her by, just to minimize the chance of a faux pas from being too surprised. But it wouldn’t be a big deal.
It doesn’t really work like that with my parents.
Mom dated a black guy for years – he was, for all intents and purposes to me, my stepdad, though they weren’t ever married – so she wouldn’t bat an eye or make an issue out of it or even mention it, I’m sure. I think my sister and her kids also give zero fucks.
My dad is horribly racist/homophobic/misogynist, and yet I still don’t ever bring it up (because I can’t understand why it would be relevant). However, if I even bother to mention that I’m seeing someone (often relationships come and go and he never learns of them) the very first question he will ask is, “White guy?” To which I always answer, “Nope. Why?” 
Even if the guy* is* white. I don’t understand why he’s asking. Or what business it is of his. So I just let him worry his little racist head about potential bi-racial grandchildren (will never happen; I don’t want children) and go on about my day.
I’m 52 and married, so my days of bringing women home to meet the folks are long over.
My son is 10, and still can’t grasp why anyone would want to kiss a girl, though he has loads of female buddies. It should be a while yet before he has even a casual girlfriend, let alone one he wants to bring home.
But our family, school and church are already pretty diverse ethnically- my whole immediate family is Irish, but my wife is Hispanic, and two of my brothers married Hispanic women, too. So my son has a brown-skinned Grandpa and loads of brown skinned aunts, uncles, and cousins.
And at his last birthday parties, my son has mostly invited non-white kids. His best friends include a black kid, several Vietnamese kids, an Iranian kid, several Korean kids, an Indian kid, loads of Mexican kids… he has an infinitely more diverse group of friends and classmates than I ever did. On top of that, we have numerous interracial couples at our church (black-white, Asian-white, Asian-Hispanic, et al.). No ethnic combination seems outlandish to him.
So, if my son ever meets a girl he likes from another race, he probably won’t think twice about it, and wouldn’t worry that his parents might object.
Yes, because my parents are slightly racist.
I would have to tell them and then warn them not to say anything that would upset my girlfriend.
However, the above issue would never come up because like monstro’s parents, the first thing they’ll want to know after hearing about her is whether or not she’s Jewish. Ok, maybe not exactly like monstro’s parents, but my parents will ask about her ethnicity within about five questions after finding out about her.
Well, find yourself a nice Jewish girl from Ethiopia!
I didn’t make a point of it, but it was pretty obvious from pictures. I think I dated more women of different ethnicities than I did my apparent race. I’m now married to a Japanese woman.
I did have to field cautiously curious/concerned questions a couple of times when I brought my Haitian-American girlfriend to meet family. She was the first girl I seriously considered marrying, so the first one I made an effort to introduce my family to. They were worried about our kids having problems with prejudice from both whites and blacks, which is fairly reasonable. It seemed to be a universal concern since those happened during separate visits to relatives who don’t talk to each other all that often. I had no real push-back from even my most racist-seeming relatives.
The biggest problem with prejudice I ever had as a couple was actually not directed at me, and it wasn’t from the majority race. My aforementioned Haitian-American girlfriend copped a fair amount of shit from a handful of black girls in her peer group. She came to me near tears at one point when we were having lunch with a group and said she needed to leave. About 20 minutes later, after we’d left and she’d calmed down, she told me that she’d just been on the receiving end of some barbed comments about being a race-traitor and why couldn’t she have found a “nice Brother” to be with.
This wasn’t exactly a unique experience for her, though. Apparently, Islander blacks (Haitians, Jamaicans, Dominicans) get crap from mainland blacks quite a lot. In large part, this is because the cultural background is way different. It’s also a strong demonstration that skin color matters much less than cultural and social factors.