No, my family would be very upset if the SO was black. White latino or Asian would be fine.
I didn’t say anything. I just brought her home. Worked out fine.
I was actually re-pondering this question the other day, and my original answer was about my immediate family - parents, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin (yes, I only have one of each). They’re all pretty liberal and wouldn’t have any objection to my SO being from anywhere, or of any race. They might gently counsel (as they have) that cross-cultural barriers might be more of a problem than I suspect (and I’ve found them to be right) but they certainly wouldn’t do anything other than welcome to the family someone that I wanted to be with.
Outside the circle of the immediate family, though, things are probably quite different. A few years ago, I was on a road trip with said cousin, and for some reason, we were talking about what would be the best way to offend our (large) extended family, with its very traditional Hindu Brahmin values. Both of us are male, which is relevant to this story. I said “The worst thing I could probably do is bring home a black Muslim girl” and he said “Nope. You could bring home a black Muslim boy.” I think that reflects the views of the extended family quite well - they wouldn’t be outwardly nasty, but I suspect there would be a lot of gossip and closing of doors. On the other hand, I’m not close enough to most of them for that to really matter to me, but I can see it would be very awkward for everyone involved.
I’m in Ireland, so the situation is very different from in the US. There are practically no non-white adult Irish guys (because nobody in their right minds would’ve immigrated to Ireland till 15 or 20 years ago). So if I were dating someone who wasn’t white, he would almost certainly be from a different culture - American, British, African, Asian - and yeah, I’d mention that to my parents. If I were dating a white American guy, I’d mention his nationality for the same reason. Culture gaps are real, and they matter. They’re worth mentioning.
If I were dating one of the very few non-white Irish guys my age, no, it wouldn’t occur to me to mention his race. There weren’t really any non-white subcultures in Ireland till recently - there weren’t enough non-whites to form them - so any cultural gap would be due to other factors (like if he was from a very rural background), and those are the ones I’d mention. This might be different for the next generation, now that Ireland’s got a large non-white population and subcultural divides are developing along racial lines as well as class lines and the urban/rural divide.
Basically, I’d mention anything that I thought would be a serious factor in shaping our relationship. Culture gaps qualify. Race, in the absence of a culture gap, doesn’t. I’m pretty much positive my family would feel the same way.
My first serious girlfriend was Tongan. My second (whom I married) was/is Japanese. Me, I’m pure whitebread.
In each case, when I told my parents that things were getting serious, I mentioned where the ladies were from, because why wouldn’t I? My parents didn’t care; they were interested, that’s all.
Yeah, it strikes me as part of people’s identity. I would never hesitate to mention it.
We have a thread winner.
Not to pick on your parents, but I don’t understand this anymore. I guess since I’ve lived in Asia for 25 years, but race seems to irrelevant to me anymore.
My first comment to my kids will be to remind them they’re too young, five and three aren’t dating ages.
But seriously, when someone mentions they have a new SO, my first reaction is to say, “So tell me about them” and invite the person to describe them.
I’d much rather hear what type of personality the person has and why the they like them, rather than what color of skin they have.
This is something that living abroad for so long has changed me, because I know so many wonderful Asians, assholes and jerks. Just like back home.
When my sister got married to a guy from India, my mother was extremely upset. Not that he was Indian, but that he wasn’t Mormon.
By the time I got around to having a serious girlfriend, it was old hat to our family.
I told my mom before I brought him home. It was pretty obvious by his first name he was from outside the U.S. His skin color wasn’t that huge an issue, though what kind of horrified me was that my mom asked, “Is he black??” when I first mentioned he wasn’t from here. When I mentioned he was from India, she relaxed. It kind of pissed me off. My family were the first mixed family in our town’s history when my grandmother married my grandfather. Of course, they were mixed faith, not necessarily mixed race. He was Jewish, she was not. Back then, that was a Big Deal. They were both almost disowned.
It’s not about skin color. If I was talking to my parents about a fellow black person, I wouldn’t mention anything about the shade of brown their skin is. And you can talk about someone’s personality and also talk about their ethnicity/race/cultural background. Why would those things be mutually exclusive? “Bob is a white guy, but he was raised by a couple of lesbian Asian Americans on a hippie commune in Nebraska. He’s funny and smart and surprisingly hip, though. I can’t wait for you to meet him!”
Like I said, if someone felt too weird to talk about my racial background in a casual way, this would kind of be a warning flag to me. My ethnicity isn’t a taboo, shameful thing. And neither is anyone else’s.
You left out the part of the quote where I said that I would let the person describe their SO.
What I don’t understand is the immediate need to ask about their race.
When you’re a racial minority, race is often on the top of your mind when you’re talking about people. You don’t have the luxury of treating race as a irrelevant data point, because your own race is so often used as a signifier to others and you’re well aware of that fact.
monstro and I have the same parents, and FWIW, when I told them about my BF, his race wasn’t the very first thing they inquired about. But it was at the top of the list. Perhaps I should have volunteered he was white and saved them the trouble of asking, but I’m weird about volunteering all kinds of information when it comes to the subject of my love life. Personal details have to be extracted from me, or else I might not tell you.
My wife can tell a similar story about her family. Her (white) Mom married a Mexican man when that just wasn’t done in Texas. MOST of her Mom’s family cut her off completely, though her parents didn’t… so my wife always had her grandparents in her life, just none of the redneck aunts or uncles or cousins. (They weren’t missed, it appears.)
My 10 year old son has heard that story, and just doesn’t get it. Which is progress, obviously. He can’t even imagine that his family wouldn’t welcome non-white friends (he’s still too young to understand why anyone would want a girlfriend, of course) with open arms.
As I said earlier, I’m 52 and married, so I don’t expect I’ll ever have to bring home another woman to meet my parents. IF, by chance, I ever did… I’d probably still feel the need to give some kind of heads up if the woman I was bringing home was black.
There’s no chance anyone would use racial slurs, but there might well be some stares or double takes, and that would be uncomfortable. That wouldn’t happen to a woman of any other ethnic group.
I dunno. Three Rhymers in my generation-- me, my elder brother, and one of my elder cousins – married outside the race (two white women, one Asian), and we’ve all gotten a ration of shit for it from some members of our family.
I didn’t volunteer the information to my mom regarding either of the women that became my wife – she asked up front. The first time around, she expressed some…concern regarding the fact that I hadn’t been dating black women. But she got past it. With my current wife (whom my mom loves, by the way), she asked, and then just shrugged. I suppose 10 years can make a difference in anybody’s attitude.
On the off chance that I’d ever be bringing someone else non-black to meet my mom some day, I wouldn’t mention it, and I doubt she’d even ask.
I suppose, like others, I’d feel a need to give her a heads up if I had reason to think she was going to flip out.