Anyway, the question we get asked a lot that irks me is, “How did you two meet?” I’ve noticed that white people always have a big smile on their face when they ask this question whereas blacks don’t. I haven’t quite interpreted this. I talk about this and other aspects of our relationship in my blog at www.bfinterracialmarriage.blogspot.com

the one you have here just takes you to my blog in general, which is quite frustrating. thanks for linking by the way. interesting analysis.

> if people just owned their own shit before going around getting up in everyone else’s face about who and how and why they fuck.

When i said “before,” I really meant “instead of.”

I dunno, I just think: it sure would be nice if people just owned their own shit before going around getting up in everyone else’s face about who and how and why they fuck. I mean, slap on any sociopolitical stuff you want on it (and not saying it’s not there, but): what it comes down to, no matter how you slice it, is:

“I am making your personal life my business.”

Sooner or later, one runs out of patience for defending and explaining and reasoning. and simply comes back with

“Piss off.”

That’s good in theory, but in reality they do matter. Race amd racism affect the lives of people in IRs (and everybody else for that matter). I think maybe a better statement would be, “Race and culture do preclude people from being able to love.”

So much (though not all, I stress) of what has been written about IR has been written from the black/white perspective. As another commenter noted, Latinos (and I have other issues with that label) are more difficult to classify. We represent these communities as gigantic monoliths when, in fact, there is a lot of diversity within the groups. I remember a college friend (chinese american) who was dating a japanese american and that didn’t go over too well in the respective families. Yet to an outsider’s perspective, it would just be an Asian relationship. Being Mexican is not at all the same as being Chilean, being Argentine, being Venezuelan… while it makes it more difficult for people to make generalizations about the proprieties of IR relationships (though I would rather think of them as IC relationships…), we might be better served to do so not in a binary framework but rather taking into account the many eccentricities of different groups. Which in turn might convince us that we cannot indeed make generalizations about these intercultural relationships.

In the end, I tend towards the perspective that race/culture don’t really matter as long as you are in love.

I initially had the same reaction to his post, but then I thought, well maybe his high school dates were Latinos. Since they tend to have widely varying amounts of European ancestry, and aren’t subject to nearly as much racial categorization (especially those born in the US and who are largely European in color,) it’s plausible. But if he was talking about black people, it’s not very plausible.

Thinking back on it now I realized that I have dated a few nonwhite women (and girls, when I was in junior high and high school). It didn’t really occur to me to think about their race much. Until I read this they were filed mentally under generic “ex” not under “POC ex”. I can remember what their eyes looked like but couldn’t tell you their exct skin shade if I tried.

Sorry Sailorman, but I’m going to have to wait till I quit laughing to tell you I think you’re full of it.

Ok, done now. You’re full of it. Do you really expect us to believe that you paid so little attention to your girlfriends that you didn’t even notice their skin color? I’ve dated women & men across a bunch of racial spectrums, and not only do I remember their skin color, their eye color, and the sound of their voices, but their preferences in music, food, and sexual positions. (for the most part. I’m getting old and my memory isn’t what it used to be.)

I understand you’re probably trying to say, “I don’t see color” but I just don’t buy it. Sorry if I sound rude, but either you’re fooling yourself or you’re trying to fool us.

Yep, and no one asks them completely inappropriate questions about thier childhood (were you traumatized by a person of your race and that’s why you don’t want a partner who might remind you of them?), dating history, and sex life.

I’ve been in an IR for almost a decade (I’m white, my husband is asian) and I’ve been questioned about his penis size, body hair, how his sweat smells, his sex drive, his career ambitions, how many other asian (or otherwise nonwhite) guys I’ve dated, etc.

I can understand people being curious what it’s like to be in an IR relationship if they’ve never done it (for whatever reason), but I always get the impression that a lot of the questions I’ve gotten are people fishing for stereotypes so they can confirm whatever ideas they already have and the choices they’ve already made.

I thought I would post a quick comment on the normalcy of a long term IR marriage. I’ve been married 26 years. My marriage is accepted now because those who objected have no choice - they either love us as we are or loose us. My wife and I have played hardball with family and friends for a long time. We’ve had to, bigotry and racial hatred was much more the norm back in the day. Marriage itself was not easy; we had some added problems because of the diverse nature of our cultural backgrounds. It comes down to this (for us anyway). I am an American and free to marry whomever I choose. For those who try to limit my rights in any way, all I can say is god help you (cause it’s fighting time).

I’ve been asked for advice over the years. I tell people to marry the person they love and then fight for their marriage with all their hearts. It is all about love anyway.

Robert, I think the African American identity is strong enough to overcome hypothetical issues of “racial purity”, particularly since forced “intermixing” resulting in “brown babies” has been a part of the African American diaspora for some time. “Colourstruck” is hardly a new concept in the community.

I’m fairly sure that something like Loving Day will not spell the end of the Black experience.

But (some/many/most) black people might feel differently; certainly a concern that in the future there won’t be an identifiable African-American population has been present in the words of some black people I’ve talked about this with. I don’t really know how widespread or deep this concern is.

To suspecting him of white supremacist sympathizings, not to his (hypothetical) views.

I object to your automatically identifying such an argument with white supremacist views. The effects of race mixing on cultural identity are not obviously non-problematic, and to brand pointing out potential problems as white supremacist seems to be much too hasty. Now, if Robert were to say that such considerations make interracial relationships a bad idea, I would be sympathetic. But saying something is difficult and problematic isn’t the same as saying it shouldn’t be done, or even that it should be discouraged.

On the other hand, I don’t really understand, Robert, what you’re suggesting these problems would be. Social unrest? “Othering” of mixed-race children by both of their parents groups? (If they become more common, that would stop being as much of a problem as it is today.) Loss of distinctive culture associated with one group? You’re being uncomfortably vague about that.

When minority groups are debating how much funding they should receive, they argue for a “one drop” rule to increase the number of that minority in the area. If they are debating whether an organization has a sufficient number of minorities, or a voting district is diluting minority votes, they will want a more stringent definition. (And, of course, vice versa for the majority groups, who want to say that John Smith, who looks white and is 1/64th Cherokee, should count as a ‘minority’ in the district.)

In the near future, as other ethnic groups increase in number, and there are more people who fall into the “gray” of inter-racial identity, the exceptions will start becoming more of the rule.

Because hell, if you like someone and they make you happy and you enjoy kissing etc., and have fun together, what’s their skin color have to do with it? If I were to think about it analytically (which I am doing now for the first time) I had a lot more in common with almost all of the POC women I have dated–educated, my social class, similar interests–than with some of the white women I have dated.

I can understand the feelings of those who think those relationships are bad/good. I have no really worthy opinion on the matter. I just think it’s a pity in general: There’s a lot of lonely people in the world, why make it any harder for everyone to meet someone they like? My generic reaction to a happy couple is “luck them” and my generic feeling is “lucky me” whoever we are with. So my generic reaction to someone who feels burdened by this is “oy vey that has to suck, to feel that way”