The Interracial Family Circle of Washington (AMEA Affiliate) - Box 53291, Washington, DC 20009, (202)393-7866. Email: info@interracialfamilycircle.org. Provides opportunities for the education, support, and socialization of multiracial individuals, families, people involved in interracial relationships, and trans-racial adoptive families in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
A Place for Us - Cherie Byrd, Naples, FL, (813)732-6996.
G.I.F.T. (Getting Interracial/cultural Families Together) (AMEA Affiliate) - c/o Irene Rottenberg, P.O.Box 1281, Montclair, NJ 07042, (973)783-0083. Email: NJGIFT@aol.com.
InterRacial Life - c/o Dave Seibel, 2 George St., East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Interracial Relationships in America
Question: Has the perspective of interracial relationships changed since the times following the Civil War (1865-present day), and what do these changes mean for American culture? Interracial relationships have become increasingly common throughout modern-day America, inspiring an improvement in perspective about such relationships, leading to the acceptance of race. However, contradicting this statement, interracial relationships can also bring out exactly how much racism still exists in post-Civil Rights America. The definition of an interracial relationship can be established with three sources: actual definition, law, and personal perspective. The exploration and examination of the physical struggles of individuals in interracial relationships of the past and the societal struggles of those individuals in the same circumstances in the present analyzes the position of interracial relationships as vehicles to promote acceptance of other ethnicities, and speaks more specifically about the challenges interracial unions still face today. In the sake of demonstrating the type of interracial relationship that is most commonly known and more widely disputed, African-American/Anglo Saxon heterosexual unions will be used most often.
One definition developed by Stanley O. Gaines Jr. and Jennifer Leaver states that: “An interracial relationship is a relationship involving partners who differ in their racial, cultural, and/or religious group memberships” (“Interracial Relationships”. Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 65), a definition which gives the most literal translation of what an interracial relationship is and what the term means. However, terms like “interracial relationship” can have a more biased take depending on who is asked to define it. In the early 1900s, an interracial relationship could, above all other things, be defined as an illegal crime punishable by law (mentioned in many texts). During those times immediately following the Civil War, many states adopted anti-miscegenation laws, most of which focused on the outlawing of white/black sexual or martial intermixing (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 67). Although these laws were never officially adopted by the Constitution, they were still effective enough for individuals to lose their lives over broken laws. Another unofficial definition of an interracial relationship, most commonly held by individuals in the present day and individuals who partake in interracial relationships, is a vehicle to “symbolize social equality among the races” (Burrello, Kelly N. “What are the Strengths of Interracial Families?” P. 6). With the long and sometimes violent history of the mixing of African-Americans and Anglo Saxons in America, it is no wonder that two such conflicting views came about, but they are both most important and key ideas to the perspective of interracial relationships: past, present, and future.
When thinking about interracial unions in pre-Civil War and early post-Civil War America, individuals usually refer to slavery and the custom of slave owners raping their African-American slave women. Though this is an important view of interracial unions and lends many ideas still held by people today on the view of interracial relationships, most people are unaware of a more legal union between African-Americans and Anglo Saxons. According to Gaines Jr. and Leaver’s research, there are a few instances in America’s past when anti-miscegenation laws, as quoted in their work, “were ignored or did not exist”. In early Colonial America, African-American women were in short supply, leaving African-American male indentured servants to marry Anglo Saxon female indentured servants, and during the Civil War when Anglo Saxon males went to battle, anti-miscegenation laws were ignored, primarily in the north. (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 72). Though there seems to be a point in which intimate unions between African-Americans and Anglo Saxons were generally approved of, for the most part, interracial relationships such as these were a societal taboo. The troubled past of interracial relationships includes, as mentioned before, anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting such unions, and following the Civil War the allowance of Anglo Saxon males to impose themselves sexually on African-American females, and oppress, through the fear of punishment, interest in Anglo Saxon females in African-American males (Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt. Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices, 6). The start of Civil Rights, following the end of the Civil War, led to groups primarily powered by hate to keep African-Americans and Anglo Saxons separated, starting with the Ku Klux Klan, and then later, the Black Panthers. Groups such as these regularly participated in violence and riot protests to convey their views to others. In 1967, with a Supreme Court decision involving the case of Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, all anti-miscegenation laws were abolished (Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt. Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices, 5; “Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 72), but all of the racist notions of interracial unions did not go with it.
In the past few years especially, the number of interracial relationships have increased in America, probably having to do with the more individuals being brought up in households that teach acceptance of diversity and interracial relationship depictions in the media (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 69-70). Although many families still hold racist views towards other ethnicities, even these may have contributed to the uprising of interracial relationships in America based on a quote from the research Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt conducted: “In having the confidence and autonomy or the moral outrage to oppose racism, [individuals] were more free to explore relationships with people of other races” (54). Modern interracial couples, although not having the challenge of an illegal relationship, still face hostility from society and from their families. Usually this hostility stems from derogatory stereotyping, discrimination towards the couple in social settings, such as at restaurants, emotional abuse, and occasionally physical violence. Researchers of the subject claim that individuals in interracial relationships not only have to worry about the normal struggles of keeping a marriage functional, but must also deal with the mental wounds racism can inflict on the psyche, harming the relationship in the long term if the couple cannot deal with the extra baggage an interracial relationship might entail. Interracial couples must also cope with how their children will be viewed if they happen to have them. Many hate-based acts are committed in the belief that “mixed-race” households create children who are inferior to monorace children (Burrello, Kelly N. “What are the Strengths of Interracial Families?” P. 1). Though it is thought that interracial relationships face fewer oppositions than individuals in interracial relationships in the past, modern-day interracial couples have more mental challenges weighing on their minds.
It is obvious individuals in interracial relationships face more challenges than monorace couples, in the past and in the present, but many researchers believe that there are certain benefits that the American culture can reap from such unions. Kelly N. Burrello states that some of these advantages pertain exclusively to interracial families and includes that parents of biracial children usually “model appropriate behavior on how to deal with diversity and how to treat those who differ from themselves” (section 2). Mixed-race families also convey the fact that it is possible for individuals of different ethnicities to co-exist peacefully. Among other things, interracial relationships symbolize and recognize the equality of the African-American and Anglo Saxon race. Equality in these terms, as equal partners in a relationship, has the power to open the minds of other individuals and helps to put a stop to prejudices in the United States (Porterfeild. Black & White Mixed Marriages: An Ethnographic Study of Black-White Families.)
At the same time, some Americans feel that the equality of the races is not an improvement for the country. This opposition is, for the majority, felt by Anglo Saxon Americans, but also in African-American communities. The common fear is that with the mixing of the races, racial purity will be put to an end and there will cease to be a clear way to categorize individuals by race. (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 66-68) For many Anglo Saxons, if the relationship in question is of an African-American male and an Anglo Saxon female, Anglo Saxons foresee a power-transfer to the African-American male. African-American females, viewing the same relationship, usually term it as a dismissal of the African-American male’s race. Both Anglo Saxons and African-Americans seem to oppose interracial relationships mostly of the African-American male and an Anglo Saxon female pairing more than the opposite pairing of an interracial couple. Among some Anglo Saxons, there is also the belief that non-white individuals are inferior to white individuals, which also leads to the want of segregation between African-Americans and Anglo Saxons. An interracial relationship is a threat to this superiority.
Though many interracial couples still face challenges to exist peacefully within the United States, the presence of such unions, becoming increasingly common today, has the potential to exterminate racial discrimination in the future. American culture can benefit from these unions and evolve true equality in all ethnicities in other areas such as the basic rights of all ethnicities and international relations as well as personal relations. Though it is not necessary for society to change its views for an interracial couple to be happy, societal improvement on the matter will help to pave the way for other individuals to explore interracial relationships. (Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt. Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices, 292). Porterfeild speculates then for the future, based on current trends in interracial relationships:
Black-White marriage should then have a tremendous impact upon race relations in the United States. It is relatively unimportant as to whether the incidence of these alliances increase or remain the same, but it is of much concern to many individuals that these unions are approved by a larger society (171)
He goes on to say that the many interracial relationships are fair indicators of races “achieving social, economic, and political equality” (Porterfeild. Black & White Mixed Marriages: An Ethnographic Study of Black-White Families.). With most of society warming up to the equality of races and media helping that along, it is speculated that it won’t be too much longer until racial discrimination in the United States will be put to rest. That development will benefit every individual in the United States, regardless of how they decide to love.
Works Cited
Burello, Kelly N.
Diversity Training Group Inc 2004 “What are the Strengths of Interracial Families?”
Gains Jr., Leaver
“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. 2002. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt.
Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices. 1995. Sage Publications Inc.
Porterfeild
Black & White Mixed Marriages: An Ethnographic Study of Black-White Families. 1978 Library in Congress Publication Data
One definition developed by Stanley O. Gaines Jr. and Jennifer Leaver states that: “An interracial relationship is a relationship involving partners who differ in their racial, cultural, and/or religious group memberships” (“Interracial Relationships”. Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 65), a definition which gives the most literal translation of what an interracial relationship is and what the term means. However, terms like “interracial relationship” can have a more biased take depending on who is asked to define it. In the early 1900s, an interracial relationship could, above all other things, be defined as an illegal crime punishable by law (mentioned in many texts). During those times immediately following the Civil War, many states adopted anti-miscegenation laws, most of which focused on the outlawing of white/black sexual or martial intermixing (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 67). Although these laws were never officially adopted by the Constitution, they were still effective enough for individuals to lose their lives over broken laws. Another unofficial definition of an interracial relationship, most commonly held by individuals in the present day and individuals who partake in interracial relationships, is a vehicle to “symbolize social equality among the races” (Burrello, Kelly N. “What are the Strengths of Interracial Families?” P. 6). With the long and sometimes violent history of the mixing of African-Americans and Anglo Saxons in America, it is no wonder that two such conflicting views came about, but they are both most important and key ideas to the perspective of interracial relationships: past, present, and future.
When thinking about interracial unions in pre-Civil War and early post-Civil War America, individuals usually refer to slavery and the custom of slave owners raping their African-American slave women. Though this is an important view of interracial unions and lends many ideas still held by people today on the view of interracial relationships, most people are unaware of a more legal union between African-Americans and Anglo Saxons. According to Gaines Jr. and Leaver’s research, there are a few instances in America’s past when anti-miscegenation laws, as quoted in their work, “were ignored or did not exist”. In early Colonial America, African-American women were in short supply, leaving African-American male indentured servants to marry Anglo Saxon female indentured servants, and during the Civil War when Anglo Saxon males went to battle, anti-miscegenation laws were ignored, primarily in the north. (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 72). Though there seems to be a point in which intimate unions between African-Americans and Anglo Saxons were generally approved of, for the most part, interracial relationships such as these were a societal taboo. The troubled past of interracial relationships includes, as mentioned before, anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting such unions, and following the Civil War the allowance of Anglo Saxon males to impose themselves sexually on African-American females, and oppress, through the fear of punishment, interest in Anglo Saxon females in African-American males (Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt. Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices, 6). The start of Civil Rights, following the end of the Civil War, led to groups primarily powered by hate to keep African-Americans and Anglo Saxons separated, starting with the Ku Klux Klan, and then later, the Black Panthers. Groups such as these regularly participated in violence and riot protests to convey their views to others. In 1967, with a Supreme Court decision involving the case of Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, all anti-miscegenation laws were abolished (Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt. Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices, 5; “Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 72), but all of the racist notions of interracial unions did not go with it.
In the past few years especially, the number of interracial relationships have increased in America, probably having to do with the more individuals being brought up in households that teach acceptance of diversity and interracial relationship depictions in the media (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 69-70). Although many families still hold racist views towards other ethnicities, even these may have contributed to the uprising of interracial relationships in America based on a quote from the research Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt conducted: “In having the confidence and autonomy or the moral outrage to oppose racism, [individuals] were more free to explore relationships with people of other races” (54). Modern interracial couples, although not having the challenge of an illegal relationship, still face hostility from society and from their families. Usually this hostility stems from derogatory stereotyping, discrimination towards the couple in social settings, such as at restaurants, emotional abuse, and occasionally physical violence. Researchers of the subject claim that individuals in interracial relationships not only have to worry about the normal struggles of keeping a marriage functional, but must also deal with the mental wounds racism can inflict on the psyche, harming the relationship in the long term if the couple cannot deal with the extra baggage an interracial relationship might entail. Interracial couples must also cope with how their children will be viewed if they happen to have them. Many hate-based acts are committed in the belief that “mixed-race” households create children who are inferior to monorace children (Burrello, Kelly N. “What are the Strengths of Interracial Families?” P. 1). Though it is thought that interracial relationships face fewer oppositions than individuals in interracial relationships in the past, modern-day interracial couples have more mental challenges weighing on their minds.
It is obvious individuals in interracial relationships face more challenges than monorace couples, in the past and in the present, but many researchers believe that there are certain benefits that the American culture can reap from such unions. Kelly N. Burrello states that some of these advantages pertain exclusively to interracial families and includes that parents of biracial children usually “model appropriate behavior on how to deal with diversity and how to treat those who differ from themselves” (section 2). Mixed-race families also convey the fact that it is possible for individuals of different ethnicities to co-exist peacefully. Among other things, interracial relationships symbolize and recognize the equality of the African-American and Anglo Saxon race. Equality in these terms, as equal partners in a relationship, has the power to open the minds of other individuals and helps to put a stop to prejudices in the United States (Porterfeild. Black & White Mixed Marriages: An Ethnographic Study of Black-White Families.)
At the same time, some Americans feel that the equality of the races is not an improvement for the country. This opposition is, for the majority, felt by Anglo Saxon Americans, but also in African-American communities. The common fear is that with the mixing of the races, racial purity will be put to an end and there will cease to be a clear way to categorize individuals by race. (“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Duck, 66-68) For many Anglo Saxons, if the relationship in question is of an African-American male and an Anglo Saxon female, Anglo Saxons foresee a power-transfer to the African-American male. African-American females, viewing the same relationship, usually term it as a dismissal of the African-American male’s race. Both Anglo Saxons and African-Americans seem to oppose interracial relationships mostly of the African-American male and an Anglo Saxon female pairing more than the opposite pairing of an interracial couple. Among some Anglo Saxons, there is also the belief that non-white individuals are inferior to white individuals, which also leads to the want of segregation between African-Americans and Anglo Saxons. An interracial relationship is a threat to this superiority.
Though many interracial couples still face challenges to exist peacefully within the United States, the presence of such unions, becoming increasingly common today, has the potential to exterminate racial discrimination in the future. American culture can benefit from these unions and evolve true equality in all ethnicities in other areas such as the basic rights of all ethnicities and international relations as well as personal relations. Though it is not necessary for society to change its views for an interracial couple to be happy, societal improvement on the matter will help to pave the way for other individuals to explore interracial relationships. (Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt. Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices, 292). Porterfeild speculates then for the future, based on current trends in interracial relationships:
Black-White marriage should then have a tremendous impact upon race relations in the United States. It is relatively unimportant as to whether the incidence of these alliances increase or remain the same, but it is of much concern to many individuals that these unions are approved by a larger society (171)
He goes on to say that the many interracial relationships are fair indicators of races “achieving social, economic, and political equality” (Porterfeild. Black & White Mixed Marriages: An Ethnographic Study of Black-White Families.). With most of society warming up to the equality of races and media helping that along, it is speculated that it won’t be too much longer until racial discrimination in the United States will be put to rest. That development will benefit every individual in the United States, regardless of how they decide to love.
Works Cited
Burello, Kelly N.
Diversity Training Group Inc 2004 “What are the Strengths of Interracial Families?”
Gains Jr., Leaver
“Interracial Relationships” Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. 2002. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Karis, Powell, and Rosenblatt.
Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices. 1995. Sage Publications Inc.
Porterfeild
Black & White Mixed Marriages: An Ethnographic Study of Black-White Families. 1978 Library in Congress Publication Data
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