Have you ever done the "Un-American" thing and dated someone of another race? How did your family feel about it? Did you ever reject dating someone because they were ethnically different from you? Why? Have you ever wished you had the opportunity to do the "Un-American" thing if you've never done it before? Please let me know?
I have done the un-American thing. I’m Caucasian and I’ve dated men who are African-American, Pilipino, Hispanic, Japanese, Israeli, etc. For me it’s always been about who he is, not about what he is. I’m certainly not going to claim that I don’t see race (like Stephen Colbert :) or that it hasn’t been a issue in any of my relationships but it’s never been THE issue.
My family’s been cool, for which I feel lucky. Much of my family (they’re all from Louisiana and Mississippi) is very racist but my branch of the family has never been very close with that branch. My daughter, who is multi-racial (who isn’t?), has been wholeheartedly accepted into the family with none of her treatment or my family’s feelings toward her based on race (as far as I can tell). I do have one great aunt who, when told, said, “It was only a matter of time before we had one in the family.” I think the members of my family who are obviously racist are more like her, latent, ignorant racism, not the loud, marching in hoods, full of venom kind which I guess is something.
The hardest issue I’ve had with race is coming to terms with the fact that because my daughter has brown skin, I can never know what it’s like for her. Because of the shade of our skin people will make assumptions and treat us differently and I can listen to her and try to comfort her but I can never experience it. We want to protect our children from as much as we can but I wonder how I will protect her from something with which I can’t even identify.
I've been wanting to respond to your comment for a couple days but when I read your post, I did not have anything worthwhile to say. As you can see, my boyfriend has white skin. I say it that way because I think our current idea of "race" is farce. In other words, it's something that people before us have established and we continue to perpetuate this lie. The lie that humanity is truly divided up into neat racial categories, like we're different species of flowers, dogs, and whales. Can't I just be a damn person? Not a "black" person?
ReplyDeleteIf you ever get the chance, I say go to Brazil. I can't say that there is not racism down there, but it is just as diverse as the USA and a Japaneese girl can marry a German man, without anyone having a cow over it. Nor do they have this hyphenated title crap like "African-American" or "Hispanic-American". If you were born in Brazil, you are Brazilian, no questions asked.
"The lie that humanity is truly divided up into neat racial categories, like we're different species of flowers, dogs, and whales."
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. I know that I'm Italian, Scandinavian, English, Choctaw and who know what else but I'm judged by how I look so I'm Caucasian. Just like someone who is dark is African-American whether or not their ancestors hail from Africa. I think a big part of the problem is that our culture is so hung up on labeling anyone; Christian, Episcopal, gay, straight, questioning, left, right, liberal, conservative, etc. The truth is that very few of us (if any) fit into any one of those categories without any spill over into another.
"If you were born in Brazil, you are Brazilian, no questions asked."
I think that Americans are unique in that no one wants to claim the US as their cultural origin. When everyone's hyphenated they can lay claim to some other culture or history when in fact they may not truly identify with those origins or may not have a clear sense of what it really means to be a part of that culture. Sometimes we even end up perpetuating stereotypes in an effort to put forth what we think is the norm in a particular culture.
Thank you, Kelly, for asking the question, it's really had me thinking over the past couple of days.