The Forum

Three Stories:

Mildred Loving. On May 2, 2008, Mildred Loving died at age 68. In the landmark case Lov­ing v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), the Supreme Court overturned Virginia’s miscegenation laws which prohibited interracial marriages. Loving, a black woman, was basically guilty of falling in love with Richard Loving, a white man.

President Barack Obama. The first multi-racial president ever elected in the U.S. President Obama is the son of a white woman and an African man. Many questioned whether his skin color would affect his bid for presidency.

University of Florida Defensive Coordinator Charlie Strong. Despite having one of the top defenses in col­lege football, Strong has consistently been passed over for head coaching jobs. Recently, Strong openly voiced concern that his marriage to a white woman has hindered his ability to get a fair shot.

These stories demonstrate the past, present, and future when it comes to interracial dating/marriage in the United States. What Mildred fought for is what Barack had to overcome and what Charlie continues to struggle with. Much progress has been made in the United States with regard to issues of race. As time has gone on, interracial relationships, which were once denied and criminalized, have now become much more accepted. However, prog­ress has not come without associated costs. Some segments of the population especially in the southern parts of the United States still are openly opposed to the idea of interracial relationships. The issue is much deeper though.

Interracial couples typically stick out first based on skin color. These couples are forced to deal with the looks and whispers from outsiders looking in at their relationship. On some level it is natural because mixed race relation­ships are relatively new to our society in terms of acceptance. On the other hand, part of this stems from our society’s disapproval of these types of relation­ships.

Furthermore, within their race, these people who engage in interracial relationships face scrutiny and ridicule from their own people. Examples of this include the story of the young La­tina girl whose parents object to her relationship with a young white man. The story of the the successful black man who is viewed a sell-out in his own community for his marriage to a white woman. I ask you what have these peo­ple done besides choose someone that makes them feel complete.

These stories bring me to my po­sition that interracial relationships are extremely difficult in today’s society. The pressure which first existed just from outside forces now comes from inside the person’s culture. Some argue that you should just do what makes you happy. But that is easier said than done. Trust me. It is much easier to ignore the outside, but when your family and cul­ture question your decision it becomes much more difficult. This is personal to me because I’ve been dead smack in the middle of all this by way of living in “white society” for the better part of my adolescence and adult life thus far. I happen to possess crossover appeal which has endeared me to many dif­ferent kinds of women in my lifetime. Entirely too much of my relationships with these women have been influenced by inside pressure and outside opinions. I’ve ruined too many of these relation­ships in part based on these types of “silly” considerations. Are these well-founded concerns though? Maybe…maybe not. However, there is a HUGE difference between acceptance and ap­proval.

Drew is a 3L and can be reached at fo­rum@valpo.edu.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Opinion.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.