Interracial Dating

There has been more acceptance of interracial dating today, than there were about 50-100 years ago. More people these days have the option of dating “outside of their races”.  Furthermore, there are more people that are increasingly committing to interracial relationships, interracial marriages and interracial families. In other words, interracial relationships are the norm, rather than the exception to relationships. While some people accept interracial dating, relationships, and marriage, there are others who do not want to accept the change of people dating outside their own race.

The late, great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated in his “I have a dream speech” that his children “won’t be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of their character.” However, Martin Luther King’s speech expanded beyond his children; it included mankind. In other words, Martin Luther King wanted everyone to love, care, cherish, and accept each other, and not be judgmental of a person’s ethnicity, creed, and sexual orientation. However, there are people who either have not accepted interracial dating, or still haven’t accepted it. There are many people, the so-called racists who subscribe to the idea that one should ONLY DATE within their ethnic groups (i.e. African-American men and women should only date each other; Latino men should only date Latina women, and so on). Around 200 years ago to about the mid-1960s in the U.S., the thought of miscegenation was not only unheard of, but it was also illegal, especially targeted at the African-American free and enslaved men who had interest in dating white women. Ironically and unfortunately, many of the white slave owners either raped or coerced the black slave women to have sex with them, therefore producing mulatto and illegitimate children (interesting enough, this type of interracial breeding produced some prominent African-American leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington). It is at this time in U.S. history where the white woman was valued as a treasure, a commodity, and no other men of other races were allowed to even look or compliment a white woman, much more date and marry one. However, after the abolition of slavery, followed by many decades of turmoil (especially in the Southern States of the U.S.) culminating with the Civil Rights Movement, some people’s perception of interracial dating started to change. It took some decades later before more people started to accept the notion that a man (and a woman) can date outside of their race, without much condemnation from others.

Although interracial dating is more accepted today, some people still feel that it is not the norm. This can be either because they do know enough about other ethnicities, or perhaps because some of those people’s families haven’t accepted it, so they advise against interracial dating. I can remember growing up, my father would advise against me and my (middle) brother from dating outside out race, in particular a white women. My father grew up in the 1950s and 1960s at the height of racial discrimination, and the Civil Rights Movement.  Although my father has simmered down considerably on his original stance on condemning me from dating a white woman (or any other non African-American woman for that matter), I sometimes worry about what their reaction would be, if I decided to bring a woman home to meet my family, if she wasn’t a black woman. My sisters often told me that no matter what type of women you date or establish a relationship with, you will never relate to a woman more than a black woman.  Although that may be valid in some instances (i.e. relating to racism, racial profiling, or having to prove our worth because of our race), I find that you can relate to a woman, no matter what her ethnicity is. I don’t really look at the ethnicity of a woman as a determining factor of my interest. I look at a woman for her intellect, beauty, and character. The last thing I would want to do is to not want to date a woman because she is not black, and if I can accept her for who she is, then everyone else, including my family should accept her as well. Here is a video that I found on the subject of interracial dating: