Interacial Relationships

Shawanga wrote:

Chai wrote:
If the bullet isn't aimed at you, you are less likely to feel it's effects. You don't have the history to be able to feel the barbs of racism, especially in their stealth clothing.

I've had to take a few minutes to think about this remark.

While waiting for the right words, I was reading on another site about blacks who passed as whites. There's a whole 'nother thread in itself.

Firstly, I always wait for someone, whether it be about race, child rearing, being obese, gay, disabled, married, divorced, etc. to be the first to say "you don't understand because you aren't....or....you don't have the history to be able to feel....." fill in the blank.

If this was the case, no one in the world would be able to carry on a conversation with each other.

Since only a black person would be able to answer this, I'll ask you Shawanga....

Do you think the sting of realizing the white lady didn't want her cup back because of the color of the skin you were born in, possibly feels like the sting of several times a week, for 20 years, hearing laughter over jokes about people of a certain heritage you belong to being stupid, fat, dirty, whorish, lazy and drunk? And....being expected to laugh along?

Do you think a person, forced through a situation beyond their control, to live in a community that was predominantly bible thumping evangelicals might, in order to keep the peace and avoid the church lady stares and exclusion from polite society, "pass" for one of their ilk, for the time one had to live there, just to get by and not have to put up with their salvation efforts towards you?

All of us belong to some group that is treated unfairly because of the accident of being born. We have all "passed" in some way during life.

No one group holds a monopoly on being discriminated against.

What claims of this do though, is stifle conversation.

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Quote:

What claims of this do though, is stifle conversation.

...and oh God, we know we don't want to stifle conversations about race and racism, right?

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No, we don't.

But, being told one couldn't understand certainly does.

What's the incentive to talk about it if one is told they can't understand, or are, without cause, being accused of being racist themselves?

Or actually, with cause, being accused of racism...as soon as that is done, it deteriorates into offense/defense, or worse, mud slinging.

As I said before, I made at least 2 attempts to write my first post on this, but backed off. This is because, as stated, this is a very difficult subject to write about. The difficult thing, in my opinion is in relating ones own personal experiences without being called a racist yourself.....racist by association by what was going on around you in the environment you existed in.

All of us are racist if we go by that criteria, as well all have a relative, friend, neighbor, etc, who influenced us....not changed us necessarily, but left an awareness.

Sure, let's talk about racism, without the sarcasm (we wouldn't want to do that would we), or accusations (stealth rascism), or the walking on eggshells (people will think I'm a racist if I mention what my Uncle Chester used to do or say)

I'm just going to read along for awhile, to learn and see what others have to say. I've said my piece, I'd like to hear what other peoples thoughts are.

Thanks for listening.

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considering it was two days between your last post and mine, you may need patience waiting for the deluge of input here...

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Chai- I think that you brought up some interesting points. I think that many of us were affected by prejudices that we needed to deal with at a young age. I think that the world has changed to a great extent through social interaction that has hopefully taught us to judge people as individuals, not by what they look like, or what they believe, or just simply to what sex they belong.

Over the years, I have seen the mean spiritness of prejudice wax and wane according to the times. Every period of history has its own particular scapegoats.

I think that the problem is when a person has become so attuned to perceived prejudice that he/she reacts to something that is at best, totally innocuous, or at worst, the ignorant reactions borne of a less than a rational life history. To react so, to look for prejudice where there either is none, or is simply a knee jerk reaction, is simply to continue and reinforce the chain of prejudice.

It all goes back to one of my favorite theories, that much of the problems of the world generate from what I call a "tribal mentality". As long as there is "us", there is "them", and they are "the other". It is only when people meet and get to know each other, one on one, as human beings, and learn to not to hate, but to celebrate the differences in people, will our world be a place where everyone can have an equal opportunity to thrive and flourish.

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snood wrote:

considering it was two days between your last post and mine, you may need patience waiting for the deluge of input here...

your post was made approx 9 hours, not 2 days, after mine.
mine 1/9/08 @ 7:02pm
yours 1/10/08 @ 3:48am

not getting involved here again, just a quick clarification.

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Thinking about people who react quickly to perceived prejudice, warranted or not, I am reminded of a quote that I once read.

"He would see something dirty in the crotch of a tree".

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I am sure I have 'seen' prejudice when there isn't any.
Sadly, I have become so used to it that I probably insert it where it doesn't belong, or did not belong in the first place.

I have looked around for months, trying to see how many other black woman/white man couples are out there.. and .. ya know..
I have seen only 2. And both of them were around late 30's early 40's.

In all of my life I do not think I have EVER seen an older couple black woman/white man.
I even rarely see teenagers of that combination. But teenagers don't really count. They change boyfriends and dates faster then I buy new clothes..

What I am trying to say is... I wonder if a lot of perceived prejudice ( on my part only I guess) is maybe just from honest surprise.
We all have a moment when we see someone that may make us stop and stare.
The tattooed person, the pierced kid, the really obese person, someone with wild color hair, the albino person.. you name it..
Something that we are not used to seeing, ALWAYS makes us stop even for a fraction of a second.

I think I need to chew on my words a bit longer. I am having a hard time concluding my post to bring out my points..

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oh jeez shewolf...your post does make me want to post again....

I too think sometimes people are looking for someone to be looking at them in disapproval, when there is none.

2 examples....a couple of months ago, walking through the mall, I caught a look at myself in a plate glass window of a store as I'm going by. What's going through my mind is, "God these pants make me look fat" What I heard was someone saying "What are YOU lookin' at?" I refocus about an 1/8 of a degree, and realize I was inadvertantly looking in the same direction as a group of 15 year old girls. The speaker had some punk haircut or coloring, I can't even remember. She assumed I was giving her the eye. So I said "I'm looking at my fat ass. Why?", and just kept walking.

15 years ago, new in the area, I'm walking into the supermarket as a man and woman were coming out. The woman was white, drop dead gorgeous, and had a lot of class on top of that.
She was so striking I couldn't help staring, admiring her.
Then I realized her husband (I presume) was giving me the most ugly look, literally hatred in his eyes towards me. I didn't know why he did that, and I didn't know for a loooong time. Months later I see something on the news about how hispanic/white couples are experiencing racist remarks and such.

It wasn't until that moment that I realized, "hey, that guy was a mexican. He must has thought I was looking at them in disapproval."

He'll never know I was looking at his wife in admiration.

Sometimes people are just looking in your direction, with nothing in their heads beyond "I like donuts"

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Back in the 60's I was a full-time housewife/mother with two curious and articulate toddlers.

They were both given asking probing questions in public.

I realized I'd rather deal with questions of sex or finance than race when my answers would be overheard by strangers.

I'm a bit more sophisticated now, but injustice isn't easy to comprehend in the marrow of my bones.

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I fail to understand how one question could provoke such opinions about racism. I have no idea where my distaste for seeing a black woman and a white man together. To answer another poster's question, Yes I find white women attractive, I find oriental women attractive, I find ......... Etc. I never tried to tie this bias I have to logic.

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shewolfnm wrote:

I
What I am trying to say is... I wonder if a lot of perceived prejudice ( on my part only I guess) is maybe just from honest surprise.
We all have a moment when we see someone that may make us stop and stare.
The tattooed person, the pierced kid, the really obese person, someone with wild color hair, the albino person.. you name it..
Something that we are not used to seeing, ALWAYS makes us stop even for a fraction of a second.

SheWolf I commend you on your response. It never occurred to me that the reason could be simple surprise. When I just reread that sentence it sounded like sarcasm, but I can assure you it is not. I have known a few couples that have a white male and black female. I have never treated them different. For those of you who know the reason that brought this to the forefront I have an update. I took the advice of one of the posters and I talked it over with my Lady. She couldn't have been more caring and loving. She understood my views and it lead to a wonderful and fruitful conversation.

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Threads develope a life of their Shawanga.

After a few pages, people are talked out about the original post, and morph it into something else, or it gets derailed completely...

At some point it may or may not come back to the original subject.

How can you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

Just go along with the ride, it's more interesting that way.

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Chai wrote:

oh jeez shewolf...your post does make me want to post again....

hehehe.. you dont need my permission Wink

Chai wrote:

I too think sometimes people are looking for someone to be looking at them in disapproval, when there is none.

Speaking only from my experience here..

I have never had a real racist remark thrown at me as an adult until I came to Texas.

In general, I almost always dated white men.
Not that I am racist. And not that I don't LIKE black men, it is just that I ended up dating white men more then anything else. Especially in high school. I never liked 'rap', hip/hop or soul music , so I did not hang out with most of the people who DID like that music . In my schools, this amounted to most of the black population. Which was verrrry small. Since school kids defined themselves by what they listened to, I found myself in mostly white circles and maybe a few spanish circles.. but rarely if ever was I friends with a black person. Again.. not that I am racist.. that is just how high school was for me .

During my teen years through about age 28 ( maybe younger..) I lived in New Mexico.
I dated many men during that time and frankly I can only remember one man who was hispanic.. the rest were white.
In the mall, at a restaurant, in a park...... No matter where we were, no one ever said anything. I never received any glares, and no one would ever point and sneer.

Until I arrived in Texas

It took a few months before I saw something.

Ian and I were in the mall ( this was before Jillian was born ) and we passed a group of young black guys .. maybe early twenties at best.. and one of them turned around and said " It is sad to see people stealing our women. Disgusting."

My mind did not even register his comment until later. And then I realized he was talking about ME. As if i was HIS property. That pissed me off.
But I passed it off as just an arrogant, full of himself, child's remark and forgot about it.

Until a spanish woman muttered under her breath while standing close to us in line about how "forward interracial couples are getting, and how it isnt right"

Then there were white kids with obvious racist symbols on their jackets

then there were single black men

Spanish couples

White women

waiters

car dealers

black women

clerks

you name it. It happens a lot more then I am comfortable with. And it is a real shock to me.. even to this day almost 10 years later.

I am positive that some of that IS my projection. Im so worried that someone else will say something or do something I do watch for it. And I find myself peeking over my shoulder more now then I ever did when it comes to matters of race.

Projection? I'm probably the queen of it.. but it only started AFTER it happened.
paranoia I guess..

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Curious hon, what do waiters, clerks and stuff say?

I mean, I know it won't be anything I've never heard before, I'm thinking how dumb a waiter would be to make comments that would hurt their tips.

.....

hey, I just remembered something. someone thought I was part of an interracial couple, and got a dirty look.

Me and this guy I worked with left the office to go buy something work related. When we got out of the car and walked up to the store, there was this staring thing going on.

Or, maybe they were just noticing what a good looking chick I was.

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Hello Everyone. LOL. I personally am a true believer in accepting those for who they are and not their color because GOD knows that we all have our faults and definitely are not perfect. As far as religion, I am in a relationship and our religions are different. How do we get by this? Don't discuss it at all and respect each others decision to be in ones own religion.

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Many native Texans have deep seated racism, even when they fail to recognize it as such. They are an exclusive society, of which I could never belong. Just one conversation with these types, and I am deemed an outsider, despite being native born. Just a while back, I was expressing my opinion of George Bush and his war. The woman with whom I conversed told me my thoughts were not in line with what's what. Explaining the difference between us, she said of herself and her husband, "We're Texans," implying I'm not. "I'm a Texan," I said. "You spent too much time in California," she said back. This same woman sends me emails about Obama, implying he is an anti American Muslim racist subversive. There are many Texans who are not that way, but, I don't meet many of them.

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To edgarblythe - Oh so the woman that you spoke to is one of those "I think that I am more educated than everyone else". That really figures. One thing though is she cannot speak for the families who have family that is serving in this war, for instance, like myself, my brother is in Iraq and I for one don't appreciate it at all. I guess some believe that when they turn "Republican" that that means they are better than other people and any one who is not is beneath them. Boy oh boy, God is going to blow a big ass hole in this world just because of people like her. What does being from Texas mean? It means nothing. As I stated before, we are all basically the same except for in color and we all have faults and are not perfect so this lady better fess up before something bad happens to her because of her mentality regarding other people.

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It was not so much WHAT the waiter said.

It was him standing across the room whispering to someone else ( another worker) and pointing at me. Several times.

Again, no proof ( as in spoken words) just the behavior that says to me the conversation they were having was about me, or us .

Now here is the bad part of that situation.. and it belongs to me..

The waiter was a young black man.

Black men are more likely then not to be the ones who say something , glare, or go out of their way to make the point that they see me and my husband and don't like it .
Generally, out of all of these types of episodes, I would say almost 60% are from black men.
Followed loosely by the older white woman. ( 60 years old and up..)

And since I have heard more objection from younger black men, I presume that he was talking about our race. I very well could be 100% incorrect. His behavior said other wise, but again. .. I am projecting . And I own that.

but, there is a common attitude, behavior, even look when people are disgusted with something they see.

It could be that he thought my hair was odd. It could even be someone behind me was attracting his attention. He could have even been commenting on the food we ordered, himself being hungry and wanted to eat what we had. There are MANY other things that could have come from his behavior.
But it struck me as being about race.

That doesn't make it true..

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I haven't read the thread through yet. Wanted to give my thoughts from the first question straight away first.

My initial thought is that OP, there is some anger in you towards women.

Maybe some particular woman, maybe from your past or not. And this anger comes out when you see a black woman with a white guy - just because it is an easier, 'more acceptable' (to your inside, anyways) way to express it and feel it.

Why that particular trigger? Could be anything. Try getting it all out on paper. Rant, rave, get it all out. Everything that gets you mad about seeing that situation.

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