by Chris Torgersen

Created on: July 29, 2009

It would be extraordinarily difficult for me to tell my children not to marry outside their race. Within their lineages are slaves and slave-owners, Native Americans and European settlers. I am of mostly Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and the mother of my two sons is of African, Native American, and Irish descent.

As society moves on from its segregated past, more and more people are crossing racial divides when it comes to love and marriage. Whereas a mixed couple holding hands in the street may have generated copious stares several decades ago, today it barely registers for most people. We still have our biases, but all in all, most of the problematic issues surrounding interracial marriage, particularly with regards to societal acceptance, have been left in the past.

I suppose one of my sons could marry a Japanese or Iranian woman, and that would be something like an interracial marriage. If they were to do so, the race of the woman would matter little, as long as my boys were happy. When I hear of people who forbid their children from such relationships, I wonder how it is that they can effectively block their own children's path to happiness. Is it a misguided sense that interracial relationships lead inevitably to sorrow and tragedy? A sort of internal xenophobic reflex that makes them feel threatened? Whatever the case, interracial relationships are only going to become more and more common as the years march on, and the world needs to get used to the idea.

I can understand that there was a time when a parent might have a very real concern for his or her children's safety if the child were to become involved with a member of another race. Lynchings and other such ghastly fates awaited some; jail terms and social isolation awaited others. But those days are long gone now, and such concerns are no longer valid.

There are certainly cultural differences that are commonly faced when two people of different races begin to date. In an interracial relationship, one quickly learns that colorblindness is not a virtue. But the same is true of people from different cultures within the same race. An Italian marrying a Jew will have at least as many issues to overcome as a white man marrying a black woman. Hopefully, by the time marriage comes up as a possibility, these issues will have been dealt with to some degree.

In truth, people are people, and we need to view them as individuals rather than as members of a particular race. We need to curb our biases and remind ourselves that whatever past experiences we may have had, each person brings unique qualities into a relationship, and whoever is capable of making our children feel loved and happy should be accepted with open arms.

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