by Patrick Sills

Created on: July 29, 2010

Interracial dating can be summed up in two simple words: So what? This shouldn’t even be an issue. When a person is interested enough to go out on a date with another individual, the color of his or her skin or ethnic background should be irrelevant. Every single race of human on our planet has many examples of fascinating and beautiful people to make others happy; to put smiles on their faces. Likewise, every single race of human on our planet has unexciting and dull people who possess the personalities of used paper towels. That’s just the way it is. A person of a different race will not hinder another’s search for a suitable dating partner any more than limiting the selection to those of the same race. In fact, it rather broadens the selection!

As we enter the new century’s second decade, there are still many wrongdoings that need to be corrected, but one would like to think that as a species, we have become more open-minded in regard to relationships that stray from “safe” conformity. Indeed, interracial pairings were once the object of curious stares and hushed conversation, but fortunately, and for all concerned, such bias and bigotry has virtually disappeared. Those who remain disturbed by mixed couples simply lack or refuse to embrace knowledge of the fact that one’s race has absolutely nothing to do with compatibility. In short, such discord is a show of ignorance.

Of course, an interracial relationship may result in different cultural customs and/or practices, but such an eclectic variety of virtues makes things interesting and thus should be celebrated and taken advantage of by each party as a learning experience. By ruling someone out for a potential date simply because he or she was borne of a different race, we are doing ourselves a great disservice, for such a person may be a perfect match in regard to personality, sense of humor, compassion, or any other attribute that defines who we ourselves are. Many often describe the perfect match as a soulmate, and no matter how you slice things, dating is essential in order to find that special person. Just who is to say that one’s soulmate has to have the same ethnic background?

There are many, many more interracial couples now than there were even 30 or 40 years ago. Even in fictional television shows; most notably those geared for tweens and teens on networks such as the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, mixed couples in dating situations are routinely and commonly written into scripts. This serves as an excellent way to teach our children that people are people, and that it doesn’t nor should it ever matter what color someone’s skin is in determing who is or isn’t potential dating material.

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