Why Interracial Love Is Still Hard

By Heather Wood, Sirens Magazine. Posted March 21, 2008.

The miscegenation of our society may seem to be growing at a steady rate based on how often we've been talking about race lately. But let's not kid ourselves. Interracial relationships represent approximately seven percent of couples in the country, which is incredible progress considering they represented just .07 percent in 1960. But for our ever-diversifying nation, these are alarmingly low figures. For the most part, everyone is still sticking to their "own kind." Is this intentional segregation or just cultural tradition? Could be both. But one thing remains certain: Every interracial couple entering into a serious relationship knows what struggles lie ahead. Maybe that 93 percent would just rather avoid them.

I can't say I blame them. I'm white, and I lead a very happy life with my black husband. Our families love us and our friends are accepting. Of course it helps that we live in Los Angeles, a big city that's had a longer time to get used to multiculturalism and interracial couples than most. Still, we experience little daily reminders of just how far we have yet to go to reach complete acceptance in this country -- a raised eyebrow here, a snarky comment there, just enough to remind us that we're still discriminated against. And we've got it easy compared to most: Had we been born at different times and in different states, we'd never have had a chance.

It was only 40 years ago -- on June 12, 1967 -- that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying non-whites. The Loving v. Virginia ruling also overturned similar bans in 15 other states. This was the same year that Hollywood released Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, a comedy based on a white couple's inability to accept their daughter's black fiancé. The film was considered both groundbreaking and controversial.

Bob Jones University in South Carolina only dropped its ban on interracial dating in 2000; a year later 40 percent of voters objected when Alabama became the last state to remove a ban on interracial marriages from its constitution. So, yes, we've still got some work to do.

One of the hardest struggles for interracial couples is the fact that the topic itself is still one of the most debated "taboos" in our country -- a country that, at its heart, is still very nervous about the idea of races, cultures, and classes mixing. (Consider ongoing immigration debates, an imbalanced criminal justice system, and the fact that we can't stop obsessing about the degree of blackness of our mixed-race presidential candidate.)

It also doesn't help that happy, healthy interracial couples are still a novelty in Hollywood. Movies and TV -- especially standard, primetime adult fare -- are largely whitewashed, and when minorities are represented in relationships, they have to stick to their own kind (The George Lopez Show and Tyler Perry movies, for example). Even when there's the chance for a legitimate interracial relationship, scripts are shifted to keep things "safe." The biggest no-no seems to be black/white pairings. Denzel Washington can mack on Eva Mendez in Training Day, but in both The Pelican Brief and The Bone Collector, the hottest black actor in Hollywood didn't have a chance in hell at getting hot and heavy with co-stars Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie. What a shame.

"There are no complex sociological reasons for the taboo still attached to interracial romance in movies. It's racism, pure and simple," says Charles Taylor, in an article about the lack of such relationships in pop culture. "Perhaps these attitudes are sometimes connected to an executive's fear that audiences will be turned off by the sight of black and white together, but a decision that bows to racism must bear the mark of racism itself."

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