This June 12th ("Loving Day") is the 50th anniversary of the date in 1967 on which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a Virginia statue (and thus made unconstitutional other states' statutes) barring interracial marriage, and thus recognized the union between (white) Richard Loving and his (black) wife, Mildred (née) Jeter, allowing them to return to their home state (and my former home state) to raise their beautiful, biracial family. I am eager to read more about the Lovings' life, relationship, and very personal search for fair treatment under the law in Sheryll Cashin's Loving: Interracial Intimacy and the Threat to White Supremacy, which is on my Amazon to-read list, but watched the recent film Loving (starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga) earlier this year. If you are, like I am, an advocate for love in all forms and justice, you will find a lot of hope in this (their) story. If you are not, then you probably should not read any further.
While I have honestly never thought much about my race(s) before this crazy political year (I used to think I was colorblind), I now see race in everything (now, color is all I see). I am not aware that I have been a target of racial slurs or race-based discrimination in my past (thankfully), and I believe I have taken my acceptance as a brown person into American society for granted, now knowing (or being acutely aware of) what has been unequivocally expressed by a large part of our country. I am the biracial product of an Indian mother and a white, midwesterner father (whose union was quite unusual for 1970s Minnesota, or South India, for that matter). Then, after dating exclusively (but unintentionally) white boys and men, I fell in love with and married into a Vietnamese family and am, according to the Pew Research Center, one of about 17% newly married Americans who is in a mixed-race marriage (to give some context, this figure was 3% in 1967).
I truly believe that my multiracial family and multiracial (3/4 Asian) son represents the physical and emotional beauty that is possible when people of different races meet, and are allowed to intermarry and reproduce (and it is incredibly sad to me that in many regions of the country, many people may not ever have the opportunity to form a relationship, even a friendship or work relationship, with someone of another race, and I believe this strongly drives their race-related and political beliefs. If I were born a couple of generations previously, I (and other biracal people) may have been considered a criminal in many (largely Southern) states (and countries-- if you haven't, please also read Trevor Noah's Born a Crime about growing up amidst Apartheid in South Africa).
Of course, being in multiracial relationships and "mash-up" families comes with challenges. It is tricky to encourage and want your son to understand and learn to the language of his dad's family, while not being able to speak it yourself. I feel guilty at times (given that Kelvin's parents and siblings are all in same-race relationships) that I'm "diluting" the Vietnamese out of his bloodline. It's challenging to have multiple, important lines of heritage that you want to honor with traditions (including those of marriage and religion), as well as to reconcile different cultural philosophies of child-rearing.
The election of the current racist President, and the nationalistic, white-supremacist views of members of his administration (as well as the legitimacy and voice this has given to true-and-true racists) makes many of us feel disheartened that we've taken a huge step back with respects to social progress and racial justice (among other things). And, despite the Loving decision that, 50 years ago, rendered anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, many states (including Alabama) kept and tried to enforce bans on interracial marriage until 2000, and almost half (!) of Mississippi Republican voters, as late as 2011, thought that interracial marriage should still be illegal. This is, in part, why I am so still so appalled by the beliefs and actions of some voters and citizens in deep south and other red states. Nevertheless, we live in a country where Whites, particularly in the name of "Christian" morality, slaughtered Native Americans, enslaved Africans, segregated schools, performed public lynchings, prohibited Blacks (and women) from voting until this century, and barred people in love from marrying, solely because of their race at birth [or their sexual orientation]. Now we generally don't, so it's obvious that we have moved leaps and bounds in the right direction. This gives me hope amidst these dark times.
And until a "white America first" person can explain to me why a child that looks like mine does not deserve to exist because racial mixing (or other "nontraditional marriage," for that matter) somehow threatens their existence, their marriage, their faith, their job, or their concept of morality, I will continue to fight the battles to stay on the progressive side of history, fairness, and what is right and just. Happy "Loving" Day. May we all be able to live, and love, freely.
While I have honestly never thought much about my race(s) before this crazy political year (I used to think I was colorblind), I now see race in everything (now, color is all I see). I am not aware that I have been a target of racial slurs or race-based discrimination in my past (thankfully), and I believe I have taken my acceptance as a brown person into American society for granted, now knowing (or being acutely aware of) what has been unequivocally expressed by a large part of our country. I am the biracial product of an Indian mother and a white, midwesterner father (whose union was quite unusual for 1970s Minnesota, or South India, for that matter). Then, after dating exclusively (but unintentionally) white boys and men, I fell in love with and married into a Vietnamese family and am, according to the Pew Research Center, one of about 17% newly married Americans who is in a mixed-race marriage (to give some context, this figure was 3% in 1967).
I truly believe that my multiracial family and multiracial (3/4 Asian) son represents the physical and emotional beauty that is possible when people of different races meet, and are allowed to intermarry and reproduce (and it is incredibly sad to me that in many regions of the country, many people may not ever have the opportunity to form a relationship, even a friendship or work relationship, with someone of another race, and I believe this strongly drives their race-related and political beliefs. If I were born a couple of generations previously, I (and other biracal people) may have been considered a criminal in many (largely Southern) states (and countries-- if you haven't, please also read Trevor Noah's Born a Crime about growing up amidst Apartheid in South Africa).
Of course, being in multiracial relationships and "mash-up" families comes with challenges. It is tricky to encourage and want your son to understand and learn to the language of his dad's family, while not being able to speak it yourself. I feel guilty at times (given that Kelvin's parents and siblings are all in same-race relationships) that I'm "diluting" the Vietnamese out of his bloodline. It's challenging to have multiple, important lines of heritage that you want to honor with traditions (including those of marriage and religion), as well as to reconcile different cultural philosophies of child-rearing.
The election of the current racist President, and the nationalistic, white-supremacist views of members of his administration (as well as the legitimacy and voice this has given to true-and-true racists) makes many of us feel disheartened that we've taken a huge step back with respects to social progress and racial justice (among other things). And, despite the Loving decision that, 50 years ago, rendered anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, many states (including Alabama) kept and tried to enforce bans on interracial marriage until 2000, and almost half (!) of Mississippi Republican voters, as late as 2011, thought that interracial marriage should still be illegal. This is, in part, why I am so still so appalled by the beliefs and actions of some voters and citizens in deep south and other red states. Nevertheless, we live in a country where Whites, particularly in the name of "Christian" morality, slaughtered Native Americans, enslaved Africans, segregated schools, performed public lynchings, prohibited Blacks (and women) from voting until this century, and barred people in love from marrying, solely because of their race at birth [or their sexual orientation]. Now we generally don't, so it's obvious that we have moved leaps and bounds in the right direction. This gives me hope amidst these dark times.
And until a "white America first" person can explain to me why a child that looks like mine does not deserve to exist because racial mixing (or other "nontraditional marriage," for that matter) somehow threatens their existence, their marriage, their faith, their job, or their concept of morality, I will continue to fight the battles to stay on the progressive side of history, fairness, and what is right and just. Happy "Loving" Day. May we all be able to live, and love, freely.
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