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The effects of interracial marriage
Cause and effect of interracial relationships
Cause and effect of interracial relationships
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Interracial Marriages Complexities
“I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being-- neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being.”-(Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X Pg. ). As a citizen of the United States, I choose to believe that the color of one's skin does not justify what your future holds, not how you should act, nor who you must spend your life with, I see it as two human beings wanting to open up their world through the other with love. Once you look past the skin you were born with you're just the same thing everyone else is, muscles, bones, and a heart. Though some Caucasians and African Americans believe in interracial marriage within their community and support the decisions being made due to the increase of acceptance however there
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Many of the individuals who were polled believed it was alright to marry someone of another race since we are all human. Families that have an interracial couple living amongst them feel it natural as if ethnicity wasn’t a factor dividing the couple. “In a Pew Research Survey, 43% of Americans felt that intermarriages would help the country for the better.” Which essentially it can. Couples of color have an open mind and are exposed to the different types of ethnicities and styles the partner partakes in. These benefits then get exposed to the family, friends, and soon the whole neighborhood. This then gets others from around the world to try and open up their minds which can cause new ideas and ways to help on
As a young black woman, I can’t help but to be drawn in by the black man’s story. African-Americans who started off as property, then promoted to second class citizens and finally equals but maybe not the same, have a long standing history somewhat separate from the rest of America. Forced to be a part of a country where they were only desired when they were merely dollar signs driving the south’s economy, and soon just considered a nuisance rather not dealt with, blacks have faced many tribulations. Oppressed for many years, blacks have come a long way. That being said the race dilemma in America still lingers. Today every citizen is entitled to the same rights and pursuit of happiness but it would be naïve to say that difference don’t exists
But what if you are a White female in a family that is very much against interracial marriage and you are in love with a Black man, or vice versa, if you are a Black woman in love with a White man who’s family is very secluded to the fact that interracial couples are becoming accepted amongst the 21st century. This exact conflict is represented in the movie Little White Lie. In the movie, Lacey’s mom, Peggy, had an affair and got pregnant by a black man. Peggy states “The fact is if the man with whom I had the affair hadn 't been Black none of this would have come out.” Meaning in the days when the affair has happened, 1968, it was considered so wrong to be in an interracial relationship that the only reason it was a big deal for Peggy to be having an affair was not because of the affair itself but because the affair was with a Black man. Today this belief of segregation among marriage or White and Black still exists, it’s just is not as strong. Some families are realizing that love is love and skin color does not matter as long as the relationship is
Martin Luther King believed in integration, he believed that everyone, blacks and whites should live and work together as equals. ‘I have a dream that … one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.' He held hope that one day black and white Americans would be united as one nation. This approach was crucial for engaging the white community. King was best able to expres...
In Dr. King’s words: “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”
Race and ethnicity is a main factor in the way we identify others and ourselves. The real question here is does race/ethnicity still matter in the U.S.? For some groups race is not a factor that affects them greatly and for others it is a constant occurrence in their mind. But how do people of mix race reacts to this concept, do they feel greatly affected by their race? This is the question we will answer throughout the paper. I will first examine the battle of interracial relationship throughout history and explain how the history greatly explains the importance of being multiracial today. This includes the backlash and cruelty towards interracial couple and their multiracial children. Being part of a multiracial group still contains its impact in today’s society; therefore race still remaining to matter to this group in the U.S. People who place themselves in this category are constantly conflicted with more than one cultural backgrounds and often have difficulty to be accepted.
Marriage, as an institution, has evolved in the last few decades. As society progresses, the ideas and attitudes about marriage have shifted. Today, individuals are able to choose their partners and are more likely marry for love than convenience. While individuals are guaranteed the right to marry and the freedom to choose their own partners, it has not always been this way. Starting from colonial times up until the late 1960’s, the law in several states prohibited interracial marriages and unions. Fortunately, in 1967, a landmark case deemed such laws as unconstitutional. Currently, as society progresses, racism and social prejudice have decreased and interracial marriages have become, not only legal, but also widely accepted.
In this situation for the white people, it became very uncomfortable when they couldn’t tell what category people were in just from looking at them. Since they wanted to keep the white category known as “pure” they created the term hypo-decent. Marvin Harris states that “…the rule of hypo-decent. This descent rule requires Americans to believe that anyone who is known to have had a Negro ancestor is a Negro” (Omi and Winant, 1986. P.15). This idea is also portrayed in Bucks piece “Whites had an equal interest in the maintenance of whiteness and white privilege” (2001, P.37). To keep the white category as unadulterated, they saw that if white women were marrying a black man that it was mixing the separation that they had created. The very idea was unfathomable; they intern created a law in 1691 that allowed them to treat women, who were with a black man, as a slave. They did that just so they didn’t have to “prevent the existence of such children” (Buck,2001, P. 33-34) since mixed race children were a burden to have to enslave and make money off of. In 1892 Homer Plessy, a man of mix race, bought a first class ticket to a railroad car that was only meant for the white to ride in. Plessy was imprisoned and lost the trial in court. That goes into both mixed races as well as the Jim Crow law that Wright talked about. Plessy had been told that he was in the wrong even though he was 7/8 white, there was a pigment of black and he was treated as a black man. That connects back to the whites trying to keep it a “pure”
...ica. Anna Hartwell states, “Christianity occupies a central place in Malcolm’s account of white supremacy, in both its global and domestic incarnations” (Hartwell). She also states, “Against this Christian tainted legacy, Malcolm X counterpoises Islam as “the true religion of the black man”. Islamic universalism proffered for him an alternative to U.S. citizenship, which had constantly failed to live up to its promises for African Americans” (Hartwell). Malcolm X had an understandable dislike of the system of white supremacy because it is a system that thrives from people being on the bottom who have higher percentages of taxes taken out paychecks even though they make far less than everyone else. The thing about white supremacy is that it affects in a negative way poor people of all colors, but black people suffer the most for obvious reasons. This was the message
In my opinion, Malcolm X had a very terrible life just after his father’s death. His mother on the other hand was committed to the mental institution and Malcolm left home to live with family friends. He had experienced a troubled youth because in school his classmates (white people) treated him more like the class pet than a human being. The de-motivational situation continuously happened when he told his English teacher that he wanted to be a lawyer but the teacher responded this "One of life's first needs is for us to be realistic ... you need to think of something you can be ... why don't you plan on carpentry?". This humility urged Malcolm to discontinue his studies because there was no point for a black child pursuing education. Here, I learnt that people should not discriminate each other. We have to treat people fairly. The strong racism that had been shown by the black and white people made me think back of ethical egoism for which ethical egoism quite similar to racism. An ethical egoist really believes that the fire-fighters should not save those people because of the risks involved. The white people do not have to help the black and vice versa. Racism will ruin the community because of zero cooperation and the hardest part is riot happens and the ignorant are everywhere.
...d in this way everyone in America can become part off this greater whole. Then we can learn from each other’s mistakes and successes to become a greater family because “isn’t love more important than color?” (Baldwin 327).
The story took place almost 40 years ago, but it seems interracial marriage is still difficult in US, especially between Black and white.
“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive” from chapter 31 in Americanah.
When America gained it’s independence from Britain it did so because it was ready to start a new nation on its own free from the oppression of Britain, similarly Malcolm X calls for a continuation of building a new nation free from oppression in regards to racial discrimination. He goes on to say that the black revolution has the possibility to be accomplished in a peaceful manner, but if it doesn’t work out that way he will have no problem turning to extreme measures to achieve racial equality such as “using the bullet.” He is directly addressing white Americans when he promotes this idea that African-Americans are “justified to do the same thing that your forefathers did to bring independence for your people…” He is arguing that as a nation who fought for freedom and democracy it is irrational to block African-Americans from receiving the full benefits of their
As King states in his "I Have a Dream" speech, "I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers" (Para 20).... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Ens, Jack Vans. Practice patience under pressure.
LITERATURE DISCUSSION First article in Yanyi K, Djamba and Sitawa R. Kimuna’s scholarly journal, "Are Americans really in Favor of Interracial Marriage? A Closer Look at When They Are Asking About Black-White Marriage for Their Relatives”, the authors used the General Social Survey (GSS) to figure out how Americans, specifically White and black Americans, feel about having a close relative marry outside of their race. Since there are not a lot of surveys relating to interracial marriage, the survey, “How would it make you feel if a close relative of yours were planning to marry a [(Negro/Black)/White]? Would you be very uneasy, somewhat uneasy, or not uneasy at all,” was the closest question to figuring out an American’s attitude towards interracial marriage.