American Attitudes Toward Interracial Marriages

Interracial marriage has traditionally been viewed as a means of expressing a hatred of oneself, of escaping something in one’s culture or self that one no longer wants to identify with. Jacki Thompson Rand describes the outcome of this phenomenon in an essay on her experience as the child of an interracial marriage. She explains how her mother married a white man in an effort to make herself more white, and therefore more legitimate: “My mother 's marriage to my father was a racial love

Richard and Mildred Loving, a biracial couple, changed millions of lives in 1976 when they triumphed in the federal case, “Loving vs. Virginia” at the Supreme Court. Their case ended the anti-miscegenation laws created in the 1930s which outlawed interracial marriages. Nearly fifty years later, the U.S Census shows that there were 2.3 million interracial marriages in 2007 which is seven times the number calculated in 1970. This figure, many would say, is a sign of hope for a society has become more accepting and less racist. But how realistic is that idea? Many minorities still face racism and constant oppression every day of their lives. As our culture is constantly forming and changing, there emerge issues with how we understand race and ethnicity. While the concept of race is simply a social construct, with no real science behind it, its societal repercussions are entirely real due to the challenges that comes with it. This system of classification has progressed through centuries and led to the social, economic, and political prejudice against people of color, and further, has institutionalized racism to and systematized the oppression of these people.

America’s population has become more diverse within the years ethnically and culturally, which created opportunities for individuals from different backgrounds to engage in more romantic relationships. In the past society followed the social norms, with accepting the racial boundaries in dating and marriage. Interracial dating has had consequences that included family rejecting and social ridicule, which is still prevalent today, just not as much.

According to the U. S. Census Reports, interracial marriages have more than tripled between 1980 and today. There are currently 1.6 million interracial marriages in the United States, and that figure is continuing to grow (Duru, 2012). Statistics show that over 70% of American society has no problem with mixed race relationships, and 40% of Americans have already dated someone of another ethnicity. For the most part relationships between people of different races are no different from the interactions between people of the same race (Duru, 2012).

Diversity in cultures throughout the world can often create obstacles when developing relationships. However, despite years of desegregation, social and cultural differences still exist. One of the differences that still exist is the institution of marriage. This is especially true when it comes to the topic of interracial marriages. Which has been described as a marriage between members of two different races. Even though, it has not been that long ago since interracial marriage has been made legal throughout the entire United States. It continues to be one of the biggest conflicts in society today, considering everyone has their different viewpoints on the topic. Since these types of marriages are considered to be an exception rather than a norm, many couples continue to encounter various issues.

Marriages between African Americans and whites were prohibited by sixteen states, including Virginia, until the revolutionary United States supreme court case of Loving v. Virginia. Gunnar Myrdal illustrates in his essay, “Social Equality,” how society, specifically white men, felt about white women being romantically involved with black men. Ralph Ellison in his short story “Battle Royal,” gives an example of how African American men felt around white women before intermarriage was permissible. Before the case of Loving v. Virginia, various influential African Americans were in intermarriages. Today, miscegenation and/or interracial marriages are not only tolerable, but accepted by most United States citizens.

Studies have shown a steady decline of African American marriages in the United States. There are several structural explanations for changes in marriage trends during the last several decades that range from focus on economic factors to emphasis on the centrality of demographic forces, to incorporate both perspectives (James, 1998). These economic factors can also have an impact relationship satisfaction and ultimately whether has the ability to marry due to financial strain.

American society evolved drastically during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. The Civil Rights Movement picked up speed, teenage delinquents appeared, and the counter culture came into its own. The 1967 film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, produced by Columbia Pictures and directed by Stanley Kramer, depicts Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton) and Dr. John Wade Prentice (Sidney Poitier) as a mixed race couple who leave Hawaii to go back to her family’s home to surprise her parents, Mr. Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) and Mrs. Christina Drayton (Katharine Hepburn) in San Francisco, California. Joey later invites Dr. Prentice’s parents to dinner who then fly in from Los Angeles. The couple’s announcement shocks everyone to say the least. In more shocking terms, the couple, who have known each other for a mere 10 days, plan to leave for Switzerland that evening and then marry while overseas for the doctor’s business. The complete unconventional aspect of the relationship illustrated in the film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, would not have been able to shown in any film before its time due to circumstances surrounding the years preceding the release, as well as the release year. Major events in American history such as the Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces in July 1948, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in May 1954, the Civil Rights Acts in July 1964, and, the Loving v. Virginia ruling in June 1967 all prepared America, in a way, for the release of Guess

Supporting Evidence #2 : “Increased intermarriage, particularly racial intermarriage, serves as a key indicator of two important social trends. First, as more people marry across racial groups, the social distance between racial groups is reduced. Second, racial intermarriage changes racial boundaries as family and kin, the most intimate of social groups, become increasingly interracial. In this process, the meaning and significance of race is altered ”(Hanes, 2014)

The low occurrence and disproportionate failure rates of interracial marriages in the US indicate the persistence of racial boundaries still embedded in American culture, especially among black-white relations. In their study of marital dissolution among interracial couples,

The two articles used were “Understanding the Occurrence of Interracial Marriage in the United States through Differential Assimilation” (Lewis, Ford- Robinson, 2010) and “Marital Dissolution among Interracial Couples” (Zhang, Van Hook, 2009). The first article “Understanding the Occurrence of Interracial Marriage in the United States through Differential Assimilation”, spoke about the unprecedented changes that our society is going though in the 21st century.

To examine and view how cultural studies and interracial marriages are not affected because of adversities. Interracial relationships and marriages have become common in the United States. These individuals that choose to date outside of their race and cultural face day to day adversities in order to have a healthy and successful relationship. The most common issue is the race card that is often utilized to discriminate in these types of relationships. While there are other factors that contributes to adversities of interracial relationships that happens to be the main focus. In interracial relationships regardless of the adversities culturally, in order to successfully work one must fight for their relationship and have undeniable desires

The law forbidding interracial marriage was terminated in 1967, and in the midst of rapid racial change, one fact is unmistakable: A growing number of Americans are showing that we all can get along by forming relationships and families that cross all color lines. In the past couple decades, the number of interracial marriages has increased dramatically. Interracial dating and marrying is described as the dating or marrying of two people of different races, and it is becoming much more common to do so. Thirty years ago, only one in every 100 children born in the United States was of mixed race. Today, the number is one in 19. In some states, such as California and Washington, the number is closer to one in 10 (Melting Pot).

Notwithstanding these examples of desegregation, a deeper analysis shows that there are still signs of racial discriminations, most apparently seen in the institution of marriage between African-Americans and Caucasians. The United States bureau of the Census reported that in 1987 over 827,000 interracial married couples existed in America, of which fewer than 200,000 of them were between African-Americans and Caucasians (Herring 29). These numbers (census) do not reflect the spread of desegregation very well. If there is such a large spread of desegregation between African-Americans and Caucasians from the past to the present, then the numbers should reflect a much larger count of interracial marriages between these races. This however, is untrue; therefore, there are less apparent barriers African-American and Caucasian couples' face.

In 1967, the US Supreme court ruled that interracial marriages must be recognized in every state. Unfortunately, multiracial families still face discrimination and the children of these marriages are still expected to claim one race (Adams at el., 2013). Multiracial families and the individuals, which these families are comprised face discrimination and prejudices on various levels (i.e. micro, macro).