Interracial Marriages and Same Sex Relationships Essay

For centuries human beings have been on a quest for love. As time has passed, this search has lead to mixing of races and resulted in interracial relationships, both long-term couples and casual dating.

One’s colour, religion and families origin should not interfere with the happiness between the couple. A publication by the University of Toronto Scarborough furthers this notion of love and relationships; yet explains there are many barriers and challenges which many interracial couples strive to overcome.

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.

I found my situation very thought-provoking that my family fell within the “51%” of African American kids that were raised by a single mother. Additionally, it was even more interesting that I fell within the “390,000” of black American male that is in an interracial relationship. Furthermore, Black Demographics (n.d.) states that “while black men marry white women at twice the rate of Black women, only 7% of married Black men had White (non-Hispanic) spouses in 2014. About 14% percent of African American men married non-Black or Hispanic women in 2014. It is Asian women who have the highest rates of intermarriage which is twice that of Black men”. As a result, the interracial relationship between black and white Americans has held strong.

Using the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), Whites’ attitudes towards dating, cohabiting with, marrying, and having children with African Americans and Asian Americans was studied. It was found that 29% of White respondents reject all kinds of relationships with African Americans and Asian Americans, while 31% endorse them. Second, Whites are less willing to marry and start a family within an interracial relationship than to date interracially. These attitudes and behaviors are related to political conservatism, age, gender, education, and region. Third, White women are likely to approve of interracial relationships for other people but not for themselves. White men however, express more willingness to engage in such relationships

There is a shift towards a new contemporary marriage. This shift includes an increase in cohabiting. The film Our Family Wedding illustrates this trend; Marcus and Lucia have been living with each other prior to their marriage and having sex. The increase in cohabitation is very large and almost half of those who choose to cohabitate eventually marry (Amato et al., 2007). Another recent change towards contemporary marriage is interracial or intermarriage. This trend is blatantly illustrated in the film because the bride is Latina and the groom is African American. The book mentions that this shift toward intermarriage is especially high for newlyweds, which helps cement the ideas of the director. Also, younger and better-educated Americans are more likely to engage in interracial marriage (Lee and Edmonston, 2005:7; Wang 2012). The director, who wrote Lucia and Marcus’ characters as individuals who had finished their undergraduate degree and in the process of obtaining their

This is the first time this had happened in modern times. Interracial marriages accounted for only 1.3% of the total in 1982. Three-fourths of all first marriages occurred in a religious setting the other third were done by eloping. A 1983 survey of 100,000 adults showed that 48% of married men and 38% of married women had affairs. This had increased the rate of divorce.

Additionally, there have been theoretical proposals for the existence of other predictors of attitudes and actions, which may be relevant to the current research. Recent studies have found that controlling for other variables, significant predictors of opposition to a law banning interracial marriage include being non-white, being younger, holding a liberal ideology, identifying as a democrat, having greater income, having a greater level of education, being less religious, and living outside of the South (Haider-Markel and Joslyn 2005). For some of these predictors, theoretical explanations have been proposed. Various researchers have conducted investigations into the many aspects of this type of relationship and have concluded that an increase in interracial marriages has occurred. This increase may be the result of numerous factors, including the Supreme Court lifting of the legal restrictions on racial intermarriage in 1967, the decrease in White prejudice against Blacks, and the narrowing of the racial gap in education, income, and occupation (Kalmijn 1993). However, Kalmijn (1993) states that although these factors may have resulted in an increase in interracial marriages, other factors may counter this effect. For instance, there has been an increase in Black unemployment, a rise in the racial gap of college enrollment, and part of

Interracial marriages, whether it be about race or religion, create more diversity in the world. These marriages create a more diverse world because the child of an interracial marriage now comes from two or more races. A quote from “ New Marriages, New Families” reads “Because the growth and diversification of the U.S. population in recent decades have been primarily fueled by increases in the nonblack minority groups--in particular, Asians and Hispanics--the role of intermarriage in the continued diversification of the U.S. population will become even more important. “ Lee, S. M., & Edmonston, B. (2005). This quote suggests that the cause of the recent diversification is because of the increase of interracial marriages. If attitudes about

Furthermore they have become the new economic trend. My reflection about the practice of racism in the past makes a lot more sense now because in the past Americans were majority, even more they had the control over minorities. Now, the percentage has changed, and racism has been decreasing as mixed-race relationships have been increasing. Nevertheless, interracial relationships are not the main factor to end racism, instead the population that is growing more diverse, and as a result the dominant group is facing the need to share the power with minorities that are becoming majorities. Racism and discrimination are not easy to abolish, even when Americans are becoming a minority there will be always a new mixed-race group that would dominate the rest, and along with that the discrimination against the other racial groups. To conclude, this last reflection brought me to the point of my research that might be helpful to others to better understand the relationship between interracial marriages and the decrease of racism.

In the modern world today, there are still people that are bigots who view interracial relationships and marriage as undesirable. However, the view is contentious given that the law that allows interracial relationships and marriages was enacted in 1960. Before then, it was prohibited and against the law to have a relationship with someone from a different race let alone getting married to them. Basing this context from the film Jungle Fever that tries to describe a non-healthy relationship between races, we learn how people viewed and perceived these relationships. The main culprits of this film are flipper and Angie. Flipper is an affluent and successful architect who is currently married, while Angie is a new secretary at her

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).

It has been suggested that interethnic and interracial couples may be more vulnerable in comparison to monoethnic and monoracial couples; as these relationships may generate unique dynamics and issues (Leslie & Young, 2015). Past research, predominantly through qualitative approaches, has focused on conflicts that

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.

For U.S.A., one of the most multinational countries in the world, the issue of intermarriage is particularly relevant. Modern America is characterized by the high concentration of people of different color, culture and religion and an increase in inter-ethnic and inter-racial marriages. In particular, in comparison with the last century, the number of marriages between African-Americans and Whites has increased. The problem of the interracial family life in America is affected in many studies due to its relevance. Many authors use different approaches in their studies of this subject. Generally, main two of them could be distinguished to “external” and “internal”.