Essay On Interracial Dating

Interracial families are more prevalent today than they have even been and the number of interracial families are growing each year as people are becoming more accepting of people of other races and rejecting the past. However, interracial families still report dealing with issues such as discrimination. Not everyone has yet to accept and welcome the idea of an interracial family in their own family and neighborhoods. Parents and children who are a part of interracial families must deal with multiple biases, how people act towards them, and developing a healthy identity in a world that is not always ready to accept them as they are.

Likewise, the rules regarding interracial marriages stemmed from slavery as well. The book, Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving, discusses the landmark legal case Loving v Virginia. As a bit of history, the book says, “In the 1600s… to ensure that the line between master and slave would be indelible, the colonists enacted a number of laws. Not least among them were the regulations that prohibited interracial marriage” (Newbeck, 23). So, the laws that were put into place regarding interracial marriages were enacted in order to maintain the power dynamic between black and white people. There was no other logical reason why the ban was in place, other than to continue to oppress the black community and keep them from attaining power and status within the

After going through the literature given in Gallagher's compilation related to racism and romance, one can easily understand the shift observed in racist attitude over last few decades. Considering the statistics given, it is visible that Black-White marriages and Asian-American marriages were a taboo in the early twentieth century however this trend has gain familiarity and fame in the masses reflecting that individuals from Black and Asian ethic groups are becoming more acceptable to Whites.

In the year 1924, in the state of Virginia, the Racial Integrity Act was put into law (See Appendix C). There is a very rich and mindful history on why this law was passed. In fact, it was not the first-time Virginia prohibited marriage between races. This was done when Virginia was one of the thirteen colonies. This law banning all inter-racial marriage was first passed in 1691. Also, that by 1913 30 out of the 48 states at the time had a law like this. Also during that time of the passage a group called Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America that lobbied for this bill to be

Facts of the case: this was a landmark civil rights case that overturned laws that prohibited interracial marriage. The case involved a black woman named Mildred Loving and a white man Richard Loving, who was sentenced to prison in the state of Virginia for getting married. It was a crime because the marriage of the two was a violation of the state’s anti-miscegenation law, which was called the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The couple got married in Washington, DC and upon their return they were indicted for unlawful cohabitation and placed in jail. Mildred Loving wrote a letter to the Attorney General; who was Robert F. Kennedy for assistance and in return she was referred to the ACLU who represented the couple in the case. The Supreme Court governed that Virginia’s bans on interracial marriages were considered unconstitutional. The court found that the anti-miscegenation laws did not infringe on the Equal Protection Clause

For years there have been forbidden love and marriage in the history of the United States, I decided to write a reflection on my thoughts views, fact findings and information regarding biracial marriages and segregation laws that were discriminatory in history. I read the short story about the Loving family and their pursuit to the Supreme Court in 1967, I thought of my own family history and realized that my paternal grandparents would’ve been prosecuted had they lived in Virginia or any other state that prohibited bi-racial marriages in the 1900s.

Virginia case successfully outlawed legislation that prohibited members of different races to wed in holy matrimony, despite the fact that society’s view on interracial marriages remained intractable. In 1924, legislation was passed in Virginia that was designed to limit mixed-race relationships, called the Racial Integrity Act. Not only did it try to prevent intermixing, but it also produced two strict racial categories of “colored” and “white” that divided society even more. Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, fought to repeal that act in 1967 when they were both arrested for getting married, despite Virginia’s ban on marriages between blacks and whites. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the couple knew that they could not legally marry in their state of Virginia, so they went to Washington, D.C, and after “returning to their home state…the couple was charged with unlawful cohabitation and jailed” (ACLU). During the state court trial, the presiding judge, Leon Bazile found the couple to be guilty, justifying his ruling saying “[the] Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents...the fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” After this ruling, Mildred felt compelled to write a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, asking for assistance fighting this state ruling. Soon, they were referred to the ACLU

The basis of this case coming to the Supreme Court attention was because a white 23 year old male Richard Loving married a Negro 17 year old woman Mildred Jeter, who were both from Virginia, where in this state they had a law that marriages

People who date and socialize with people of different racial groups frequently experience negative reactions. Many of the disapproving messages come from people of their own racial group. They scoff and make fun of the idea that they are dating someone with a different tone of skin or ethnic background. According to a poll taken in

Lewis and Ford begin by pointing out the Civil Rights movement that began in the 1960’s which acted as a jumpstart to the more diverse institution that we now know today. The article conveys that although there is a significant difference between interracial marriage and interracial dating – there has been a tremendous increase in both in the past several decades. A study and chart done by the U.S Census Bureau in 2004 shows, that there was a 26% increase of White/Other marriages from the 1980’s to the 1990’s; where in the 1990’s to the 2000’s there was a significant 72% increase. The chart also shows a drop in interracial marriages where Black/White marriages from the 1980’s to the 1990’s was 38% to a smaller 31% from the 1990’s to the 2000’s. The chart seems to show a significant trend in dating habits over the last few years, which is something that I was not expecting to see.

The Wucherfenning girls were not permitted to date until at least the age of sixteen. “My folks were very strict; they just did not think we should date very early. We did not dare to date a Catholic boy. We were Lutheran and back then the Lutherans and the Catholics were very rigid against each other.” In comparison to interracial marriage, marriage between individuals of different religious (interfaith marriage), even among different sects of Christianity, was looked down upon. Interracial marriage was not fully legal in the United States, until the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia (1976). Even after that, communities often looked down upon those who intermarried, either with someone of a different race or religion. Another

Relationships formed by two ethnicities can create a union between different cultures such as Asian, Hispanic, African American, American, and many others. One factor that comes from these relationships is children. Adolescents, whether they are involved in or are the product of mixed race couples, are negatively affected by interracial relationships. In result of these relationships, those adolescents face social, emotional, and cultural issues. Those issues include receiving social backlash from those around them, experiencing an identity crisis, and receiving neglect from their families.

By the year of 1958, approximately 16 states prohibited interracial marriages or implemented anti- miscegenation laws, this was until a particular love story changed everything. This love story was better known as Loving v. Virginia. An African American woman by the name of Mildred and a Caucasian man named Richard Loving traveled to Washington D.C. to get married because it was legal there. Upon arriving back to their home, they were arrested and banished for 25 years for violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act (Loving). The Lovings decided to flee from Virginia to avoid being

-In 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia case, the US Supreme Court struck down all laws prohibiting interracial marriages.

Although there were no federal laws regarding interracial marriage at the time of the dispute, each state had their own stance and set of laws. In fact, “Virginia [was] one of 16 States which prohibit[ed] and punish[ed] marriages on the basis of racial classifications,” and this practice of banning interracial marriages “arose[d] as an incident to slavery and [had] been common in Virginia since the colonial period” (Loving v. Virginia). Also, after the ratification of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which stated that no caucasian person could ever mix bloods with any other race such as African American or Native America in Virginia, miscegenation was outlawed in Virginia in to the hopes to maintain pure white bloodlines (Loving v. Virginia; Wolfe). The local Virginia government later stated that it was not a racist or unequal law since both members, both white and black or native american, who participated in an interracial marriage would be punished (Loving v. Virginia). However, times were changing, and as the Civil Rights progressed, ideas of separate but equal brought about by the case Plessy v. Ferguson were no longer current.