Lesbian Visibility: Interracial relationships

By Little G on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - 22:56

Speaking of racial diversity, as strange as it may sound, I find myself craving it from time to time. Maybe that’s why I like cities like Toronto, Vancouver, New York, London, and Amsterdam. It’s nice to not stand out. (My friend Inkie, a Caucasian, didn’t have a clue what it meant, until she and I visited Beijing, China. All of a sudden she understood what it felt like to be stared at, and for her to be approached by people who wanted to have their pictures taken with her.)

While some call it racism, others call it cultural backlash when parents want their children to date and marry someone from their own race/background. I have heard stories of Chinese and Indian men whose parents, despite being married to Caucasian women, kept setting them up with Chinese and Indian women. Are their parents racist? I don’t know - I don’t think so: with different outlooks for their children’s futures, they just want what’s best for them.

Does this sound a bit like your coming out by introducing your girlfriend to the family? There’s one big difference: coming out by introducing your girlfriend to your family could be the start of a better relationship (and better understanding) between you and your family. Your parents need time to adjust (if they hadn’t suspected your sexual preference already) but once they have, your girlfriend will be included. In the cases of those aforementioned men, their parents have already accepted their non-Asian girlfriends and are loving towards them. They just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that their sons married someone who is so different from them.

© examiner.com

Another friend of mine (a mother of two) has put it this way:

"I think there’s a difference between wanting to date someone who’s the same race, and wanting to date someone from the same culture as you - or your parents. When you’re talking about Indian or Chinese parents setting up their kids, would those parents also be discerning of not only the prospective partner’s parentage, but how much they embrace the religions, customs and cultures of the country they came from? Would an ‘Americanized’ Indian girl - say, an atheist college student from the SF Bay who didn’t feel like having kids, and wanted to keep her own name and run a business on her own - be as good a prospect as a white girl who had lived in India and adopted the family faith, traditions and values as her own? When religion, male/female roles and overall cultural influence come into the picture, I don’t think it’s really a matter of race anymore, but the parents’ attempt to keep their culture strong in their children."

She also pointed out something else: fear. Parents can be afraid for their children – afraid that they wouldn’t be able to take the way people would treat them. Employers, customers, co-workers, even other family members could have a problem with their relationships, and the parents worry they might get hurt if the wrong people decided to make an example out of them.

I came across a do’s and don’ts list to interracial dating, and even though it doesn’t tell those who are familiar with interracial relationships anything new, I think it serves as a great reminder.

Initially, there is a stage in which everything that’s different about your partner is fun and interesting, but I think after a while everything you have in common starts to matter and is just as important.

Skin color or race don’t matter to me: I think healthy relationships are more important. It indeed is a lot of work for some to blend two completely clashing cultures, but with open minds and open communication it should be no different than any other relationship. Isn’t open communication key to any good relationship?