Hello Abby!
I stumbled upon yet another place for us to debate/opine! You are amazing! It appears, though, that all the responses are sympathetic to race mixing. There is little discussion and much "Abby Stroking" going on! Time to feel some heat on these boards and you know I am only too happy to help you out! You gave me a precious opportunity when you included me in Taboo. Representing my brethren and showing that we are not who most think we are was an honor. You have dared to show what the common media will never admit - and for that I respect you. Not something I've ever said to (OR FELT FOR!) a person of color.
So, to thank you just a little, I will provide some alternate views here in the hopes you find the answers you seek.
Captain Denise Martin
NATIONAL SOCIALIST SKINHEAD FRONT
http://www.nssf-frauenschaft.com/

I have read through all of these messages and there seems to be some common threads here. First, that both races must HAVE A REASON to have chosen outside of their own. Like a mental illness or issues! And second, that because those of you who have chosen to live this life with a partner outside of your race, that we should be so inspired by the courage and fortitude it takes to keep it together! Jesus! Give me a break, please. It sounds to me that the "sympathetic" souls who have braved bi-racial relationships are the ones with issues - like the need to be the martyr, maybe? Every single relationship on earth is hard! Not just husbands and wives - children, friends, neighbors! They are all difficult and it takes a lot of work for success to be had. You don't have the market cornered because you chose outside of your race! You would have the same issues with any mate! OH! But people stare at you! Damn. That does suck, huh? I get the feeling that the attention is what fueled the relationships to start with! And Taboo is the perfect choice for a title, because that's what attracts most white women to black men. It's bad! Which brings me to the 'REASONS' it happens. We will never be able to get every answer on that one. And again, all relationships start for a reason - not just bi-racial ones! Ask ANYONE about their childhood and they will tell you something about how it sucked. These issues determine every choice we make in life. 50 bi-racial couples will have 50 different sets of 'issues.' Maybe you all should just accept that as humans, we are drawn to the dark side, the bad boys, the TABOO. And isn't it just that much better when you can put yourself up on that pedestal so others can remark on your strength and commitment. Well, you won't find any sympathy or praise or understanding here. Thank God I was blessed with the ability to appreciate and honor the truth. Everyone here knows there's loads of SHIT flying around in here but no one else would say it because...hmmmmm. what was it again? OH! YEAH! That's just not right! That's not what we're told to do on our televisions! We are told to love and accept one another because WE ARE ALL THE SAME! RIGHT? HA! If anyone believed that, race-mixing wouldn't even be something worth mentioning! There would be no need to find the whys! No need to document the struggle of the bi-racial family! Won't at least ONE of you admit that I am right?!
There is only one difference between me and the contributors to this board - I am not afraid to say what is on my mind, I have no problem stating the obvious and I will never portray myself as anything other than what I am. I will always call it as I see it - even when revealing my own mistakes. I don't need anyone to tell me how to think or feel or what to do and I most certainly would never do anything at all so people would like me. I think there is only one message on this board that even remotely addressed a real issue. As I stated to Abby - I mostly see butt-lickers saying what they hope will impress. I happen to know that what would really impress Abby is honesty and meaningful debate so the topic of race mixing is no longer so powerful.
Yes. I have just issued a challenge.
Captain Denise Martin
NATIONAL SOCIALIST SKINHEAD FRONT
http://www.nssf-frauenschaft.com/

Hello...
Good day!
Greetings from fernandos Hotel.
Ms. Leslie Lewis Sword,
We just received your Valentines Card "The Lewis Family Newsletter", we check it out your project at this website...
you look great and also your friend.
Wish more success in life...
Hope you visit us in Sorsogon City.

More Power...God Bless!

Sincerely Yours,
Employees of Fernandos Hotel

I am

Well I am really looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out. I am a white guy and my girlfriend is black. We have been dating for almost 2 years now. What makes us a little different is she is we both grew up in the same country in West Africa. She is a national and my parents were working there for a non-profit group. We met here in in Colorado, at school together.
Well we get a lot of stares and and some dirty comments from time to time. Not too often as I am 6'3 and 245 pounds! lol. Some of the black women at her campus gave her serious grief though and she wasn't invited to join that sorority. One time we were walking together downtown and when we walked past a bunch of black guys one of them said loudly how "wierd" we were. It's funny because my good friend is black and his girlfriend is white so whenever we all got out people really stare at us.
It all boils down to people have tons of issues and just hating anyone that is different than them or threatens thier view of what is normal in the world.
wow, what a ramble....
I wish I could do a documentary film sometime... i have a lot of ideas...

I have ten cents to throw in.

I am sick of sociologists, scientists, and the like analyzing why my husband and I married, or any interracial couple for that matter. We are living the lives that we chose. My husband and I have familial support from both sides, and through five years of marriage and seven years of a relationship, have YET to experience pressure or hatred from external forces. If we ever do, we wouldn't care. We discuss the possibilities from time to time, but we refuse to waste precious time together wondering what other people think of us.

I didn't get into a relationship with my husband because of the size of his manhood. He didn't marry me because I am a trophy. He's African and I'm American (white/American Indian/Irish). We are both very hard-working, successful individuals, and oh.. we're Republicans!! Wait a minute, how did that happen? We don't live up to any stereotypes applied to our type of relationship, and we never will.

I feel sure most interracial couples are starting to feel the same way we do. Stop analyzing us. We are not lab rats. You cannot poke and prod at us. One more thing.. Statistics and polls? We have NEVER had questions asked of us regarding our relationship. Don't believe the numbers.

YOU'RE TAKING THE EASY WAY OUT....

Just looking at your movie poster, I can see that you are going to equate white male/Black female relationships to the revese Black male/white female relationship. Like most people who adress this issue, you want to promote the mythology that there is come controversy when a white man takes a Black lover. THERE IS NONE. He's a white man. It has ALWAYS been acceptable for the white man to do whatever he pleases. Strom Thurman, Thomas Jefforson, were among the many powerful men who covorter with Black women WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES.

No white man was ever convicted of raping a Black woman in America until the 1950s. No white man was ever lynched, burned or castrated for looking at a Black woman, smiling at a Black woman, or even raping a Black woman. Why? Because white males have power (political/economic). Those with power abuse those without. They intimidate and use fear and violence to protect themselves from the only thing they fear: losing said power.

The controversy only arises when Black men step into the Master's house and take that which he prizes most: the white woman. If you are to tell the truth of this tale, the taboo has always been that of the Black man with the white woman. Who has suffered? White men? Hardly. Who was tortured, mutilated, burned alive, castrated, and killed for crossing the color line? White men? NEVER.

Monster's Ball was a joke because it sought to establish the white man's dominance, not question it. You seem headed dow the same road, so I caution you.

White men having their way with Black women IS NOT TABOO, AND NEVER HAS BEEN...

I'm a white man, and my favorite type of pornography involves black men with white women. At one time, I would spend hours every day downloading pictures and videos of this. I don't do this as much anymore (having taken my interracial viewing fetish as far as I could, I suppose).

The aesthetics of a white woman in the arms of a black man is very striking. A black woman with a white man, not as much. Although, I admit, I would probably date a black woman if I had the chance because of the excitement that the differences involve. White on black skin looks very nice.

I am not American, but I think that the reason why interracial sex is so controversial for some and exciting for others is that it strikes at the heart of biological competition.

A racist white man will see that black men are taking 'their' white women away. There are black women who complain that black men are being taken away by white women. Life is hard enough, and people will scapegoat the competition. That's a natural fact of life.

All racially segregated societies eventually mix together. The energy and intolerance to keep the races separated eventually wane. Witness Angient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The USA (and the West) are no different. It's the triumph of love (and hormones) over racism and ideology.

http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=14278
NY PRESS NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 6, 2005

Black skin is thick and lush, sensuous to the touch, like satin and velvet made flesh. There's only one patch of skin on a white man's body that remotely compares to nearly every inch of a black man's skin. The first time I caressed black skin, it felt like a luxury I shouldn't be able to afford. I craved it more strongly than Carrie Bradshaw craved Manolo Blahnik shoes. That phrase, "Once you go black, you never go back" is all about the feeling of the skin.

And I had the socially acceptable explanation for my craving. I used that paucity-of-available-white-partners rationale to explain my relationships with black men for several years. A white woman past forty is often passed over by her white-male contemporaries. She goes younger or ethnic or foreign-born or down the socioeconomic scale or darker or she spends lonely nights at home with her cats. Black men are happy to get the babe they couldn't have when she was twentysomething and fertile. The laws of the marketplace do prevail. It's not me, it's them—them being the white guys who weren't after me anymore, or so I claimed.

That's a lie. The truth is, I attract about the same percentage of available white men my age (and far younger!) now as I did when I was thirty—and that's not including the unavailable white men who want to play around anyway.

Enough white men want me that I was hardly facing enforced celibacy, but I don't want them. I want black men. They want me. We look at one another and exchange a visible frisson of sexual energy in the lingering glances. And our attraction is based first on race. We are not those couples who "happen to fall in love" with someone of a different race or more purposefully come together but out of some greater sense of interracial understanding and respect. Not as politically-correct men and women do we seek one another out. The Internet has made it a lot easier for us to find each other now. Men advertise: ebony seeks ivory. Women write: seeking tall, dark, and handsome. Very dark. We are not the same people who say: Race is not important. It is important to us. We have race-specific desires.

Even in a time when nearly 40 percent of single Americans have dated outside their race, that deliberate seeking of the specific other makes some people, especially black women, damned mad.

We are what they denigrate and castigate: white women and black men who choose one another because of our racial differences. They resent our taking their men. Black men are two and a half times more likely to marry a white woman than a black woman is to marry a white man. Black women can point to that statistic in justifying their wrath. But in truth, black sisters, we're after the sex, not the ring—and these guys aren't the marrying kind anyway.

Yes, the sex!

The woman who goes after black men is a variant of sex journalist Susie Bright's "white bitch in heat," a woman who puts sex first even though women aren't supposed to do that. According to one school of thought, white women turn to black men when their sex drives kick into higher gear and their social inhibitions recede into the rearview mirror. It's a "yes, baby, now I'm ready for you" reaction.

When we get to the "yes, baby" place, they know it, and they are ready and waiting for us. Black men have more energy, style and edge than white men. They know how to flirt, a nearly lost art among the rest of us. A black man is so damned sexy because he knows how to make a woman feel sexy.

Black men have something white guys don't have anymore: confidence in their masculinity, their sexuality. They clearly know they're men. White men appear to be waiting for the latest sociological research study to let them know if they are men or not. Yet black men are gentlemen, something else white men no longer are. They make me feel like a woman, both respected and desired. I can let go of my inhibitions, my need to control, when I am with them. How many white men can treat a woman like a lady and ravish her too?

I often felt in my White Period that only during heated sex does that little layer of air bubbles between me and the world pop and disappear, leaving me open to intimate connection. It takes a lot of friction for two white people to get that close. These black men, so alive with erotic electricity, cut through the bubbles with a touch, a caress, a kiss—and they free me—and I can truly touch them. I am like a pampered passenger in a Porsche with an expert driver at the wheel. I know I could suggest a route change, but I never really want to do that. On the other hand, the last time I had sex with a white man, we slogged along a bumpy road in a really old VW, the driver like the typical bumbling tv husband who would neither ask for nor accept the directions he badly needed.

My current lover, a handsome businessman, seduced me via eye contact at a neighborhood bar while I was eating burgers with a friend. Without saying a word, he paid the compliments, asked the questions with his expressive eyes. He didn't move over to sit beside me and ask if he could buy me a drink until he knew the time was right. Both soft-spoken and assertive, he has impeccable manners and charm. I was kissing him in a cab 30 minutes after that drink.

On another night in that same bar, a different black man, an artist, knelt and kissed my knees. I am sure there must be some black men who aren't good in bed. Personally, I have not experienced one who isn't. (True, I am not dating down the socioeconomic ladder, but I didn't do that when I dated white either, so the racial comparisons seem valid and fair.) They look better than white men, they touch and kiss and make love better than white men. Statistically, their penises are only a fraction of an inch bigger on average, but they seem bigger and harder.

White men over 40 have lost their waistlines and their zest for life—if they ever had it. They carry resentments, grudges and extra pounds in their basketball bellies. Perhaps a good part of that bloat is unhappiness. Even the thin ones look flabby somehow and deeply aggrieved. They nurse the smallest perceived slight longer than their double shots of Scotch. Surely our culture as much as biology turns them into softer, spongier, less-interesting versions of their youthful selves just at the point where women and black men and other minorities are emerging strong. Society overvalues the white man, leaving him angry and bitter when he realizes, around age 40, that he's not all that.

With the exception of some Italians, white men don't turn me on anymore. That admission puts me in the same category as the older man only interested primarily or exclusively in young women. While women my age scowl and frown at these aging, Upper West Side Boomers pushing strollers as the hand of the thin, blonde wife 20 years their junior rests lightly on their arm, I feel a kinship with the old goats. We are the same, me and that bald white guy, drawn to the exotic other, not caring that the object of our desire has no childhood memory of a Kennedy assassination or a typical WASP Sunday dinner of over-roasted beef, lumpy mashed potatoes and soggy vegetables.

Analyze the roots of attractions all you want—like scientists have done—and you won't come up with a perfect explanation for why we crave what we do. Desire rises from our depths and is gloriously oblivious to the good opinion of others. Yet until recently, I pretended that my lust was an equal-opportunity craving, because that seemed like the right thing to do.

Halfway through the first glass of wine in my last date with a white man, I realized that little clouds of sadness and self-pity were regularly fluffing off his psyche like the dust clouds kicked up by that dirt-smudged "Peanuts" character as he walks through Charlie Brown's life. This guy was at least mildly depressed, and I wanted to tell him to exercise, lose weight, trim the combover and get interested in something outside yourself. I would have walked out on him immediately, but he seemed to expect that. I couldn't deliver the blow to his ego proffered like the naked neck of a martyr to the ax. My Southern cousins would describe his general demeanor as a "hangdog air." Into the second glass of wine and glancing longingly at the exit, I wanted to hang that dog myself when he mentioned that his face was flushed—I hadn't noticed—because he'd taken a Viagra "just in case."

What did he think would entice me more: That he assumed sex was probable because I'm a sex journalist—or that he would need chemical help if sex did occur? I cannot even imagine a black man bungling an attempted seduction in such a sad way.

That was my last token white guy. I recently came out of my racial-preference closet and told my friends, "I love black men. I'm not attracted to white men over 40, and I'm not dating them anymore. Really, it's not them, it's me.

Nobody was surprised.

Volume 18, Issue 49

Hi Abiola!

I'm french , so my english is not perfect...
I'm a 30 years old "white" french teacher.
Your documentary seems to be nearly finished, but if it's not too late, I can give you some key ideas or references about the black male/white female relationships to use for the audio commentary...(psychological perspective)

I- first, the blackmale/white female fantasy is a WORLWIDE fantasy:

For example, 2 years ago, on the arabian TV chanel "Al Jazira" , the "cheikh Al Qaradawi " had to respond in his tv show to a spectator from Oman, asking if the fantasy to share his wife with a blackman is tolerated by Quoran...(see Dr Khaled Mountasser El Aph (London) quoted in "Courrier International"(french newspaper),25 /09/2003, N° 673 ).

The same year (2003) in Italy, the cute white Top model Alessia Merz was everywhere in the press when she told it was well known that Blackmen are the best Lovers...

II-the Big Black Man : THE SYMBOL of nature and power

A-back to nature:

According to "Jungian" psychoanalysis, each white woman in the world dreams at least one time in her life about an impressive man in black or a blackman...
blackman symbolize the stereotype of nature, of authenticity , of freedom...
and in the modern society, women fantasize about this "back to nature" (see "Women Who Run with the Wolves", by Clarissa Pinkola,book )

B-white women take THE POWER (Self-Liberation, using blackmen)

- the famous (white) autor Nancy Friday did some studies about female sexuality and blackmen...
A crossed analysis of her theory showing female fantasies as A QUEST FOR SYMBOLIC POWER(women on top, 1991), and of the female talks about blackmen (My secret garden 1973-Women on top 1991) shows why some white girls fantasize about blacks:
The black lover is a way to have the power of the stronger "black phallus"(stereotype inherited by history, colonialism,slavery...), and to reject the oppressing white patriarchal society. The white woman symbolically destroys the "white power" society to become herself a keeper of the power .

This analysis joins the analysis of the 50's black intellectual philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon :
"The white wife finds the Negro to be "an intensely exciting sex partner because of his forbiddenness and because of the ease with which she can project onto him her own oedipal fantasies." [p 92, Wm H. Grier & Price M.
Hobbs]Frantz Fanon in his Black Skin White Masks (1952)"

So in psychology, the "black fantasy" is a way for the white girl to be "stronger than the father", to have the power...

III-To quieten white man's mind:

And for white guys, the fantasy to share their wives with blackmen (interracial dvds, swingers clubs) has the same origine, they use their "wives" to canalize and capture the symbolic strength of the blackman, it's a way to be secured about their own sexuality.

Wives master,pacify,mollify the menacing black phallus before the eyes of their complexed, anxious white men.The white girl kill the dragon (force of nature/black slave/big phallus) by herself in front of the scared white knight to reassure him(the dragon was too big for him, but no pb for her...).

The famous French psychoanalyst (white female)Joyce McDOUGALL shows the example of a white man called "Jalon"who had sex only whith girls traditionaly dating "exotic"men (blackmen, jewish men...), because being accepted by such girls was giving him the feeling to be a "real man", as them...(the female is the one who give, who transfer the power).(see "De la sexualité addictive", in "Psychiatrie Française,vol.22" N° Sp/sept.91: Les pratique psychiatriques contemporaines- 1991, ed.S.P.F.)

I hope these little elements can guide you in your search...
I can tell you much more about the subject if you want:

-more about psychological aspects
-more about interracial dating in France...
-I also have some interesting pics too about interracial issues

Truly yours,

David

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll...2230320/1023/FEAT05

On TV, love is no longer color-coded

By Ann Oldenburg
USA Today

   Fast fact

According to the most recent Census, interracial marriages grew from less than 1 percent in 1970 to nearly 6 percent in 2000.

 
 
One of the sweetest scenes to unfold on recent television was the long-awaited reunion of Bernard, the scruffy old survivor from the tail section of the downed Lost plane, with his calm and loving wife, Rose.

Rose is black. Bernard is white.

And one of the spiciest relationships on TV right now is blossoming between feisty, attractive Grey's Anatomy doctors Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), who is Asian, and Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington), who is black.

Interracial pairings suddenly are integral to several of today's top-rated TV shows, including Grey's, Lost, My Name Is Earl and ER.

But these on-screen pairings no longer draw the kind of attention and reaction they did in the '60s and '70s. Romances between people of different colors are being handled more offhandedly, with race being neither an issue nor much of a plot point.

"Honestly, we really don't even talk about it or consider that it's an interracial couple," ER executive producer David Zabel says of characters Neela Rasgotra, who is of Indian descent, when she married Michael Gallant, who is black.

Younger people today don't see the couple as different races, he says. "They don't draw those lines. Watch MTV, and you'll see videos with all kind of people interacting."

On Grey's Anatomy, the race difference between the lovers has not been addressed. Instead, other differences have been highlighted. Oh's character is messy; Washington's character is tidy. She's Jewish; he's not; he's spiritual; she's not.

The pairing stems from "casting whoever we thought was best for the part," says creator/executive producer Shonda Rimes.

Washington, who plays Dr. Burke, didn't want to talk about his character's romance, saying through his publicist that drawing attention to the races takes away from the fact that it's quietly and happily existing without being an issue.

His sentiment echoes that of Morgan Freeman, who said on Sunday's 60 Minutes that the whole idea of a month for black history is "ridiculous" because it separates black history from American history and is part of a labeling process that abets racism.

But does this reflect a real maturing of public opinion, or is it the view through Hollywood's rose-colored glasses?

"The reality is that interracial couples still deal with discrimination and hate," says Carmen Van Kerckhove, co-director of New Demographic, a diversity training company. "It's a positive thing that we're seeing less of a tragic element. Television models for us what we should think about people, really determines our taboos and what's acceptable. The more people see positive and normal representations, that will lessen the fear and taboo."

Although the television industry long has been accused of not casting and portraying enough actors and actresses of different races and ethnicities, Zabel says that has slowly been shifting, and ER has been a front-runner.

Mixed couples have been on at least since black Dr. Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle) and white Dr. Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston) were hot and heavy in the late 1990s. "This show has always tried to have a broad range of backgrounds — ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds," Zabel says.

Parminder Nagra, who plays Neela, says it would be more of an issue if ER suddenly cast an Indian man for her to love. Her story line with Gallant works, she says.

"Why wouldn't these two people get together? They're very passionate about life and each other. On a bigger level, it gives people hope." And the romance, she says, sweeps viewers away, making them forget about race.

What will come later might be a story line that addresses race through family, Zabel says. That's where a clash may come as tradition is broken, and race will play a role.

"I knew certain people would look at it and go, 'An Indian girl is going out with this black guy.' "

But what they should notice is the passion, Nagra says. "It's important to have this on screen. There are so many mixed relationships. I don't think it's portrayed enough on television."

Racism is often reflected on television through hate crimes and other violent stories, Nagra says. "We know racism exists. Let's show people getting on. Let's be positive about it."

Mixed-race romances on television have never been plentiful, as the mass medium has been fearful of alienating viewers and advertisers.

In 1957, on Alan Freed's weekly rock 'n' roll show, black singer Frankie Lymon was seen dancing with a white woman. ABC promptly canceled the show.

On Star Trek, when Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk kissed (against their will) in 1968, it was heralded as the first interracial smooch on television. And when Norman Lear featured a black woman and a white man as married neighbors to 1975's The Jeffersons, it was considered groundbreaking.

I look forward to seeing this movie especially since I am a black woman married to a white man.

I've also found it interesting to be out with my husband at a club and seeing the weird looks from the blackmen that were also involved in ir relationships while the black women would give me the thumbs up.

To those blackmales reading this.......you're not all that so get over yourselves.

Unlike most of you when I met my husband I was attracted to him not his color. He has a beautiful smile and a wonderful personality. He is definetly easy on the eyes and we have a lot in commom. We met while I was vacationing in Greece. We have been married for 10yrs. We are both in our thirtys.

So to those blackwomen reading this you should stop worrying about what other people will think and realize that there is nothing wrong with dating and marrying outside of your race now you should make sure that your religious are the same. This is where I believe people should be evenly yoked.

Spotting a few new trends at the multiplex

While watching the movie "Something New" - which is about a romance between a successful black female accounting executive and the white landscape architect who does her yard - several scenes struck me as completely false.

They're the ones where Kenya McQueen's black girlfriends mercilessly rib her and her boyfriend Brian Kelly about their interracial relationship. In one scene, a black female comic teases Kenya for bringing along her "night light" and for dating her "probation officer." But I doubt that this would ever have happened in real life. In my experience, when a black woman is dating a man she likes and who treats her right, her girlfriends could care less about his skin color. They're just thrilled to see her hooked up and happy.

  This is a movie, however, and I guess they wanted to add some dramatic tension to the story. But USA Today reported last week that the movie reflects a trend among young people who are in their teens to mid-20s. Thrown together with young people of all races in school, college and work, they are less hung up about race than previous generations, and are more likely to date and have friends of different races.

In the movie, Kenya and Brian appear to be in their early 30s. Their relationship is a refreshing change for a black woman like me, who's used to seeing movies in which black males are paired with white, Asian or Hispanic love interests, and where white male characters often have their Sandra Oh or Penelope Cruz interludes, but where one sees few black female characters having love interests across the color line.

The movie rings quite true on some points. In real life, Kenya would probably catch a lot of flak for having a relationship with Brian from the black men she knew, since black males have long dated interracially, while at the same time criticizing black females who do. That's exactly what happens in the movie. Kenya's black male friends have the most trouble with her relationship with Brian, and her brother, a playboy who changes his African-American girlfriends weekly, is horrified that his sister is "sleeping with the enemy." Kenya also gets a hard time from her very bourgeois mother, which I also found believable, because many middle-class black parents, like middle-class white parents, would prefer that their children date and marry within their own group.

Unlike those in the millennial generation, Kenya, despite her strong attraction to Brian, has trouble bridging the racial gap. But in the end, love and compatibility, and the support of Kenya's wise father, conquer race, and the two realize they're meant for each other.

The USA Today article quoted a black scholar worrying that the new colorblindness he sees among young people today could lead to a generation so unconcerned with the realities of racial prejudice that they will forget about the racial disparities that continue to exist. Having friends of other races doesn't necessarily lead to a lessening of negative attitudes toward other racial groups, because they see their own friends as exceptions to the stereotypes, he says.

There's some truth to that, but on the whole, I think that having diverse relationships leads to more understanding, not less. Ironically, the scholar's wife is white.

There's no danger in reaching for love and companionship where you find it, in trying to be a whole person, and not just a member of a racial group. In the movie, falling in love with Brian doesn't make Kenya lose any of her anger at being patronized by her white clients or over feeling she has to work twice as hard as her white colleagues to prove that she's competent. Quite the contrary. It's also interesting that Alfre Woodard, who plays Kenya's disapproving mother, has been happily married to a white guy for two decades.

If "Something New" reflects a trend toward people being able to move beyond race in their personal relationships, and away from preconceived notions about what they want, that's a good thing.
 
Copyright 2006, Newsday.

Who cares who dates whom? I am a black woman who is not opposed to dating white men. People are people with the same goals, problems, and headaches. I don't care what society thinks, this is my life, and I will date whomever. I do not have a problem with white women dating black men. Its the personal choice of the man and the woman. I am offended when black men feel they must "justify" dating white women by putting black women down. No "justification" needed, just date whomever you want. A black man once told me I should not date white men because it was an affront to black men. He further stated that it was okay for black men to date white women because it offended white men so much, and that was the point. To offend white men and to repay white men for the ravages of slavery. Also, he stated that white men always had black women and there was nothing a black man could do about it if a white man wanted a black mans wife. He went on to say that black men dating white women were paying white men back. WHATEVER. Life is short, enjoy.

Racial identities spawn new terminology

When Lamaas Bey is asked his race on a form or survey, he doesn't check the box that says "black" or "African-American," even though many people think that's what he is.

Instead, the 27-year-old Pittsburgh resident writes in the word "Asiatic," because, he says, "I'm going back to the cradle of civilization where the first people came from, which was the continent of Asia. The whole world at one time was connected, and it was called Asia."

Bey is only one of many people who have decided that calling themselves "black," "white" or "Asian" is no longer enough, given the kaleidoscopic possibilities of racial identity today.

James Landrith, the Virginia-based creator of the Web site Multiracial.com, says he's of "Melungeon" descent, which he describes as a mix of black, white and American Indians from the Appalachian region. Malcolm Jones, who lives in California, considers himself white, but is frequently mistaken as Latino or American Indian; as a child his Japanese mother and Swedish-American father jokingly called him "Swedenese."

On the Internet, to name just a few sites, Jamericanoutreach.com is a charity founded by Jamaican-American immigrants who refer to themselves as "Jamericans"; Nuyorican.org is a multicultural arts site with a focus on the "Nuyorican" community, defined by Wikipedia as "a blending of the phrases 'New York' and 'Puerto Rican' and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York City."

If it seems that young people, especially, are choosing the multiracial label, there's a simple explanation why.

"Society is more diverse today than it was 20 or 30 years ago," says Terrell Jones, vice provost for educational equity at Penn State University, noting that between 5 percent to 10 percent of students in his classes define themselves as multiracial. That, in part, is because of the jump in the number of interracial marriages from 1 percent of the population to at least 5 percent since 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

Until 2000, the Census required people to check off only one box among several mutually exclusive racial categories - "black," "white," "Asian and Pacific Islander," "American Indian" and "other." Then, after strong lobbying by advocates for multiracial groups, that requirement was changed to allow people to check off as many boxes as they wanted.

Originally, those groups had wanted a box marked "multiracial," but that idea was strongly opposed by a variety of civil-rights groups, fearful of a dilution of political power that could affect the allocation of federal aid dollars, as well as law and voting-rights enforcement. Gary Flowers, then-director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, compared such a box to "apartheid," arguing that it would dilute the strength of the black community, a position backed by the Hispanic group La Raza.

So, a compromise was reached: Census respondents could fill out as many boxes as they wished. Consequently, in 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau found that nearly half of all Americans who identified themselves as being members of more than one race - about 4.4 million in all - were under age 18.

There's other evidence that this move toward self-identification is generational.

A study by Maria Root, a Seattle-based clinical psychologist and author of "The Multiracial Experience," found that biracial people born before the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s tended to identify themselves as black, while those born during or after that period might identify as black, but also opted for the term "biracial." Moreover, 2004 Census data shows that those between ages 18 and 65 were five times as likely to describe themselves as members of more than one race than those over age 65.

Multiracial culture is all over the media - from the mixed-race cast of "Grey's Anatomy" to MTV to the Internet, where Swirlsyndicate.com sells "interracial kids' clothing" for "multi-culti cuties."

In January, a new documentary film "Chasing Daybreak," sought to highlight what it called "America's mixed-heritage baby boom," chronicling the "Generation MIX National Awareness Tour," in which five young people traveled across the United States in an RV to promote interracial harmony.

While there's a decidedly celebratory tone to media depictions of multiracial life, the reality is somewhat different on the ground. Being identified as neither a member of one major racial group nor another - or being persistently asked the question "What are you?" - can take an emotional toll, according to Ann Van Dyke, educational director for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Van Dyke travels to schools all over the state for the "Spirit" program, which seeks to address racial conflict among students.

"What we often see is the biracial students have all the problems that the other students of color have, but have a whole list of other problems as well, because they are biracial," she said.



(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)

Race, Porn, and Interracial Relationships
http://www.rachelstavern.com/blog_comment....=263&m=2&y=2006&d=1

 
When I first started studying interracial relationships, I thought I may be able to use the internet to locate Black/White couples to participate in my study. I would use Google or Yahoo!, and type phrases like “interracial relationships” or “interracial marriage.” Much to my chagrin most of the results that came up were pornographic websites. The association between interracial relationships and “illicit sexual encounters” is commonly accepted in American popular culture. Fortunately, this has changed somewhat in recent years; currently, none of the top sites that come up in a Google or Yahoo! searches are porn. However, that doesn’t mean that phrases including “interracial” no longer lead to pornographic sites or that such relationships are no longer considered relationships that are primarily associated with sex.