The Conversation About Interracial Dating That No One Wants To Have
We were raised to believe that love can conquer all. We were fed the Disney storyline that any/all differences can be overcome by realizing that, deep down, we are all the same. Pocahontas, the 1995 Disney film, is an excellent case in point of this fallacy.
Yes, the love between Pocahontas, the Native American princess, and the white dude, John Smith, overcomes cultural differences between their respective, racially-divided groups. But notice that, in the end, Pocahontas doesn’t leave with John Smith! She chooses to stay with her tribe while he sails back to England.
And here is the crux of the issue: it’s not enough to paint with all the colors of the wind and say you’re open-minded about dating outside of your background. Too many people are willing to date diversely, but would never actually consider settling down with someone from a different background. And that’s a huge problem.
In the “Death, Sex & Money” podcast, former NFL player Domonique Foxworth highlighted this toxic mindset by describing what dating was like as a celebrated black athlete at a predominantly white college:
Dating interracially doesn’t mean anything without a willingness to sit down at the end of the day and hash out your differences —most importantly, expectations from both people’s families regarding norms and non-negotiable commitments. Obviously those topics aren’t up for discussion in the early stages of a relationship, but if you’re not open to having them at some point, you’re just paying lip service to the idea of having an interracial relationship.
Because here’s the thing: if you commit to marrying someone with a different background, you risk losing a degree of closeness with your family/community in a much bigger way than you would by marrying someone of a similar background. It sucks, but you just do, because certain relatives, including members of your immediate family, may never fully accept your decision to marry an outsider. Furthermore, your kids are much less likely to have the same, relatively insular experiences that you did growing up—the choices you make as a parent may differ from those your parents/family made anyway, but the additional factor of a spouse who has their own unique set of familial norms and traditions increases the odds of your kids having a very different childhood from yours.
And on paper, that doesn’t seem like a big deal. In fact, having kids who would be exposed to more than one kind of culture and set of traditions seems more positive than negative.
But in reality, it’s a HUGE deal. Because in effect, it means standing up to your family and saying “This person I love is more important to me than keeping our family values and traditions perfectly intact. This person is worth disrupting what our family has always known and assumed to be the ‘right’ way of doing things.” And honestly, the “right” way of doing things can refer to something as mundane as attending the family’s annual Easter brunch. Hopefully that gives some idea of the scope to which this mindset can be applied.
I think standing up to one’s family is an especially difficult thing to do in cultures where parents expect to play a role in their children’s romantic relationships, whether it’s actually setting them up or simply assuming that their stamp of approval is required before a marriage can go forward. Obviously, that expectation is much greater for people who come from a culture in which arranged marriages are common. But really, the expectation of some familial involvement is fairly universal. Case in point: it’s still extremely common (and absurdly sexist) in mainstream American culture for a man who wants to propose to another man’s daughter to “ask his permission” before popping the question.
So, regardless of the extent to which your family assumes they will influence your love life, it comes down to this: How willing are you to stand up for the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? And if that seems like an easy decision, or a non-issue, know this: it’s not. Committing to someone, whether they’re from your same background or not, means shifting loyalty from your immediate family to your intended spouse. Not entirely, of course. Ideally, the interests of your family/community and spouse will align. The odds of that alignment increase with similarities in religion, country of origin, income level, shared cultural experience, etc. So choosing a spouse with a similar background makes sense, on many levels.
But there will be differences and a need for compromise in any relationship, no matter who you choose. The most tragic decision a person can make is one that limits their romantic options in the hopes of mitigating, or ultimately avoiding, the need to cut that umbilical cord with the fam.