Colorblind Love

Like dissolves like is a term commonly used in Chemistry to describe how solutes are dissolved in a solvent. Although this term was not intended to describe society, I think it does a pretty good job; for the most part, people of one race are generally surrounded by people of the same race. This also holds true for dating. Even if interracial couples are becoming more and more common, it is still not as common to see an interracial couple as it is to see a couple of the same race. In fact, until recently, this was unheard of and looked down upon, and it is still viewed as taboo by some people today.

Growing up I was taught to love my family no matter what and to stick with them through anything. Being a family that moved as much as we did, I quickly learned that people in your life will come and go but your family will always be there for you. Since I have such a close relationship with my family it is important for me to choose boyfriends that I think will fit in well with my family and that my parents will approve of. In the past I dated a boy that did not particularly like my family, especially my brothers, so as you can imagine we did not last for much longer after I found this out.

About two years ago, soon after this relationship was over, I met a boy at school. My school was about fifty percent White and fifty percent Black, what most people would consider to be well integrated. Everyone hung out with everyone; race was not something that was even questioned when making friends. With a school so well mixed, it was nothing out of the ordinary to see interracial couples around school, in fact this was something seen as quite normal. Therefore, it was not surprising that the boy I met at school was Black. Somehow our schedules were exactly the same, so after spending all day of every school day with this boy we became pretty good friends, and there was some physical attraction between the two of us. He was the star football player and I was a cheerleader, so even after school we saw each other and hung out before and after practices. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were going out on our first date. After a while I asked him to come over to my house to watch a movie one weekend, but him coming to my house also meant him meeting my parents.

For the most part my parents are very easy to get along with and are rather friendly. When they met this boy they were very fond of him. He was a well kept boy, very respectful and outgoing, and also an honor roll student who was taking the same honors and AP classes as I was, along with being our school’s most talented athlete. To most parents he would sound like a very good match for their daughter; some parents might even think of him as be too good to be true. However, once I told my parents we were thinking about dating, things became a little bit complicated. My mother had no problem with this. She knew he was a good boy and just wanted me to be with someone who would treat me well, especially after the last boy I had been with.
My dad, on the other hand, had a different opinion on things. He felt that I should not be dating a Black guy. His main reason for objecting was because he thought society would view this as taboo. In a study done by the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, Professor Hongyu Wang said “To make their relationship successful, individuals involved in interracial relationships must learn how to manage public harassment such as evaluative, hostile, and discriminatory actions from strangers in the public” (Joyner, Kao, Wang 440 ). Although some people in society do view interracial couples as something that should not exist, this is becoming less and less common.

I had to argue with my dad that the society I was mostly exposed to, the one at school, had no objections to my dating choice and that there were plenty of other people involved in interracial relationships. In fact, in a journal article called Research on International and Interracial Marriages by Larry D. Barnett, he said, “The intermingling of young adults of different nationalities and races at the high school and college level is widely expected to be reflected over the long run in an increased rate of interracial marriage” (Barnett, par 3). It was ideas like this that were crossing through my mind while I was trying to explain things to my dad.
The hardest part for me throughout this whole thing was thinking to myself, “am I doing something wrong or is my dad in the wrong?” I was also faced with feeling like my dad was unhappy with me. Not only that, but wondering if something that felt so right could be wrong. Then, after telling the boy I liked what was happening at home, he was put in an awkward situation. He did not want to be involved in a family that was not accepting of him and I could not argue with him on that. We still saw each other at school and hung out, but not outside of school and he did not come back to my house for quite some time. It was extremely difficult for me to have to deal with all of these emotions. I wanted to be able to date who I wanted and have my family approve. However, it is difficult to have a healthy relationship with such conflict. “We hypothesize that adolescents in an interracial relationship perceive less support from their families than adolescents in intraracial relationships, therefore, they are more likely to experience relationship dissolution” (Joyner, Kao, Wang 439). Not having my dad’s approval did make it harder for me to continue with the relationship I had started, but I could not help but think about how so many people in history had been persecuted for doing what they felt was right, but society viewed as wrong. A perfect example of this is Martin Luther King Jr. in his essay A Letter from Birmingham Jail. In this letter, he included many cases where people were told they were wrong when they were not.

As time went on I felt it was necessary to really sit down and talk to my dad about the situation. I started out by asking him what he thought of the boy I had grown so fond of. He replied telling me that he really liked him as a person, and thought he had a bright future, just not with his daughter. I asked him why he would not want me to be with someone who is a good person with a bright future that treats me well, and he replied, “I don’t want people to look at you and call you names or think badly of you.” After thinking about it for a while, this response made more sense to me. When he was growing up interracial marriage was looked down upon, and for the first ten years of his life it was actually illegal. It was not until 1967 in the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia that an interracial couple from Virginia overturned the previous laws that prohibited marriage between Blacks and Whites (Staples, par. 2).To me interracial marriage being illegal seems unfathomable, especially after I have seen so many younger couples all around me that are composed of multiple races.

During this talk I explained to my father that people in society do not look down upon interracial dating like they used to, especially the people of my generation. “Americans born in the 21st century will shake their heads in disbelief on learning that 40 states once had laws prohibiting interracial marriage (Staples p 1).” After getting him to see this and explaining that I felt torn between my family and a relationship with someone I really cared about, he began to understand where I was coming from. He also realized that I should be with someone who makes me happy no matter their skin color. Although both of my parents approve, if I ever decided to marry a Black man I will have to get my extended family to see things from my perspective also. I am hoping that one day society will stop living by the Chemistry rule of like dissolving like and accept everyone for who they are, no matter what race. Then, hopefully, they will not think anything of it for one race to date another.


Work Cited

Barnett, Larry D.. “Research on International and Interracial Marriages.” Marriage and Family Living 25. 01 (1963): pars. 3. Web. 10 July 2009.

Becker, Eddie. “Chronology on the History of Slavery: 1619-1789.” Holt House. Web. 6 July 2009.

Joyner, Kara; Kao, Grace; Wang, Hingyu. “Stability of Interracial and Intraracial Romantic Relationships Among Adolescents.” 7 December 2004. Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania. Web. 6 July 2009.

Staples, Brent. “Loving v. Virginia and the Secret History of Race.” The New York Times.
14 May 2008. Print.