Interracial Marriages

I will be gone for one week, so do not look for me on Triond.  My son will be married in Charlottesville, Va.  He will join the rising numbers of those that will be in interracial marriages.  I did back in 1970, when I married a white American of Czech descent.  According to Wikipedia, in 2000, there were 6.8 million or 2.4% Americans in such marriages, but by 2010, there were 12.5 million that is up to 6.7% of the population.

What is the reason for such an increase?  The major reason being that the Supreme Court in 1967 made all anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. In all states, Americans could now marry the person they wish.  United States was not the only country with such laws on the books, back in the 1940s, the Nazis had regulations banning and restricting such marriages.  Another Western nation to do so, was South Africa, where apartheid was the law of the land.

But back to our story – a simple question will suffice, why do most people marry?  They marry because they fall in love and want to share the rest of their lives with that special someone.  That person may come in different shades, white, black, yellow, red, or brown.  It does not matter.

When I got married in 1970 – three years after the Supreme Court’s decision, many of my friends that were in school with me at the University of Oregon, Eugene, were against it.  They told me that such marriages could not last.  They pointed to persons in interracial marriages that were divorced and had lots of problems.  

One woman in particular, from Sweden, that was studying at the same university, advised me not to do it.  I told her I had to, because i loved the woman that was to become my wife.  I eventually did marry and has been married to the same woman for 41 years.

I must say that as a foreigner from Guyana, I was fortunate to have spent much of my life on campuses, either as a student or a faculty member. I could only remember a few instances that there were some problems.  They had to do with housing in New York.  A friend of mine permitted my wife and me to spend time at his flat as we looked around for a place to live.  We were only there for a day, when one of the renters reported to the manager that there was a black man living in the building. Because of that incident, we had to move and find housing elsewhere.