Inter-Racial Dating

Relationships are a lot of work not matter what the after-school specials make them look like. Often it can feel like a prolonged negotiation. These negotiations get even more difficult when those involved come from vastly different backgrounds. Through my random readings I have found race to be more of a relationship issue that I ever thought it was.

 This may sound a little odd and probably make me seem more “out there” than usual but here it goes. Growing up in the “Middle of Nowhere” Midwest the idea of “race” was never something that crossed my mind. Living in my neck of the woods there is a diverse population of people from all over the cultural spectrum. Now I am not sure if it I was “sheltered” or just oblivious but, I never looked at a person and saw them as being different from me.

When I was a kid, my family moved one city over from a diverse area to Indiana’s equivalent of Mayberry. I went from being around people of all shapes, sizes, and shades of brown (there is no such thing as a “white” person unless they are considered Albino and that is another story) to a lot of kids that looked like me. It was very, very boring.

It was not until high school that I had actually been told there were different races. I didn’t start to get a feel for what “race” was until college. Yes, I am kind of slow at times. Oddly enough, I didn’t start taking classes that studied race until after I had broken up with my second non-Caucasian boyfriend.  I went off on a research bender to try and understand inter-racial relationships. I was stunned at some of the, for lack of a better word, crap that is in circulation. 

Old racial stereotypes are still being used to define groups and determine their “date-ability”. Let us think about this for a minute… If these stereotypes were not true when they were in common use why would they be any truer now? The answer… There is no validity to any of it.

A few years ago I found a YouTube posting about inter-racial dating called The Other White Meat. This was the first time I had heard a perspective like this. While I, personally, do not like being lumped into the same category as Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn It was interesting.

Dating is a voluntary act. Choosing a person to date is up to the individual but having all the facts first, and deciding based on the individual rather that the characteristic, makes you more date-able.