LOVE IN BLACK AND WHITE: INTERRACIAL ROMANCE 2018

White Men/Black Women; Black Men/White Women -- What’s the World Coming To? 

Does anybody still care if blacks and whites become lovers or spouses?  Fifty-one years after the Supreme Court voided laws against interracial marriage, are interracial romances even a curiosity?  We explore the questions through three sets of eyes.

Rob Writes

“His color means little,” she said. “It’s how considerate he is, his thoughtfulness, the way he makes love to me, that matters.” A white woman friend gave me that response recently when I asked her about her relationship with a black man. She and her partner aren’t married, but they’ve lived together five years and behave toward each other and the world as a married couple.  

One in six new marriages in America involve people from different races. Between 1980 and 2017, the percentage of blacks marrying someone from a different race rose from five to 18 percent. Opposition among whites to a family member marrying someone black dropped from 31 percent in 2000 to ten percent today. Television commercials for car insurance, food, banks, and other products and services now feature black/white couples.

My friend and her partner, therefore, reflect a trend, but their union doesn’t win uniform acceptance. “Two couples stared at us recently,” she told me, “like we were exotic creatures at the zoo. One couple was white, the other black, past middle age. Maybe that’s the dividing line. I can’t say we’ve gotten that response from younger people.”  Pew research, for example, shows people over 50 are twice as likely to see interracial marriage as a “bad thing” as people under 30.  

Scholarly research and polling reveal much about interracial coupling in America:

•  People living in cities intermarry more than those residing in rural areas. 

•  Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to see interracial marriage as a “bad thing.”
•  Qualitative studies show many white Americans still regard dating and marrying someone black as “strange” or “weird.”

•  In one 2017 survey, 20 percent of black respondents said mixed marriages are “bad for society.” 

• Twice as many black men marry white women as black women marry white men. 

• Divorce rates for interracial marriages are about ten percent higher than for same race couples, but up to 44% lower for black woman/white man couples.

One virtually unexplored frontier remains: POLITICS.  The nation has minimal experience with interracial relationships among the political elite. Only a few high ranking elected officials are involved in mixed marriages – New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and his black wife, Chirlane McCray, and Utah Congresswoman Mia Love and her white husband, Jason Love, come to mind. Michigan Republican senatorial nominee John James’s wife, Elizabeth, is white. 

                           

 

This may change. California Senator Kamala Harris, a black woman whose husband, Douglas Emhoff, is white, looks like she’s running for President.  If she runs and makes head way, presumably some people will take note of her interracial marriage. Senator Harris, therefore, could challenge the conclusion Janet Langhart, a black woman, reached when she became involved with then Maine Senator William Cohen. Langhart told Cohen she wouldn’t marry him while he remained in elective office because she feared voters would punish him. Langhart and Cohen married, but only after Cohen announced his departure from the Senate. He served as Defense Secretary during Bill Clinton’s second term.

I find the research and the attitudes reported interesting, but relationships are really about love and dedication to another person.  As someone involved in an interracial relationship, I’d like to know what difference it makes to anyone with whom I share my affections. But, then, I don’t understand many things about the world. 

Woodson Chimes In

“Miss Walker! Miss Walker! Miss Walker!  There’s a white woman outside!” my first grade classmate (and cousin)

shouted upon seeing a white woman approach our school in Holly Springs, Arkansas in 1956.  Though the teacher, my mother, responded, “She’s just a woman,” Jerry, like me, believed whites were different from “coloreds” (the way of referring to African-Americans then) and they shouldn’t mix. That’s just the way it was.

By my 1967 enrollment at historically black Arkansas AM&N College, things had changed. We “coloreds” started calling ourselves “black” and demanded treatment equal to whites. That included the right to marry interracially.  Along with my more militant brothers and sisters, I felt we’d been oppressed by whites and, therefore, couldn’t marry one.  My radicalization committed me to “Black Nationalism,” Pan Africanism” and other racial group formulations evidencing solidarity with people of color worldwide.  I viewed marrying a white person as betraying the movement. 

                                            

                           

My later reintroduction to the Christian religion of my birth caused me to reexamine that principle. Christianity told me “there is neither Jew nor Greek, black nor white; old thing

Labels

s are passed away; all things are made new.” Martin Luther King, Jr. admonished me to judge men and women by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Other religions – Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the great religions of Africa -- each taught the oneness of all humanity.  My five years of law school and law practice in multi-ethnic Minnesota helped convince me I should cling less to tribal beliefs and recognize that of the 2.7 billion inhabitants of this planet, the choice of who one loves is nobody’s business but their own.

Henry Says

If romantic relationships uniquely define our lives, logic

suggests our quest for them is personal and third parties should have little say in individual choices. Prejudice, political considerations, social balancing, and ignorance may interfere with one’s romantic choices, but that just reveals how far humans must travel in route to existence on a higher plane where respect and understanding abound.  Until we get there, we live lives filled with small and petty concerns.                                                   

BLACK GOVERNORS: MAYBE NOT SO RARE AFTER 2018

In 2018, the United States has its most intriguing, and important, mid-term elections in years. The big storyline resides in Democratic efforts to take control of the House of Representatives, potentially setting

Photo Credit: CNN.com

the stage for impeaching President Donald Trump.  But, in the states, an historic circumstance has developed that could equal the House races in long term political significance. Three black candidates – two men and one woman – stand as Democratic nominees for governorships. In a nation that has elected only two African American governors, that circumstance makes this a remarkable moment in the country’s 242-year history – even if none of them win.  What does this mean in the era of Donald Trump and the rise of white nationalism?  Is this a backlash against Trump? Can black candidates win statewide office in this environment?   

The Candidates

Stacey Abrams of Georgia – We devoted an earlier post to her candidacy, so we’ll limit our comments now to the fact her race against Republican Brian Kemp remains a tossup. The latest polling shows a dead heat.

Andrew Gillum of Florida – Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, shocked his state and the nation by winning the August 28 primary over better-known, better-financed candidates. He defeated onetime Congresswoman Gwen Graham, the daughter of former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham, and billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene. Like Abrams, Gillum ran a decidedly progressive campaign, winning backing from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, despite attending the 2016 Democratic National Convention as a Hillary Clinton delegate. Gillum advocates a single payer health care system, LGBTQ rights, and stronger gun safety regulations. The early polling shows him essentially even with Republican Ron DeSantis, a Trump-backed Congressman who threw the race into early turmoil by admonishing voters not to “monkey up” Florida by electing Gillum.

Ben Jealous of Maryland – Because Abrams and Gillum are running in southern states, Jealous, former president of the NAACP, hasn’t gotten as much attention.  Maryland, decidedly blue at the presidential and senatorial levels, has an incumbent Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who’s far ahead of Jealous in early polling and fundraising. Jealous has some catching up to do but, because Maryland usually leans Democratic, he may still have a chance.

The History

History doesn’t favor any of these three candidates. Four blacks have served as governors of American states, only two of them elected in their own right. Doug Wilder became the country’s first elected black governor when he won in Virginia in 1989. State law limited him to one term. Deval Patrick won the Massachusetts governor’s office in 2006 and reelection in 2010. He retired after two terms. Patrick gets mentioned as a possibility for national office but, so far, he hasn’t pursued the idea.

Two other African Americans have served as governors upon being elevated from lieutenant governorships.  Pinckney Pinchback filled the Louisiana governor’s chair for about a month -- December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873. David Paterson occupied the New York governor’s office between March 17, 2008, and December 31, 2010. He’d been New York’s Lt. Governor before Elliot Spitzer’s scandal-induced resignation.

This dearth of black governors, and the fact only six African Americans have ever been popularly elected to United States Senate seats, demonstrates the difficulty African Americans have had in winning statewide office. Blacks regularly get elected to House seats, and not just in black majority districts.  But, statewide races remain a tough nut to crack. The 2018 races in Georgia, Florida, and Maryland offer hope, but not guarantees, of electoral success this year.

The Problem and the Opportunity

White racism might seem an easy explanation for the difficulty African American candidates have had in winning statewide races. Many white voters just won’t vote for a black candidate, this theory goes, a notion perhaps undermined by Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency. Gerrymandering a state by packing black voters into compact districts, thereby making black victories easier, isn’t possible. No doubt the white racism problem partly explains what’s happened, but like most things in American politics, a more complex story tells the entire tale. Fund raising difficulties, especially lack of access to big-money donors, limited ideological and cultural appeal across a broad electorate, and low voter turnout in minority areas, especially in non-presidential years, probably all contribute.

This year, none of those factors need impede Abrams, Gillum, or Jealous.  Abrams, in particular, has already shown considerable prowess in raising money through small donations, especially online. Gillum’s primary win got him an immediate fund raising boost, with about two million dollars pouring in over just a few days. Presumably, Gillum now has a much better fund raising list. Jealous hasn’t done as well at fund raising. He had $9 million less than his GOP opponent two months from the election. Still, he’s patterned his campaign after Sanders and presumably knows the small donor fundraising techniques.

The gubernatorial opportunities presented in the 2018 elections give black Americans a chance at becoming more fully invested in American democracy.  Those opportunities, however, illustrate two things African Americans and progressives must do to take full advantage: (1) contribute to candidates of their choice and (2) vote. It’s really not much more complicated.