Times and views are changing for the better, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who disapprove of interracial dating.
In decades such as the 1950s, interracial relationships were frowned upon and harshly discriminated against. In the 1967 Supreme Court Decision Loving v. Virginia, the court ended laws that prohibited interracial marriage. Since this court decision, interracial relationships and marriages have increased, and couples have felt more at ease going out in public. According to a study by Pew Research Center in 2013, 12 percent of newlyweds married to a spouse outside of their own race.
Love is love regardless of race, religion, sex, culture or any other extenuating factor. I am in a relationship with a person because of who they are and their personality. Race doesn’t matter when it comes to dating or marriage. If you love someone outside of your race, you love them for who they are.
When I see an interracial couple in public, I sadly also see people judging them, even now in period of change and increasing acceptance. People will stare and roll their eyes, whisper to their friends and judge from afar without even knowing the couple. It’s hard enough with people staring, but there are also cultural differences within the couple. They could be bilingual, practice different religions and have different traditions and customs as well as relationship expectations.
Adapting to these cultural differences is hard enough. Going out in public feels like you’re an animal in an exhibit at the zoo. People are watching my boyfriend and I even if we don’t initially notice. Members in our races also get offended and overly sensitive about how we may be ignoring our culture. Khloe Kardashian is constantly criticized for dating African-American men, especially when she married Lamar Odom. People of the public were bashing Khloe for marrying outside of her race, and praising Lamar for picking up a nice “white girl.”
These experiences aren’t exclusive to celebrities or people in the public eye either. Once I was out to dinner with my boyfriend and my parents. The waiter we had was African American, like my boyfriend, and as he came up to take our order he looked at my boyfriend for a second longer. It’s as if he was wondering what my boyfriend was doing out to dinner with a group of white people, like he didn’t belong with us.
Interracial relationships do not always have to involve a white person, despite the common stereotype. It can involve people of all races, races that people don’t expect to be interested in each other. Pew Research Center reported that certain races are prone to marrying outside of their race than others. Of the couples that got married in 2013, 58 percent of American Indians, 28 percent of Asians, 19 of blacks and 7 percent of whites married outside of their own race.
Despite the appearance of progression in the acceptance of interracial dating, it is still a novelty to some people. I still get long stares while standing in line with my boyfriend at Target and we both feel irritated and uncomfortable about it. Please consider those eye rolls and glares that you are about to send us and other interracial couples because we are all just humans who love each other. Attraction goes beyond skin color.