Race and Sexuality

            In the world we live in today, yes even in 2017, there is still stigma attached to interracial relationships. The stereotypes placed on, not only black and white people in relationships, but also people that are Asian or Latino as well. These stereotypes go along with sex that makes experimentation and fetishizing men and women of other races a real and prominent thing in our culture that goes beyond that of respec. Asking someone in a biracial relationship questions about their sexual practices or genitalia further insinuates these stereotypes that make it seem that that person is only interested in the sexual components of the relationship. While sex may be an important part of a relationship, it should not be the only incentive for the relationship.

            There are also questions still being asked, maybe by someone older in your family or a more conservative person that wants to know why you want to be with someone outside of your race. When first entering into my relationship, some older people in my family told me that I should stay within my own race and my personal favorite, “if God wanted all of us to mix that he would have made us the same color.” Not the fact that it is simply a pigment in our skin but the fact that we are like two different species in general. This was only four years ago. I don’t understand why it is still such a big deal considering that our former president was a product of a biracial relationship. Instead of worrying about what your parents or your family will think or how people will view your relationship, worry about what will make you the happiest and deciding for yourself what you want in life.

            We have come a long way in this country since that of Jim Crow and Black Codes that outlawed interracial marriage and relationships with differentiation from state to state specifically in the South. This was so until 1967 with the Supreme Court Ruling of Love v. Virginia that invalidated anti-miscegenation laws. This was the last thing to fall when dealing with segregation within our political system because anything to do with sex or marriage is the most taboo topics related to the subject, this still holds true even with the recent ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges in ruling that gay marriage. In some religious circumstances interracial marriage is not welcome, one specifically in Pike County, Kentucky. Therefore, we cannot expect that being in an interracial relationship suddenly fix the deep embedded racism that we have in American society and people in interracial relationships acknowledge that, including myself, especially in a more rural setting that we are both originally from. When we take trips home we see the glares and hear the whispers when we are out in public. We acknowledge that some people still have issues even within our own families, however, that has not changed anything. Even though society as a whole has come a long way, race should not even be considered in relationships, but it is. Being able to talk about and acknowledge the different walks of life the other might have gone through can help us grow as people and think about things from different perspectives.