HockeyGuy

I was just looking in the 'different races' thread and it made me think back and ponder this....

An Ex of mine what chinese and her parents were never allowed to find out that we were seeing each other (I am a white male), Apparently her brother once dated a white girl and that caused big problems within the family. (Keep in mind that this was only about 3 years ago, in Canada) Anyone else experienced these 'traditionalistic' values? (I wouldn't call it racism... more just not wanted to change their culture/what they were used to...).
Figured could be an interesting thread as well! comment away!

Shades

Why isn't it racism? It's discrimination based on the color of a person's skin, yes? I mean, it was "tradition" to have black people use a different bathroom and sit at the back of the bus not too long ago, but that seems to have been phased out. So I think it's safe to say that the tradition argument is bullshit.

Strange Famous

My parents probably would want me to marry a Jewish girl, but I wouldnt personally consider it a factor in who I dated or ended up with, and I dont think they would ever put any overt pressure on me.

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hobo

I personally have no problem with dating someone of another race, and my parent's don't mind either. The "tradition" of marrying someone of the same race is outdated.

Mephex

I've dated out of my race, and I do think it's racist, that a family doesn't want their daughter dating a white man. They call it preserving a culture, a heritage, while here in the US, we call it racism. Now it's okay for another race to penalize you based on color, but if a white man does it, it's wrong.

guthmund

A guy I used to work with came from a very traditional Chinese family. He married a white gal and became a Mormon convert.

His family held monthly "family" meetings; they were uneasy about inviting him and she certainly wasn't allowed.

Crazy shit.

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Yalaynia

I knew several people that are and were in different mixed relationships. One girl I knew was east indian and when she married a white person she was disowned by the family. They wanted nothing to do with her.
I got a friend shes white and married into a black family, and I knew another girl that was dating a black guy.
Some cultures it is very frowned upon for dating outside their race and religion as well as having sex before marriage, there are still some places that still do have pre arranged marriages. If you dont follow those beliefs then chances are your family will disown you as well as everyone else.
Everyone here might think it is strange, dumb and totally unbelieveable that stuff like this exists. But we werent raised in that culture. It kinda falls into the put yourself in their shoes. If you were raised with a heavy up bringing of any one religion or culture you wouldnt think of it being wrong for being told that you can not date someone outside your race or religion.
I personally dont have a problem with people of different religions or races dating. I wish all people could get past the colour of skin and look whats inside the person before passing judgement on someone just by looks but the world isnt like that.
I also know that in some states mixed couples mostly meaning a black person and a white person are not really welcome and it is unsafe to travel to them. But then again I also know some small towns that if you were not born and raised there you arent welcome in them either.

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Hanabal

Well im from a simple white family and im dating a chinese girl, my brother is dating an indian girl and my other brother is dating a jewish girl. So its pretty mixed.

one good thing is that my G/f parents dont know a word of english so i dont have any awkward speeches and they have no idea what im saying what ever i say. Also my G/f is teaching me chinese so i can understand what they say, so i have a good advantage. hehe

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motdakasha

I am mostly Chinese. My father is half-Chinese, half-Caucasian. Because he was a mixed child, he was illegally put up for adoption. So, I can say with some (obviously biased) knowledge and expertise in the area that traditional Chinese families are often racist because it's part of their values. Chinese are raised to "keep the blood yellow," so to speak. It is not unlike their German Aryan counterparts. It isn't something that is taught explicitly, though. For example, in the Chinese language, Caucasians are often referred to as ghosts or white devils (literal translation). Oftentimes, those who hold with traditional values don't have any trust for Caucasians (read: unequal treaties and treaty ports). But this discrimination isn't just against race, but also class. It's pretty much verboten for a Shanghainese to date a Cantonese. (Well, they might consider that a race thing, also because they're from a different province, different language, different culture, etc.)

Cross-cultural relationships can be extremely difficult.

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HockeyGuy

Interesting stories. I had no problem AT ALL with it, and if i was single and the right person came along then sure it really wouldn't make a difference to me. I'm lucky enough to have a family that'd support me no matter what! (and a great gal !!!)

raeanna74

I had a black girl friend in college. Her brother was there also and we'd hang out with him and his white girlfriend sometimes. They got along well and were a sweet, not gushy couple. Her parents came to visit. I don't think she'd informed them of his skin color. They flipped out and told her if she didn't break up with him they'd force her to come and and refuse to help with any more college. Pretty harsh. And they said all this in front of him. He was an A student, smart and clean. The only gripe they had was his skin color. Pretty sad as she did break up with him.

My parents told me that if I ever wanted to date someone from a different race of culture they would support me. My mother told me outright to be careful though in that someone from a completely different culture would have different ways of looking at things and maybe even communicating. Marriage is hard enough without facing a type of culture shock as well. I did date a deaf guy for a while and was even engaged to him. Not only did he have a different culture but he was exactly 10 years older than me. Our places in life were different too. The combination of differences made it hard. Eventually after he'd insisted on ANOTHER week OFF (not seeing each other to "test our relationship") I told him I'd had enough and broke off the engagement.

Different cultures can make it hardbut not impossible. Different colors should not be considered I think.

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motdakasha

So true, so true.

On a slightly related topic, I attended a lecture given by a well-known feminist (whose name escapes me at the moment) talking about cross cultural issues. She said that the fastest possible method to force everyone to deal with this issue face to face is for white women to date men of color (color, meaning not just black). She said it doesn't work the other way around because when a white man dates a woman of color, she's exoticized, she's his pet, so it doesn't work in most cases because in most cultures women are supposed to be demure. Obviously, people shouldn't go out and breed based on color to eliminate the issue, but it's an interesting theory I thought I'd bring up.

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WarWagon

My ex girlfriend was Korean, and I was scared shitless of her parents for nearly the entire time we were dating. Then I found out that her brother was dating a caucasian girl, her sister was dating an Indian, and her uncle was German. Certainly eased things up for me, but they were still a very strict family, and it sure took me a long time to gain their trust.

Shades

Regardless, I stand by my argument that just excusing it as your culture doesn't make it right. The Aztecs thought it was great to take prisoners and cut their hearts out, but I don't see too many people standing up for that. The Nazis just wanted to reunite the homeland and run the mud people back into the Earth, but not everyone seemed to want to endorse their culture. The South just wanted what was best for the poor Negro, so they forced them to be their slaves, but somehow that didn't stand the test of time either. The Taliban only wanted to kill women for tempting the males in society to immoral behavior, but somehow the West just couldn't let it go.

Don't fall victim to cultural relativism. It is not OK to discriminate against a person for anything other than the content of their character. Race, creed, and social status have nothing to do with it. I don't care how old and "honorable" your culture is, I'll tell anyone to their face that their society is horseshit if it includes racist values.

motdakasha

Since it is unclear to whom you are responding, I thought I'd clarify that if it's me, then you might want to consider re-reading my post because you're preaching the choir. Comparing traditional Chinese values to that of Aryan Germans was not intended to be a "good" thing. Likewise, if I was explaining foot binding to someone and compared it to female genital mutilation, it would also not be a "good" thing. The only thing I was attempting to do was give some insight to "'traditionalistic values'" HockeyGuy was talking about.

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doncalypso

I'm currently in an interracial relationship that has been going on for two years, four months, and two days now.

My parents have no problems with her being white because they know that love is colorblind. Also, her parents seem to like me and be cool with us being together (but at times I do wonder if it's only because my parents are medical doctors). I have met most of her family and they were polite towards me (even though it wouldn't surprise me if some of them disapprove of our interracial relationship).

Odd thing is though that her oldest sister is dead set against us being together because she is racist. And to this day, her sister refuses to acknowledge that my girlfriend and I are in a relationship, and not once has she ever spoken to me even though we've met twice.

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motdakasha

I'm glad you aren't letting that stop you from being happy and I hope *her* (oops, see below) sister can learn to open up her mind. Good luck.

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KnifeMissile

motdakasha, I hope you mean "her sister" because it's not his sister that has the problem.

Anyway, I'm mostly Chinese but I've never been able to get a Chinese girl interested in me. None of the parents of the women I have dated have ever had a problem with my race but I live in Canada, so perhaps racism isn't nearly as bad here?

iceburn

I've been going out with a black girl for about 4 months now, and my father, who doesn't know that she's black, would absolutely not be down with it. I've gone out with mostly white girls, a Japanese girl, and another girl that was black & mexican. My father freaked about the black/mexican girl, so, I'm not really planning on telling him about my new gf for the time being. It's going to suck though. I agree with what was said before though, it's really uncomfortable to use the word racist when it applies to your parents, but it's true. My father is italian; from what I hear Italians aren't down with dating black folks. But like I said, it seems like people don't understand the subtleties of racism. We're so far removed from actual slavery but only 2 generations from the civil rights movement. There are loosely defined and well-known(though not overtly discussed) tactics used by every level of society to subtly screw over people of certain races. I never think of my dad as a racist until something like this happens and I'm just like, oh man, wtf?

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phathom

I've actually met a lot of asians (girls and guys) That have strict parents and grandparents that basically forbid them to date out of their race, even some forbid them to have friends out of their race. This probably happens with other races as well, but I have noticed it is predominately with asians. I think the whole things stupid. It doesn't matter about your race, just about who the person is.

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Dale Kemp

I once had a date with a chinese immigrant girl of 18. After a couple of hours together, she asked me how old I was. I told her 30 years. She freaked out. She said her parents would nearly kill her if they learned. She was apologetic, but caught a ride home with someone else, and that was that. No discrimination against me for being white, but for being to much older. Oh, yeh.

Now, I've been a stepparent to 7 girls, and one boy. And a natural father to 3 other boys. I can tell you that what an unbiggoted parent wants is their children to find relationships that will make them happy in life. Interracial, interfaith, intercultural relationships will cause stress, and reduce the chances of that happiness. Then again, some parents are bigoted.

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tec-9-7

Well, I'm ethnically hispanic, but culturally pretty damn white, and I've only really been in relationships w/ white women. I don't think it's really anything I planned - it's just sort of how it's worked out. I have no philosophical objections to dating anyone of any race - personally I'd have much more of a problem w/ being w/ someone of particular religions...

2kids1headache

I would never hesitate to date someone outside my own race. I would hesitate to date someone outside my own religion (which is "keep your religion to yourself before I eat your baby".)

gibingus

LOL... it is because of posts like this that i love this board. where can i sign up to be converted, brother?

i'm a white guy and i've dated a rainbow collaltion, but i ended up marrying someone who matched my ethnicity. i guess we just meshed, and a lot of that was cultural common ground.

i was once living in jamaica and dating a local black girl, and we got harrassed mercilessly by local black men when we would go out in certiain neighborhoods. i also met a lot of racisim when i went through europe with a black girlfriend, actually getting into a fight with some really wasted finnish guys who just couldn't let it go.

my parents, although they are old school and pretty conservative, never posed much opposition to any one in particular. but they've seen a lot in their long lives and it takes a lot to phase them. they may have taken a different stance if they thought things were getting serious, but i imagine it would have just been more concern that a mixed relationship was going to have problems with other more pin-headed people in the world than their own racial hangups. on the other hand, i did have grandparents who were way uncool about it. my grandmother actually referred to black people as "darkies"... shudder.

we are pretty much living through the transition in perspective on this issue. some states had actual laws against mixed marriages up until recently. when i think of all we have tried to undo about racism and discrimination, it absolutely amazes me that people are actually pushing for a constitutional amendment to keep gay people from marrying. no matter how far we have come, we still have so much farther to go. sometimes i think we will look back on this period of american history as one of our most shameful.

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doncalypso

As long as people cling to racial superiority ideas or to negative stereotypes about other ethnicities prejudice will always remain, and people will always have beef with interracial relationships.

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motdakasha

Well, ideally speaking, hopefully people will learn to let go. Back in the day (and I'm talking GrecoRoman times) it was language. The term barbarism was originally a derogatory term in regards to language. It mocked the sound, bar, from an "inferior" language. That is much less prevalent, almost nonexistent, today. So, I think there's still hope.

Racism has been around for so long, that the sad truth of the matter is it's not going to disappear overnight. While it may be easy to enforce the majority to be open about it, it'll take longer for notions to take root in smaller, rural areas and such.

------

So basically I'm seeing two perspectives on crosscultural relationships:

1) If you intentionally select people for relationships based on their race (or other features like religion, etc, but that's IMO) then you are actively discriminating/racist/xenophobic/whitewashed/pick a term any term.

2) If you date people, and they tend to be of a particular group (often your own, or Caucasian), then it is just preference and how things worked out. You are not actively weeding people out based on appearance.

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Cynthetiq

i've only dated within my race once. didn't like it. didn't like the baggage that came with it...

i told my parents from then on that i would not be marrying an asian girl. i married a white jewish girl

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anti fishstick

not necessarily.
it is still tradition in a lot of asian cultures.

on my trip to the philippines, i found it interesting that they'd always ask if i've ever dated a filipino. i said no and didn't go further but it's really because i live in a place dominated by white americans. it's not because i'm racist. it's because i'm NOT. i don't look at race to make my decisions on who i go out with and feel that if i'd be going out with someone based on race, i'd be objectifying them to such labels. "asian", "african american".

the fact that my friends in the philippines asked me that question really alienated me because i thought it was a shallow question, but i guess i see where they're coming from. everyone wants to look for similarities and for minorities, it's easier to stick with your own race for that. for me, being raised out of asian or asian american culture, i'm prone to looking for similarities based on interests. not skin color.

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ninety09

I'm caucasian, I date a Chinese girl, and nobody had any problems with the interacial thing. My family never even brought up the fact that we were from different races.

However, my sister once dated a black guy and I remember that some people in my family asked her a lot of questions about it.. Oh well. :/

pinklily

I am a caucasian female, and I once dated an Indian guy. He wouldn't let me meet his parents because they were very traditional and he didn't think they would like his dating "someone like me". Once I went into a coffee shop and he was there with his father and he completely ignored me. That was when I decided that the relationship wasn't going to work out.

Rodney

I dated a black woman once. I was fairly seriously about it, though we didn't get too far. We worked together, but since that office was extremely racially mixed nobody thought a thing about it.

The deal was, she had worked her way out of welfare to a real office job in civil service -- and good for her -- but the rest of her family were still part of the welfare culture, and they were around _all_ the time. I liked her, but I didn't want them being part of my life, especially since she didn't have any problems with the little scams they were always running (even though she didn't do so herself anymore.) I didn't pursue the relationship past a certain point, because that wasn't a world I wanted to have to deal with. Although I don't know if the deal-breaker here was so much cultural differences as class differences. Maybe a bit of both.

jouahman32

I am new to this site. I am having problems with my family because I am in love with a great guy who is very far away. I was raised Catholic and he is Muslim. The problem I have is that they don't know he is Muslim, but they assume he is because he lives in Morocco and he speaks Arabic. They have tried to interfere with past relationships and succeeded in ruining them, and I refuse to let this happen again. I love him and loves me and is willing to provide for me forever. What if anything can I done to make them open their minds to this and finally leave it and us be. They will only be alienating themselves from the family we wish to create. Help! you can email me at my username minus the numbers at hotmail.

kylie

i am chinese and my parents never have a problem of who i date. i think they even kinda happy that if i date foreigners. i got kinda surprised about it . but for myself i will never date any of my own races. i dont think it matters what races cos if you are happy that most important

abaya

joahman, can you tell us more about why you are so far apart? Why can't he join you here in the US? How did you meet and how long have you been together?

I come from a Christian background, and I am dating someone from Lebanon (though he is technically Muslim, his belief system is actually agnostic-atheist). We live in the US, though, in the same state... met in graduate school. My family didn't know much about the Middle East, but the more time my family spent around my boyfriend, the more comfortable they became with him.

It sounds like your family isn't even trying to give him a chance... but have they met him? Has he tried to get on their good side? How much time have they spent together, just asking questions and getting to know each other?

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jouahman32

'abaya' - I met him through his brother who lives here. He was here briefly, just for a visit when we met...and we clicked right away. His brother and I are planning a trip to Morocco next year...he goes to school now. Mustapha and I talk all the time both via email and on the phone. We talk on the phone every week. I've spoken to his parents and they love me.

They haven't met him, my father met his brother and liked him...but whatever my mom says is what he goes by. Even though he may think differently, because he doesn't want to upset her. But I wish he there was some way he could speak up to her without making her mad.

Janey

naaah it's not racism. there's no degredation based on colour or race. There only a very strong (traditionally based) desire for us to keep to our own kind. As a CBC, though, it is something that I struggle against. And therefore have to educate my traditionally minded parents.

Please note that they don't wish for white people to sit at the back of the bus, but just want their daughter to stick within what they know.

nope, not racism.

Telluride

If I were to date or marry a woman of another race, I think that some members of my family might care and others wouldn't. I'd doubt that any family members who were bothered by it would be so rude as to actually say something in front of me and/or my hypothetical girlfriend/wife, but I wouldn't be surprised if some comments were made about us in private.

This probably won't ever be an issue though, since I tend to be more attracted to woman of my own race.

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Telluride

But is Judaism a race or a religion? Or can it be both?

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blar

no they just want other races to seat at the back of the bus j/k

yea i live in the same city as you and i used to like a chinese girl but she told me her parents would kill her if she gets into a relationship with me.

iamthez@hotmail

I'm a latin girl, dating a white guy, and what sucks so much is that I was raised completely and entirely here in Canada so I have all the canadian values which spanish boys that were mostly raised back home dont have. My boyfriend is totally Canadian as well but I feel I always have to straddle both cultures in relying messages to each other, cause what seems like a rude behaviour or thought to a Canadian is normal and very polite in my culture :S It's caused a LOT of conflicts between my parents, my boyfriend and me .. and my boyfriend and me have been together for 3 years, 3 months now. I don't think it's ever going to change, and the conflicts will probably get worse. *sigh* looking forward to that