Tag Archives: interracial

love is many things

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…but it shouldn’t be a secret.  That really hit home for me.

I wish that this young woman could talk to Nia.  I hope that she at least reads the essay.  Not that Nia touched on the topic of having racist black parents to contend with, but I think that Danielle could be inspired by the way in which Nia boldly and candidly addresses many of the issues facing interracial couples.

Yes, I called Danielle’s parents racist.  They are.  I’ve found that some people are under the impression that black people can’t be classified as racist.  That that is a delineation that we reserve for the “oppressor.”  So not true.

Case in point from U-Mich Race Card Project:

History; NEVER TRUST A WHITE MAN!

Kwende Idrissa Madu
Russellville, AL

I imagine it’s gonna be a tough row to hoe going through life in America completely unwilling and unable to trust a white man.  I also imagine that it could be a large majority of “minorities” who really feel that way.

Back to Danielle though:  I admire her for not letting go of the love of her young life.  For seeing and feeling beyond her parents’ antiquated and limiting fear based belief system.  And for deciding that it’s time to “come out” and love in the open and let the cards fall where they may because that is the only way for her to truly live.

[CONFESSIONS]

“I’m Hiding My Interracial Relationship From My Parents”

A YOUNG WOMAN FEARS THAT HER FAMILY WON’T ACCEPT THE LOVE OF HER LIFE

ByDANIELLE T. POINTDUJOUR

[CONFESSIONS]<br /><br /><br /><br /> �I�m Hiding My Interracial Relationship From My Parents�

I grew up surrounded by love. I have the fondest memories of my parents spontaneously stealing ‘private’ kisses, the grand romantic gestures of my aunts and uncles and watching my grandparents dancing to old records in their living room.  Love was all around me and I spent hours dreaming of the day I’d have one to call my own.  It wasn’t until high school that I started to realize that the love I saw and wanted came with conditions.

Since I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16, I had a secret boyfriend in the months leading up to that milestone birthday.  Mike was the best beau a teen girl could have—tall, handsome, funny and happy to carry my books and hold my hand.  He reminded me a lot of my father, the way he played with me and did ‘man’ things like pulling out my chair and holding all the doors.  He was great, so naturally I thought nothing of bringing him home for my parents to meet right after I turned 16.  I thought nothing of the fact that he’s White.

I’ll never forget the look on my parents’ faces when Mike walked through the door: confusion mixed with horror.  When he left—after an hour of awkward silence interrupted by short bursts of conversation—the drama began. My parents forbade me from seeing my honey again and told me that boys “like him” are only interested in me for sex and that I should “stick to my own kind.”  They tried to scare me with stories of violent racism and visions of children addicted to drugs because of their struggle with identity.  I tried to explain that his race didn’t matter to me, the way he treated me did.  I wanted him to know that Mike’s love reminded me of the love I grew up with. They weren’t trying to hear it.

For the rest of our high school years we dated in secret and by the time college came, the boy that held my hand became the man who held my heart.  Still, I had to have Black male friends pretend to take me on dates to throw my parents off.  I made up excuses to not come home on breaks so I could spend them with Mike’s family, who welcomed me with open, loving arms and had a hard time understanding my choice to hide our relationship.

I tried a few times to slip the topic of interracial dating into conversations with my parents, telling stories of friends who were happily dating or getting married.  The response was always the same: “Good for them, but you’re going to bring home someone that looks like us.”  My father even hinted that he would cut off my college funds if I went “that way.”

I felt trapped.

After college, Mike and I decided to apply for graduate school in Spain. While his parents were thrilled that we would be living abroad together and sharing an adventure, mine were worried about me going so far away and wondered how I would find the man of my dreams in a country where the majority of the people don’t speak English.  Little did they know the man of my dreams was actually a reality and had been in my life for quite some time.

It has been six months since we moved to Spain together and almost seven years since we started dating, and I couldn’t be happier!  All the fears my parents have for our relationship have yet to materialize, even here in this foreign land. Our love for each other has grown so much that I’ve come to realize that it’s time to tell my parents.  I love this man and I want to shout it from the rooftops. I no longer care what my parents or anyone else thinks about it and I’m tired of lying. Love is many things, but one thing it shouldn’t be is a secret.  Recently, we’ve been talking more about marriage and our future—both things that I want my parents to experience with us.  I hope that they can try to be open-minded enough to share in our love, but if not, that’s okay.  We have plenty of family and friends around that support us unconditionally and they can appreciate just what love is supposed to be: colorblind and limitless.

interracial relationships still viewed as outlandish

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I’m excited to share this article, not only because my friend Nia wrote it, but because finally someone has been bold and truthful enough to lay this stuff out for us.  I mean, yes, we all know that these stereotypes exist.  We have all heard, witnessed, or discussed these taboos.  But in bits and pieces.  Nia gave us, like, the entire run down.  From personal experience.  It’s the kind of experience that literally created me, yet it’s also one that I haven’t had exactly.  I have dated white guys certainly.  I have had people say to me, with words or hostile, disappointed, or dismissive glances “you’ve turned your back on your own kind.” But because (despite appearances and societal definition) I’m white too,  I never felt like I was really in an interracial relationship in the same way that a “monoracial” black woman might.  I ponder different things when I imagine my future children.

So, thank you, Nia for boldly going where most wouldn’t.  For candidly and hilariously covering the whole story. I hope your kids don’t get asked “What are you?” I hope that if they do, they’ll know with unshakeable certainty that the answer is “I am a brilliant child of God and Nia and Bill.”  I know they will have a sense of humor about it.  I can’t wait to meet them.

I’M A BLACK WOMAN WHO DATES WHITE GUYS —

 

HOW TO NOT BE A DICK

 

I am not some census-taking dick measurer, OK?
Mar 14, 2013 at 12:00pm
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The first time I ever kissed a white guy, I swore I would never do it again.

It was high school, it was my friend’s brother and I’m pretty sure I was drunk. I gave him a massive hickey, which I found pretty amusing, and I figured it was just an “experience.” Something I’d write about in my journal, the one with Maya Angelou’s picture on the cover.
I attended a posh mostly Catholic prep school in the suburbs of Atlanta. I knew every Black person in my school. A lot of us took MARTA (the public transportation system) home. Once when it was pouring rain, one of the priests gave a couple of us Black kids a ride to the train station so we didn’t have to get soaked waiting for the bus.
We joked that those rain affected our hair in such a way that it made the priest’s car smell like activator.  We bonded, this small circle of Black kids in a privileged white world.
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Despite the fact that this was the 90s, it was still the South. So many of my classmates mocked Black culture, defended the Georgia state flag and compared slavery to the potato famine that I didn’t exactly feel like interracial dating was an option. That all changed when I went to college.
I mean, how could I not eventually date a white guy? I went to a liberal arts college in Boston. Along with Sociology, it was practically a required course.
In that blissful 4 years, I hooked up, dated and fell in love without a care in the world. I moved to New York after college and continued to tear through men with abandon. It was a glorious time. I’m proud that I had a lot of not so great relationships with men of varied ethnicities and didn’t become bitter and jaded.
That being said, I still ended up feeling like I was constantly defending and explaining my choices to overly enthused white women, annoyed Black men, judgmental Black women and fetishizing white men. Hopefully, this handy guide will help all of us approach the subject in a more informed and less dickish manner.
DON’T ASK ME IF WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT BLACK GUYS VS. WHITE GUYS IS REALLY TRUE. WINK WINK.
 
Please don’t go there. Let’s just say I’ve been surprised about how UNTRUE it is. Also, I am not some census-taking dick measurer, OK? While we can certainly generalize about the physical attributes of all races, penis size seems to be the most obsessed over. It’s gross and unnecessary.
Also, you don’t need to be all up in my sex life like that. I’m not the kind of chick who needs to go on and on about the size of a man’s penis and those that do get an eyebrow raise from me. I had this one friend and I swear to God, every time she started dating a new guy he had the BIGGEST PENIS SHE HAD EVER SEEN. No, he didn’t. Stop.
Do you really want to know if what they say is true? Sleep with a white guy, then sleep with a black guy. Better yet, invite them both over and do a side-by-side comparison. Take pictures, make a graph, email it to me and we’ll meet for scones and tea to discuss it. Just kidding. Black people don’t eat scones.
DON’T ASK ME IF I’VE GIVEN UP ON BLACK MEN.
There seems to be this pervasive idea that if you date a non-Black man as a Black woman, then you must hate Black men. I’ve had Black women say to me, “Oh, you like WHITE guys!” as if they were unlocking the secret to my personality.
Even a childhood friend remarked very flippantly, “Oh, Nia only dates white guys,” when she knew very well that wasn’t true.
We also seem to be living in a time when the media is very concerned for us poor Black women. You see, apparently there are “no good Black me left” so many of us are single and alone. I refuse to participate in that discussion because I don’t believe that is true. I’ve seen too many awesome Black husbands and fathers (including my father, step-father, grandfather, uncle, etc.) to give into that line of thought. These books and TV shows that continue to perpetuate this lie, are only interested in profiting from our insecurity and we need to call them on their bullshit. It creates more of a divide when we need to keep fighting for unity.
There are certainly some issues involving the personal and professional successes of Black women versus men but to think that I have turned my back on my brothers because of who I am romantically involved with implies that I see them as one and have dismissed them all. Not true. I try to treat everyone as an individual and you should do the same. Yes, I am on my high horse, thank you very much.
DON’T ASK ME WHAT MY FAVORITE KIND OF GUY TO DATE IS.
Here’s a sampling of the various types of men I’ve dated: Black, White (Irish, German, Italian), Jewish, Latino, and various combinations of all of the above. You want to know which were my favorites? The ones who didn’t treat me like shit. The ones who cared about me.
I find that some Black women feel that a White guy will treat them better than a Black guy will. News flash, ladies: All men can be assholes. Douchebaggery isn’t race specific. This need to lump everyone together instead of taking the time to learn things about the individual is so lame and lazy.
Men like to joke about this as well. Black women are difficult. White women only want to please. Asian women are subservient. It seems odd to have to remind people not to give into stereotyping but everyone from the hipster to the executive feels like they’ve done enough cultural studies to know everything about everybody.
DON’T GUSH TO ME ABOUT HOW PRETTY MY BABIES WILL BE
Well, maybe this is a little true. Bi-racial people of all combinations do have a tendency to be beautiful. But still! Don’t put that pressure on me!
Ever since I began dating my White fiancee, people literally gasp when I talk about starting a family. They fall all over themselves envisioning our light-skinned children with their silky hair and light eyes. But what if they don’t look like that? What if they look traditionally Black? Are they not as beautiful? If my daughter’s hair texture is more like mine (kinky) than my fiancee’s (fine), did she lose out somehow? If instead of getting her father’s genes of being tall and skinny, she gets mine of being short and round, has she gotten the raw end of the deal? What if they aren’t what you consider beautiful?
I mean, of course they will be, my fiancee and I are both INCREDIBLY good looking but that is always the first thing people comment on. I’m more interested in what my children will aspire to be, having creative parents. I wonder who will be the fun parent. I wonder how people will see them. I wonder if kids will mockingly ask them, “What ARE you?” I wonder, if they acknowledge both their Black AND White sides, will people insist that they choose just one. I wonder if they can have a sense of humor about it all.
But mostly, I just hope they aren’t dicks.

jazz’s lasses

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I’m freaking out about this right now!  How on earth have I never heard of these women!?  I read the first article and thought “Oh, very cool.”  Then I saw the video…moments ago…currently freaking out.  Anybody wanna make a movie about this with me?  It would be like A League of Their Own kinda.  But with people of color actually doing something other than standing around wishing they could be doing something at which they, too, are really good.  That’s one of my favorite movies of all time, by the way.  I digress.  I wonder if it’s the racism or the sexism that’s kept this a “secret.”  Both I’m sure, but when I watch that video I’m mostly struck by the fact that these are women in positions I don’t think I’ve ever seen held by a woman.  Not then, not now.  And they came out of Mississippi!? O. M. G.

First All-Female Interracial Band Celebrated At Smithsonian

Written by News One

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first all-female interracial band in America, faced down both Jim Crow and sexism in the 1930s and 1940s. Then, they faded into obscurity.

This week the Smithsonian Institution celebrates the Sweethearts’ legacy as part of the launch of the museum’s Jazz Appreciation Month.

the international sweethearts of rhythm

The Sweethearts’ exhibit will be on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC from March 25 to May 31. Members of the Sweethearts, which included Black, white, Latino and Asian women, will participate in several events on March 29 and 30 at the museum. Radio One founder Cathy Hughes, whose mother Helen Jones Woods was an original band member, will also be a participant [NewsOne is a division of Radio One]:

…Ms. Hughes will facilitate an brief (10 minute) onstage discussion with six of the original Sweethearts who will participate in programming at the Smithsonian:  They are Helen Jones Woods (trombonist), Ms. Hughes’ mother; Willie Mae Wong Scott (saxophonist), the child of a Chinese father and mixed race Native American mother, she grew up on Mississippi in 1920s; Sadye Pankey Moore (trumpeter), African American; Johnnie Mae Rice Graham (pianist), African American; Lillie Keeler Sims (trombone), African American woman who played with the Sweethearts their first year but later served as an educator and administrator in the NYC school system 40 years;  and Roz Cron, one of the first white woman to join the band. On March 30th, the Sweethearts and Cathy Hughes will participate in a 60 minute discussion on the Sweetheart’s legacy that will be webcast via UStream.

 

First integrated, female big band highlighted at Smithsonian

By Sally Holland, CNN

Washington (CNN) — When Rosalind Cron left home in the 1940s to join a teenage girl jazz band called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, she had no idea what it would be like, as a white girl, traveling with the predominantly black band.

At the time, Cron said she thought “Jim Crow” was a man they were supposed to meet in the South. “I didn’t realize it was a law, and a very strict law — laws, plural,” she said.

State and local ordinances that mandated separate public facilities for blacks and whites made it illegal for Cron to share facilities with her band members.

Cron felt the discrimination because she lived on their tour bus with the other girls, hiding her race. For three years, she said, they were like her sisters.

She spent several hours in jail in El Paso, Texas, in 1944 when authorities didn’t believe the story she had made up that her father was white and her mother was black.

“They went though my wallet and there was a picture of my mother and dad right in front of the house,” she said. She was sprung a few hours later when the band’s manager brought two black girls to the jail who claimed to be Cron’s cousins.

By that time, according to Cron, the authorities that were holding her were glad to get rid of her.

“They just told us never to return. And as far as I know, we didn’t,” she said.

The risks were worth it to play her saxophone with what became known as the nation’s first integrated, female jazz band.

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were founded at Piney Woods School in Mississippi in 1937, in part as a way for the students to help pay for their education.

They recruited members of different races to help with the “international” part of their image.

Willie Mae Wong had a Chinese father, a mixed-race mother, and no visible musical skills when she was recruited to the group as a 15-year-old. She was out on the street playing stickball when they picked her up.

“The director of the music was named White,” Wong said. “They called me ‘White’s Rabbit’ because he had to spend more time with me to teach me the beat.”

The name “Rabbit” has stuck to this day.

In 1941, the group separated from the school and went professional. They traveled on a bus to gigs across the United States, including venues like the Apollo Theater in New York and the Howard Theater in Washington.

During World War II, the Sweethearts traveled to France and Germany as part of a USO tour in 1945.

Pictures and mementos from the International Sweethearts of Rhythm are on display at the Smithsonian’s American History museum for their 10th annual Jazz Appreciation Month celebration in April.

Thatmanofmine

Six members of the band were in Washington this week to reminisce.

“It was a privilege to come from Mississippi and go and see the other parts of the world,” said Helen Jones, who played the trombone from the band’s founding until it disbanded.

“All I ever wanted to do was play a trumpet,” Sadye Pankey told a group gathered at the museum. And as for music education today, she feels bad for today’s students.

“Some of our schools in our country now have abolished the music, and it’s not fair,” she said.

Cron told the group that if music is your passion, you need to stick with it.

“Don’t let anyone come between you and your horns, or music,” she added.

yay, shakespeare in the park

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I’m thrilled to know that The Public Theater is once again “putting this mosaic out into the world.”  And that Ruben Santiago-Hudson has biracial kids.  And that he speaks openly about it.  Actually that’s not extraordinary, but I didn’t know that about him before.  I love The Winter’s Tale.  My favorite monologue is in it.  If I weren’t too persnickety to wait in line for hours for tickets, I would be sure to see this.  However, it’s not gonna happen.  My loss, I’m sure.  Just for clarification, the “yay” is for depicting a “non-traditional” marriage/family.  Not for Hudson marrying a Swede and having mixed kids.  Although I like that a lot too.

santiagohudson

Actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson and his twins Trey and Lily attended the “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals” film premiere on February 17, 2010 in Westwood, California.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson Tells the Tale

The actor discusses starring in the Shakespeare in the Park production of The Winter’s Tale.

By: Brian Scott Lipton

VIA

Ruben Santiago-Hudson has been the epitome of excellence for over 30 years; winning a Tony Award for Seven Guitars, numerous honors for the HBO adaptation of his acclaimed solo play Lackawanna Blues, and plaudits for his direction of several shows including Things of Dry Hours and The First Breeze of Summer. This summer, he’s starring in the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of The Winter’s Tale, and in the fall, he’ll be back co-starring on ABC’s hit crime drama Castle. TheaterMania recently spoke with Santiago-Hudson about these projects.

THEATERMANIA: What made you want to do The Winter’s Tale this summer rather than just take a nice breather between shooting Castle?
RUBEN SANTIAGO-HUDSON: I just love the challenge of doing Shakespeare. I am part of the Public Theater family and I got a call to look at the play, and before I could even finish it, I said I’d love to do it.

TM: Your character, Leontes, is considered one of the most difficult in the canon, since you accuse your wife and best friend of infidelity without any seeming cause. How do you justify that?
RSH: It is a challenge to make that action comprehensible to the audience. But I look at the text. Polixenses may be my friend, but he’s stayed with my family for nine months — and I think if anyone stayed that long at my house, I’d find fault with them. And I am sure over that time, Leontes has seen some glimpses of unusual behavior — perhaps wearing less clothing around each other or laughing too loud.

TM: Still, you cause your wife to kill herself and banish your infant daughter. How is the audience supposed to sympathize with that?
RSH: I hope the audience sees that I balance my cruelty with much love and that my actions came from defending my honor and that my rage is from jealousy and madness. It’s important that I am not just being the stereotypical angry black man. And when it all comes clear, I’m the most penitent person — I’m almost a saint by the end of the play.

TM: As is typical of many productions at the Public, the cast is completely multi-racial. For example, your wife, Hermoine, is being played by Linda Emond, who is white. What are your thoughts about this?
RSH: I think it reflects the mirror of modern society. When you look in the newspaper, you see Sandra Bullock with a black child. And this play reflects what my real family looks like — my wife is Swedish and our children are biracial — so it’s great to put out this mosaic to the world. And I think we should put the best artists we can on stage, and what I love about the Public Theater’s audience is they feel the same way. They don’t care if the king is black and the queen is white; they’re out there to see this play done well.

Linda Emond and Ruben Santiago-Hudson<br>in rehearsal for <I>The Winter's Tale</i><br> (© Nella Vera)

Linda Emond and Ruben Santiago-Hudson
in rehearsal for The Winter’s Tale
(© Nella Vera)

i’d call it an interracial service, but it’s cool nonetheless

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Biker church and black church hold biracial service seeking healing, forgiveness

Posted by Roy Hoffman, Staff Report August 10, 2009

(Press-Register/Kate Mercer)Patrick Moran prays with Sondra Simmons as they participate in a Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009, worship service between two congregations, Cave Ministries and Fresh Fire on the Mount Ministry, at Plateau Community Center.

PLATEAU, Ala. — Their hands waving in the air, singing and testifying, members of Cave Ministries of Saraland, a predominantly white church of motorcycle riders, joined members of Fresh Fire on the Mount, a mostly black church from Eight Mile, for a 3-hour extravaganza of music and prayer Sunday.

The service, at the Plateau Community Center in north Mobile, was symbolic of the need for racial healing in the nation, said organizer Rod Odom, a religious program host.

Odom, 49, who had introduced Cave Ministries preacher Bryan Jones to Fresh Fire’s pastor, Aaron McKinnis, said he had wanted to bring whites and blacks together for church since his boyhood during the civil rights movement. “Sunday mornings are still the most segregated time in America,” Odom said.

“The Lord can use ‘a wretch like me,'” Odom said of his mission to address that separation, borrowing a line from the spiritual, “Amazing Grace.”

Apart from their racial differences, the two churches had clearly different styles.

Members of Cave, largely adults, were dressed in the garb of their beloved motorcyle riding — bandannas, blue jeans, jackets reading “Soldiers of the Cross” or T-shirts imprinted “My Life, His Way.”

Fresh Fire congregants, a number of whom came in family groups, were decked out in Sunday best — long skirts, coats and ties.

The music, alternating between churches, varied, too. “It’s black and white,” said Jackie Jones, worship leader of the Cave.

Jones stood behind a microphone alongside another singer and belted out a foot-stomping Christian rock song, “I Am Free.”


Gussy Hoeft with Cave Ministries shows 2-year-old McKenzie Williams a motorcycle during a racial reconciliation event Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009, in Plateau, Ala.