What’s The Big Deal? Thoughts on Interracial Marriage
As you may know I’m in an interracial marriage. A lot of days I forget and don’t even think about race. Other days I am reminded of the fact that my husband is black and I am white.
For some reason at fast casual restaurants we are almost always asked “Is this together or separate?” while the cashier does a double take. Sometimes we are even asked more than once if we are paying together. After we take our seat and eat our food we typically joke and laugh about the incident.
Thankfully in the world we live in today people seem to be more accepting of interracial marriages. In a gallup poll from 2013, 87% of Americans approved of black-white marriages as compared to 4% in 1958.
Personally we have not experienced any type of hatred or at least overt dislike because of our marriage.
Did you know interracial marriages grew to 10% in the latest 2010 census? When we first got married we lived in a metropolitan area and it was normal to see 3 or 4 other mixed couples out at a restaurant.
Now we live in a more rural area and there are times where my husband is the only black person in the room. Maybe you are wondering ‘does this bother him?’ We’ve had many conversations about this and the role race plays in our lives.
Be warned, I’m about to brag a little bit about my husband 🙂 First, my in-laws did a wonderful job raising him! Never once did he feel like he couldn’t accomplish something. If he dreamed of doing it, then they helped him figure out how to get it done.
He is the first person in his family to attend and graduate from college. He had a childhood dream of becoming a doctor and by the grace of God he did it!
Recently I asked my husband, “If someone were to ask you, who are you? What would you say?” In my mind I wanted to see how he fit race into his identity.
He replied, “First I am a child of God, then a husband, then a father.” I LOVED his answer. His parents did a wonderful job telling him how precious he is in God’s eyes.
I’m not saying we should ignore our race or heritage, but in our family we believe our citizenship is in heaven. We are reminded in Romans 2:11 that there is no partiality with God, meaning He has no favorites. I also love what Paul wrote in Galatians 3:26-29 (NLT):
26 For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. 28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
I want to end with a cute story. A child’s thoughts on interracial marriage:
I remember a little girl, about the age of 4, looking at a picture of our wedding day. Slightly confused, she turned to look at the both of us and said “you aren’t the same.”
Then she kept looking and a big smile came across her face while she stated “No, wait! You are the same. You have a watch {pointing to my husband’s wrist} and you have a watch {pointing to my watch}.”
She seemed satisfied by her newest revelation and went on to play with her friends.
I am little nervous because this is a personal post. But my prayer is that you would know you are a child of the most high God. I love hearing from other women. Please feel free to *kindly* share your heart if you feel led!
I love that you wrote about this! Go Lauren 🙂 I think it’s a very relevant topic because, as you said, interracial marriages are on the rise. I think that even if people are cool with it, they do maybe wonder what it’s like and if it’s difficult – and I think your opinion and story is important! I hope you write more 🙂
Great post! Coming from generations and generations of interracial marriages, it’s just refreshing to hear a little about your experience! Keep writing about it for sure!
I’d love to hear more about your experiences Jami! Thanks for reading 🙂
love this, Lauren!! As sad as it is, racism is still alive in our country, and it’s so important to have awesome people like you & your husband putting such a godly mark in the world. Thanks for sharing something personal! 🙂
I appreciate you posting about this. Kate is right–I’ve wondered in the past how it affects you and how you feel about it–so I love that you brought it up. I think its strange (and really nice that it is one of the only times you feel it!) that one of the main effects is waiters/cashiers doing a double take at restaurants lol. Thanks for sharing this!
And I would add to that little girl’s comment, you both have the biggest smiles! 🙂
Aw thank you Katie! I feel so blessed to receive all this wonderful feedback. I will have to write a part 2 soon 🙂
Beautiful post! Thanks for sharing your heart!
We got married the same time–Dec. 2010 too! We’re often asked if the bills are together or separate–honestly I have always considered that usual practice at restaurants these days now that the trend seems to be “going Dutch” even on dates–but I don’t actually know if it’s normal or not!
My husband is from a different culture that I am (I’m a white girl who grew up in Asia, he’s a Mexican who grew up in the USA)–and like you said, there’s plenty of times when I forget all about that. Although there are plenty of other times when our different cultures are really obvious–when he walks by a stranger and they immediately start talking to him in Spanish, I always ask, “How do they know you speak Spanish? Seriously, how can they tell by just looking at you?”
His family’s culture is so different from mine that it’s been a steep learning curve, because they don’t speak English at all when they’re together. But I’d marry him all over again, learning experiences and all!
Thanks for sharing your experience Rachel!
I love this post. I am in an interracial marriage as well. We just got married in December. I met him in college. I remember when we first started dating, my parents were furious. Now they are totally in love with my husband because they looked past his race to see what a wonderful, successful man he is. He led me to God and I could not be more thankful. He’s an awesome teacher, football coach (they won the State Championship last year), and track coach. Being in the south, race is still a big issue down here. Thankfully the city we live in is full of interracial couples so it is not as bad. I always hated going to my hometown due to racism. Now it does not bother me so much. We still catch dirty looks now and then, but have been blessed to have never been confronted about our marriage =)
I am in an interracial marriage (Im white and my husband is Hispanic), my mom asked my fiancée at the time if he was even here legally in front of her Hispanic friend so according to her she is not racist. She missed my marriage and the first year of my oldest life due to that. I have been asked many times if I was the nanny for my oldest since she looks just like my husbands family. We blow off the remarks and when you go to the more higher class, expensive areas we get looks. I live in southern California and never thought 18 years ago when we started dating and then married it would be an issue. We like to laugh it off and usually don’t get asked since we always have our 5 girls with us and most people just stare. The older my kids have gotten though they have gotten questions, from school friends, since some of my kids look like me and some look like my husband so they always think they are lying about being sisters, expecting it to be a your mine and ours scenario and are shocked that they are all mine and related but my kids all laugh it off thank god.