A new report from the Pew Research Center shows a record 14.6% of new marriages in 2008 were interracial, or about one in seven marriages. According to the Center, this is more than double the interracial marriage rate in 1980.The Pew analysis attributes the increase to the flow of recent immigration and the weakening of the taboo surrounding interracial marriage.
CNN.com took an interesting approach to this news, asking readers what they think about interracial marriage. Overall, the website said, readers support interracial relationships, and many are proud to be part or product of an interracial/interethnic union.
There were of course others who said they date exclusively within their race, but most said they recognize people as people and not as colors.
What do we make of all this? Well, for one thing: Awesome. We've made real progress in terms of who we allow ourselves to date, love and marry. And as CNN points out, an earlier Pew study showed Millenials--adults 18-29 years old--are less likely to even look at race as a factor in their relationships. Presumably, this lack of race-based pairing will trickle down to subsequent generations, and race will become increasingly unimportant in love.
But even if the sheer numbers are increasing, that doesn't mean it's easy to be a black man dating a white woman, or an Asian man dating a Hispanic woman. Within your relationship you may have cultural, political, religious and social differences, while outside your relationship you must manage the stares and questions and perhaps someday the dreaded, "Aww, your son is adorable! What country did you adopt him from?"
Even in Madison, a progressive Midwestern city, I've felt the icy looks of others as I walked down University Avenue with a black man. We weren't dating at the time, and we weren't holding hands as we walked, but still, people got weird. My college roommate also dated a black man freshman year, and the jokes throughout the dorm abounded. Race, it seems, is less and less a factor in who we choose, but it remains a focal point among those outside the pair.
I would never say we can or should ignore race altogether. But I do hope some day studies like this one from Pew don't need to be conducted. I hope we don't need to prove interracial marriage is increasingly OK among daters. I hope we just accept that love is love and marriage is marriage.
In sum, Pew's study shows that there may be more fish in the proverbial relationship sea, but that doesn't mean they're not still swimming upstream.
Photo Credit: Afiive.com
