Trivia Time! What do the following people have in common? George Lucas Roger Ebert Peter Norton (of computer software 'Norton Antivirus' and 'Norton Utilities' fame) Barack Obama David Bowie I'll spoiler the answer and the FOCUS because the FOCUS would give away the answer. Spoiler They're all nerdy white guys who are married to, or banging, black women. Anyway, this is all good, of course. But society still has some maturation to do, and so interracial relationships are still going to be a little different than non-interracial ones. FOCUS: Your experiences with interracial dating, relationships, and marriages? Is it all comedy, like I Love Lucy? Or are you so unusual that you even attract the attention of aliens, like Betty and Barney Hill?
Obama's a white guy now? Are we going by the one drop rule of whiteness*? I don't think Obama's political life would go nearly as smoothly if he were married to a white woman. Black women were histrionic and outraged that all of Tiger Wood's mistresses were white girls, and Tiger is less black than Obama (Tiger's 1/4). I'm of East Asian descent and I'm an equal opportunist when it comes to "dating." However, I prefer white girls, South Asian/Indian girls a distant second, East Asian girls third, black girls last, and with latinas scattered all over the board. Not really anything bizarre has happened to me when it comes to interracial dating (I've met parents, brothers, sisters, etc. of white girls and they were all cool about it). A good female friend of mine told me that her and her roommate first heard of my name when their suitemate told them she had blown an Asian guy (me) after a party. Both of them exclaimed "ewww" at the fact, with the suitemate trying to defend her mate choice to deaf ears. Fast forward two years later and both girls have ended up hooking up with me at some point or another (although the roommate I only made out with) despite their earlier expressed distaste for Asian men. I guess East Asian men don't have the best a priori reputations, and intermarriage and online dating statistics reflect that (<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracia ... ted_States</a>, <a class="postlink" href="http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your- ... -you-back/</a>). *I know he's half and thus as much white as he is black, but he is black for all intents and purposes when it comes to media and popular culture.
I've never really dated a girl of another race, although I have hooked up with a few. The girl I lost my virginity to and dated for 1.5 years in high school/college was biologically half-Cuban and half-Swedish, but didn't look it (blonde hair, blue eyes, did have a little bit of a ghetto booty though) and didn't act it (other than being batshit crazy, but that's just as easily attributable to being 16-17 at the time we dated and being adopted by a Greek/Irish family). I've fucked a black girl, a couple other Hispanic girls of various nationalities, and most recently an Indian girl but they were all fuckbuddies or one-night stands, so didn't really deal with the whole "social judgement" aspect of it. I did kinda-sorta date a Japanese girl briefly--met her less than a month before I moved from Boston to Philly, it could've lasted longer but we both knew it wasn't really going anywhere because I was about to move--and did notice the occasional dirty look from Asian guys when I'd be out in public with her.
Not quite crossing the line in terms of race but when you consider it from the looks angle, how the fuck did Salman Rusdie manage this.... From Wikipedia: In 2004, he married the Indian American actress and model Padma Lakshmi, the host of the American reality-television show Top Chef. The marriage ended on 2 July 2007, with Lakshmi indicating that it was her desire to end the marriage. In 2008 the Bollywood press romantically linked him to the Indian model Riya Sen, with whom he was otherwise a friend. In response to the media speculation about their friendship, she simply stated "I think when you are Salman Rushdie, you must get bored with people who always want to talk to you about literature." Salman and Padma. Riya Sen.
The guy i was dating my senior year of high school was Peruvian. When I was Peruvian, I mean he was born and raised in Peru and moved here with his family some years later. No one really seemed to have a problem with the fact that we were from different races, but that may be because they were too focused on the fact that he was 25 and I was 18. Also, I met him because his sister was (and still is) one of my best friends, so there was some awkwardness between his sister and me.
I've dated/hooked up interracially obviously: black, white, east asian, south asian, hispanic, southeast asian, etc. etc. My little black book looks like a casting list for a Benneton ad, so I'm always a little bit surprised when people have never dated outside of their race. Then I remember how many large swaths of the country are white and I go, "oh yeah" and eat ice cream or something. I don't know, it depends on the day and whether I'm hungry. I obviously have a whole bunch of related stories, but here's one that confuses me to no end: I'm walking around Laguna Beach with my (then) girlfriend, who is about as white as they come. She's enjoys-hiking white. She's vegan-white. She's "I have a fruit-tree in my backyard"-white, which isn't a stereotype but should be. I am, obviously, not white. A man on the street stops us and says something to me. I should point out that when I say, "on the street", I mean literally: he didn't appear homeless or destitute, just like a guy who decided that he didn't want to stand up anymore. I guess the streets in Laguna Beach are cleaner than the ones in South Central. Anyway, what he said to me was: "Hey Bob Marley, your daughter is very pretty." Let's unpack the levels of wrongness in these 8 words. I'll even ignore the trite Bob Marley comparison because that at least has a tenuous connections to things that are. But "your daughter is very pretty?" This white girl who is less than a month younger than I am is my daughter? I didn't even know which part of the sentence to reply to. Later that night, her aunt seriously offered to weave my hair into a pillowcase if I ever cut it. She showed me the loom.
This one always gets me, why doesn't everyone love hiking? It's not like skiing where it's dangerous and expensive, you're just walking up a hill outdoors and enjoying the weather, you get the benefit of exercise and get a bad ass view at the top.
I just ended a 6 year relationship with a Filipino from the Chicago suburbs. I am from middle of nowhere, Iowa. I think our relationship was extremely normal. The race issue was nonexistent. Her parents love me. I get along with her extended family very well. I will even go so far to say that I genuinely like them. The only time something weird happened was one time when we were walking back to the car coming out of Walmart. Some middle aged guy yells out to me "Is she filipino?" She responds yes and he asks me, how long she has been here. She responds, "Well, I've been in Iowa for a few years, but I'm from Illinois." He points to his wife and explains that she is also filipino. Then he asks me, "Did you have to go and get her?" Never mind she already told him where she is from, she has absolutely no accent because she was born here. She was a little angry about that. "I hate Iowa" was yelled at me in the car directly after that. Now that I am newly single and have had a grand total of 2 relationships in the last 8 1/2 years (one of 2 years, and the other of 6) so I have no idea how to be single or how to get a date now that I am a 29 year old student, where all of my peers are 18-22 years old. My biggest worry is that I will end up with a white girl who won't age very well (I will, I am in Iowa).
Ive hooked up with a few Indian girls but thats the brownest Ive got so far. The worst Ive ever experienced was dating a Chinese girl in China. They have a whole swath of reasons for being pissed that all of the women going for all of the super confident white guys in a culture that prefers having male children. Apparently all of those cleaver attacks on Chinese school children you may or may not have read about? Middle aged dudes fucking pissed that they'll never have the chance to find a woman. The people can be pretty brazen since they assume the white guy doesn't speak Chinese, even though the girl fucking does. Street vendors will get fucking pissed when you get the girl to negotiate the prices theyd give Chinese people, telling her what a fucking disgrace it is that she's dating a white guy. They say some seriously fucked up shit. You get stared at pretty hard in some areas.
Not just an interracial relationship but a gay relationship in the middle of nowhere, Iowa?? That takes courage, dude. (A Filipino is a dude. A Filipina is a girl.)
I dated an Indian girl and a Honduran girl way the hell back when, but no one cared. I can't recall any instance when this was an issue. And this was as a college student at The University of the South, so judging people based on color was pretty much a prerequisite for admission. Of course I ended up marrying a 6 foot blond WASP, (who dated a black guy in college) so my experiences may not be typical. I know, quite well, two married interracial couples. One black guy/white woman couple and one white guy/black woman couple. They are just married couples. They work hard, have children, and live life like two people who decide to marry their lives together. Love is blind.
I guess some women find a Haraam sexy. I was told, "Once you go black, you never go back!" Since I prefer keeping my options open, I never went the Mandingo-love route.
I find it interesting that in this discussion people will differentiate between dating an east Asian and a southeast Asian but no one is mentioning dating an Greek girl or a Swedish girl. If it is about skin color, then there is no point, a lot of times, in even differentiating between one country or another. If it is about culture, then there are a lot more directions to go with this. Personally, I've always dated straight up white Americans with mutt-like heritage similar to my own. Latino men seem to appreciate my charms though.
Almost every girl I've ever dated has been latina, and I even had a kid with one of them. Not a big surprise when you take into account that the population down here is about 95% hispanic.
I'll admit it, my dick is racist. Northern Europe is what tickles my loins. The most "exotic" girl I have fucked was 1/4 Basque.
The girlfriend is Chinese. Well, actually, her parents are, making her about as Chinese as The Situation is Italian. But you know. How have things been? Fine, really. We were born in the same country, after all, the cultural differences aren't that huge. But they exist. A sampler: -she has real difficulty eating with a fork and knife -she sometimes mis-pronounces English words by putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable -she thinks buffets are AWESOME, and is incapable of resisting the lure of any restaurant with a "dim sum" sign -she has never seen a stuffed turkey as you'd make for Thanksgiving -her parents (mother, specifically) dislikes the idea of me because I'm white and other things -grocery stores in Chinatown might be filthy and smell repulsive, but they sell things for cheap, which makes up for everything -she will blab random Cantonese words for various foods at me and expect me to know what they mean -doesn't understand why it is rude to speak Cantonese with her friends when I am right there -she can't drink alcohol -sideways vagina So most of these aren't really "cultural" differences per se, but more "her parents don't like integrating" differences. But that's a different can of worms. To the point of her parents approval, I will say that my parents have never said a single thing about what kind of person I should date - not gender, colour, height, hair colour, region of parental origin, profession, or language spoken. I don't even need to tell you that her parents have made rather specific demands in this regard; descriptions that I, of course, don't fit. And yet it's always people who tell me "Just because you're dating an Asian girl doesn't mean you aren't prejudiced", and nobody ever tells her "Just because you're dating a white person doesn't mean you aren't prejudiced". On the whole, "interracial" dating makes far too big a deal of superficial differences. Especially when the two people concerned were born in the same country, speak the same language, watched the same TV shows growing up, etc. Making divisions between otherwise similar people based on appearance or religion is just small-minded tribalism. And this nonsense about "all the [ethnic gender] are dating [other ethnic gender]!" seems a way of trying to claim ownership of people who you otherwise have very little in common with but still feel like you're worthy of their romantic attention. Now, if your partner is from a different country, or one of you speaks a language other than your mother tongue when communicating with each other - that's a relationship with cultural differences.
My wife is black, and from the south side of Chicago...and not the suburbs, I mean the south side "killzone" where you hear gun shots every night. She is from the ghetto. I am by all definitions a white guy, grew up in suburban Indianapolis, and although most of my friends growing up were black I never tried to adapt that culture. She wasn't my first black girl but I was her first white guy (I have dark black hair and features that black girls have told me is very attractive to them). We met in Queens NY where we now live. Honestly, there hasn't been much of a dichotomy between us...we are both open minded. I grew up listening to heavy metal, grunge, and rock, but I've always been open to listening to pop and reggae and such. She surprisingly knows alot of my music and culture...our wedding song was "Hard to Concentrate" by RHCP, we both love them. There are a couple things though, probably the most noticeable when we argue. It is damn hard to win an arguement with a mad black woman, she is very quick and remembers fucking everything. However I am more laid back and if I listen carefully to what shes saying (inbetween the cliche ghetto body language and talking) I can pick apart some of her bullshit. I've learned to not raise my voice in our fights, because that is a losing battle. The other thing is that she is damn good at dancing...she could be in a rap video, she got the booty for it too...and I am straight terrible. But I am learning.
It's not so much that you never want to go back, but rather that your future options are limited by your need to be fisted with a boxing glove in order to get off. FOCUS: I've slept/dated mostly white girls, a couple indians (feather), and a single black girl. As an adult, I don't get any dirty looks for having a white wife, and if I did I wouldn't notice. Anyone who's still got a problem with interracial relationships and marriage in 2011 can get fucked. It's time to move on. As a teenager, however, I've been insulted, had my property stolen and wrecked, and even been assaulted. I took a crowbar to my left knee after being jumped by a trio of white boys who decided I wasn't allowed to be dating a white girl, and bootfucked me in a back alley.
In highschool I worked as a lifeguard at a very ghetto public pool. One thing I noticed, and thought was interesting, was that a very high percentage (to make up a number, like 75%) of ripped, black gangbanger-esque guys had ridiculously fat, white girlfriends/wives. As for me, I don't see any reason to limit yourself to a particular race. I get along very well with black chicks, but haven't yet found one sexually attractive enough to try to date/hook up with. My track record is majority white, with an asian or two thrown into the mix. A disproportionate number of katies for some reason.
I just have to say that that is fucking ridiculous. Out of curiosity, where did this happen? Strikes me as a "deep south" event. Focus: Although I've mostly only dated or hooked up with white girls (I'm white), one of my current fuck buddies is actually Asian. I've also dated an Indian (feather) girl, hooked up with one black and one other Asian girl. Because of the fact that I haven't really dated outside my race a whole lot, I haven't really experienced any issues. The Asian I'm currently hooking up with was born here and is from a suburb of Chicago but she goes to visit family in Japan one a year or so. However, I have a few friends with the yellow fever and given that we were all, until about a month ago, college students, this led to them hooking up with a lot of international students. We've all noticed something similar - they really don't like to "share." I hook up with a good amount of women and occasionally, the Asian will find out and flip out over it. This has happened to every single one of my friends who has been hooking up with an Asian girl for an extended period of time. Granted, most women would flip out, but these freak outs seem to always be far more extreme than any we've had to deal with before about other girls (outside of a relationship, at least). I'd assume that it's a cultural thing except for the fact that there's a pretty wide variety in what country in Southeast Asia the girls are from. Does this crazy just happen to us or have other people experienced something similar?