Dating to disappoint and the Bulworth solution

Rilina links to the Sandra Loh post, and one of her commenters notes that when she first saw the title "daring to disappoint one's parents" she misread it as "dating to disappoint one's parents."  Rilina replies:  "Well, many children of immigrant parents do that too. Heh."

This got me thinking.

I've often asked my students how comfortable their parents are with the idea of interracial, inter-religious dating.  (I usually ask this question in the gender studies courses as the topic of race emerges.)  The results are predictable.  Very few of the native-born white kids think their parents would mind if they dated someone of another race.  (To be more precise, I've never had a white male claim his parents would be upset if he were to date -- or marry -- a non-white person, but I have had a few white female students admit their parents would be distressed if they brought home a young black man.)   My Latino students generally report that their parents would prefer another Hispanic, but would be comfortable with their child dating someone white, but not black.  My more recent immigrants, particularly Asians and Armenians, almost imvariably report that their parents would be extremely distressed if they dated, much less married, outside of their culture.

This is where my own white liberalism blinds me so!  I get very, very angry when I hear of parents forbidding their children to date someone because they didn't meet the right ethnic profile.  As far as I'm concerned, it's pure unadulterated racism.   Real tolerance must be about more than being willing to share public space with folks of other ethnicities, it must also be about the willingness to welcome them into one's family and rejoice when they become the spouses of one's children and the parents of the grandkids.  I'm convinced that that's true, and I admit I see interracial/interethnic marriage as a fundamental social good.  How else can we fully eradicate racial and ethnic prejudice save through mixed marriages?

One of my favorite movies ever made (I own it and watch it over and over) is Warren Beatty's brilliant Bulworth.   Beatty's character Sen. Jay Bulworth, in the middle of a television interview with a newscaster named Connie, delivers a magnificent rap on this very subject of race (warning, expletives ahead):

Bulworth:
Rich people've stayed on top, dividing white people from colored people. But white people've got more in Common with colored people than rich people. We're just gonna have to eliminate 'em.

Connie:
Eliminate?

Bulworth:
Eliminate.

Connie:
Who?
Rich people?

Bulworth:
White people.

Bulworth:
Black People, too.
Brown people,
Yellow people.
Get rid of 'em all.

Connie:
Get rid of them all?

Bulworth:
We need a voluntary, free Spirited,
compatible, open ended program of
procreative racial deconstruction.

Connie:
Uh...

Bulworth:
Everybody just got to keep fucking everybody
till we're all the same color.

When I heard that in the movie theatre seven years ago, the audience (of mostly upscale whites, as I recall) erupted in cheers and raucous laughter.   I heard a loud "amen", and I think it may have escaped from my lips.   My liberalism was, and in some ways still is, the liberalism of the melting pot.  The historian in me and the Christian in me regard ethnic distinctives (other than food and innocuous holiday customs) with suspicion.  How can we form religious and political unity when we still hold historic allegiances to our own ethnic group, I wonder?  Isn't Beatty's Bulworth, for all his madcap vulgarity, absolutely right about the solution?  Aren't those parents who are adamant that their children marry within within their ethnic and religious group enemies of progress, civilization, and a functioning civil society?  Shouldn't kids from these parents "date to disappoint", and eventually give their parents grandkids who don't look like them?

But I'm aware of the weakness of what can be called the "Bulworth" solution.  I know full well that the desire to retain cultural distinctives is not the same as a belief in racial superiority.  For example, for Jews and Armenians whose forebears survived genocide, the preservation of cultural identity has an imperative to it that I don't always grasp but of which I am not unaware.   In a culture that is predominantly Anglo still, is the Bulworth solution -- Hugo's solution too -- another form of well-meaning genocide? Heck, from the perspective of women of color,the Bulworth solution is also problematic.  Everybody just got to keep fucking everybody  till we're all the same color sounds like a sensible battle cry to me.  But given the history of rape and sexual abuse of indigenous and African women by white men in this country, I'd understand if Bulworth's rap doesn't sound so inspiring to some of my sisters.

My generation of my family is, as I've written before,  practicing melting pot marriage with enthusiasm.   In recent decades, I've seen my cousins marry folks of Latino, Chinese, and East Indian descent.  Some very beautiful mixed-race babies have been born.  I'll be marrying my fiancee soon, of African-Colombian-Croatian ancestry.  A generation from now, the family photos will be far browner and richer than they were a generation ago.  I celebrate that.  Nothing has been lost, from my perspective, and much has been gained.  But I've never known what it is to feel like a resident alien in a strange land, never known what it is to desperately try and cling to the ways of my family in a country that finds those ways alien and impenetrable and anti-modern.   The Bulworth solution excites and inspires me.  But I also wonder if that doesn't say more about me and my whiteness (and my hero Warren Beatty) than it does about the sensibility of the solution itself.

Comments

[John]

One of my sisters married a Maori, the other a Pacific Islander. I do think though, that if you are going to mix-races in marriage, you have to be prepared for all the cultural and family challenges that go with it.

As for mixed-religious dating, the answer is No. In fact, Hell no. I have had the opportunity several times, but would never consider it. The Bible forbids it, for a start.

[Hugo]

Of course, John, it depends on what we mean by mixed-religious dating. Can a Pentecostal date a Reform Calvinist, or is that too broad a river to cross?

[mercedes]

Hugo,
I think you're right, you can't have true unity with other races and maintain allegiance to your own ethnic group. You have to be willing to blend in with the other group and become a part of their culture.

[Caitriona]

To a point. But if you're not careful, you wind up with a problem we see much of these days - people who are searching for roots, searching for where they've come from. There are many people trying to construct some sort of "cultural" traditions to give themselves some solidity, to help them know who they are.

At one point, we saw a bit of this difference in our family. My European ancestors have been here since the 1680-1720 migrations, primarily from Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, and Wales. My family has put a lot of work into maintaining family history and records, and in researching records that were missing. The farm on which I grew up has been in my family for over 150 years. That gave us stability, a sense of knowing who we are.

My husband's immigrant ancestors didn't come over until the 1850's, primarily famine Irish and ethnicly cleansed Prussian. They didn't maintain ties to their pre-American cultures and there was no real "American culture" in which their children could grow. As a result, for a long time, my husband was searching for roots.

I've known many others who've experienced this as well. It's the one problem I have with the "American Melting Pot" phenomenon. People *need* roots. They *need* to know where they've come from, what their ancestors cultures were.

[Amanda Marcotte]

For the record, the vast majority of the audience when I saw that movie was black and they laughed just as hard.

Funny, my co-blogger and I were discussing this issue today, since we've both been deemed the wrong race to date someone we're with. Still, I try to walk carefully around this issue, since some people are aching to deliberately misunderstand me, I've learned the hard way.

[Amanda Marcotte]

The thing that occured to me just as I hit "post" is this--people who argue for demanding intra-culture/race marriage is important for holding their families together are lying to themselves. They end up, more often than not, ejecting children from the family (my boyfriend doesn't speak to his mother any longer) and of course, the very existence of mixed-race children thereby becomes problematic, since they grow up knowing that some family members don't think of them as real somehow.

[Caitriona]

Amanda, the problem you cited is the issue my grandmother always brought up with mixed-race marriages. She'd grown up in an era where those who were openly of mixed heritage suffered quite a lot of prejudice and abuse. It was her opinion that people who married inter-racially where being selfish and not considering the abuse their future children would endure.

Thankfully, the abuses aren't as bad now as they were when she was younger, but she hasn't seen that change. She still feels sorrow for children of mixed heritage and thinks their parents were being selfish when they entered mixed relationships.

[djw]

Just a brilliant scene and a brilliant line.

Caitriona, my grandmother has said similar things. I've always found that line of thinking deeply infuriating. It's basically saying, "Small-minded bullies might try to prevent us from living our lives and being happy, so we better just do what they want..." Screw that.

Amanda: exactly. Anyone willing to place this sort of thing above family probably doesn't care anywhere near as much about "family" as they claim to. "Family" is frequently political code word for enforcing exclusionary social norms.

[Caitriona]

djw,

I used to get really frustrated by that. But after becoming a parent, I started seeing where she was coming from. Each and every decision I've made in my life impacts my children. It's probably be a lot better for everyone if we'd all put more forethought into what we do, especially those bullies of which you speak. But the bullies needing to behave better doesn't remove any of the responsibility from our shoulders of any consequences our children live with due to our actions.

[djw]

Each and every decision I've made in my life impacts my children. It's probably be a lot better for everyone if we'd all put more forethought into what we do, especially those bullies of which you speak.

Being childless, I can only imagine rather than empathize. Still, the message, it seems to me, is that the children between you and the person you love would be better off not existing than possibly facing small-minded bullies. Because that's the message, isn't it? I don't see some other children with some other mother/father as "replacement children."

[mythago]

But we'll never all really be the same color, no matter how much we fuck. It would be kind of sad if we were all exactly the same shade, a la The Lathe of Heaven, anyway, wouldn't it? The problem isn't the color we are; it's the importance we attach to that color.

I admit I want my kids to marry Jews. What color they are is of no importance to me whatsoever.

[Caitriona]

At the time our grandmothers formed their opinions, in some places the children could be killed by those "small-minded bullies."

Thankfully, times have changed - in some places. But there are still places here in the US where one can be killed for having the "wrong" color of skin, or the "wrong" opinions.

At some point in the near future, people I know may be "getting in the way" in South Texas. These people are having to weigh their family commitments against their societal/moral/faith commitments. If they choose to go to South Texas, there may well be serious consequences. Their children will have to live the rest of their lives with the effects of that. It is not something to be chosen lightly.

[mythago]

It is not something to be chosen lightly.

Absolutely. But neither is it "selfish" to make such a choice.

[Caitriona]

At one point in time, perhaps it *was* selfish to make certain choices - those that brought you pleasure but brought pain to others. That is a bit different than making a choice to go and stand between people intent on hurting others and those whom they intend to hurt.

[Caitriona]

I do thank y'all for those comments, though. Suddenly, the thoughts milling around in my head for July 3rd's message at church (Bringing Peace to the World) are starting to come together. Gracias.

[Sally]

At one point in time, perhaps it *was* selfish to make certain choices

You know, for hundreds of years, every single member of my family who reproduced knew that they were bringing into the world children who would face discrimination, who might face violence, who might be killed just for being who they were. That is part of the burden with which my family has lived, and I understand how profoundly it's a burden that someone of your ethnic background cannot understand. But it really just horrifies me that you seem to be suggesting that it is "selfish" for members of oppressed groups to have children. And that is what you're suggesting, whether you've thought it through or not. Your grandmother thought it was "selfish" for you to have children who would not have the racial privilege she took for granted. But since many other people's children would not have access to that racial privilege no matter what, I can't see how it wouldn't have been "selfish" of them to have children at all.

[Tara]

I feel that if you don't value your own identity/roots/ethnicity, you'll never be able to value any one else's. That's sort of what's happening here. For all that you want all the colors to marry each other, there isn't actually any valuing of diversity going on. The opposite - you're also heading towards a world where everybody looks the same and thinks the same.

Maybe you feel that your ethnic background didn't give you any aspects of culture or life style especially worth preserving or bringing with you into your marriage. So of course you won't be able to understand when other people value those aspects of their lives and look for a partner with whom they can preserve them. Of course that doesn't necessarily preclude 'mixed' partnerships - racially/culturally/religiously, etc. But it certainly requires the other partner to respect and enjoy their partner's heritage that they are choosing to bring forward with them.

Hugo, it sounds like you're valuing the colors more than the heritages. So fine for you and your personal life and the family life you want to build. But to me, not necessarily the secret formula for solidarity among different peoples.

[Hugo]

There's no question, Tara, that one can enjoy aspects of one's heritage and tradition. One can marry (as members of my family have) other folks in the Social Register in order to ensure that all the kids can also have what is essentially a WASP privilege (though a minor one, surely, in today's world). But one can also meld one's cultures together! My fiancee has taught me a love for Colombian food and a passion for West African music, for example -- I've been enriched by that. I want my children to be fed by many rivers. I don't want them bland and sanitized; I want them to be a diverse amalgam. They will have Jewish, Scottish, English, German, Croatian, African, Spanish, and indigenous American ancestry -- and will have a handful of aspects of each of these in customs and traditions our family will celebrate.

[Mychelline]

I'm 2nd generation American on my dad's side, and 3rd generation American on my mother's side. With my mother's parents' generation, the big deal was not marrying outside the ethnic group (Lithuanians), although actually, most of them did, and there was no strife over it. Turns out, the Really Big Deal was marrying outside the religion - one great-aunt married a non-Catholic, and her own mother didn't attend the wedding to show her disapproval.

My mother, born in 1939, was always encouraged to find a nice Lithuanian boy to settle down with, but she found "nice Lithuanian boys" dull. She deliberately dated Italian and Irish boys as they were more fun, and married my Irish Catholic dad in 1965. (Interestingly enough, my dad's parents had also asked him to find "a nice Irish girl" to marry.) But once each set of my grandparents met the person chosen by their child, they fell in love too.

My parents never encouraged me to date or not date anybody of any ethnicity or religion or class. As a child, I found myself physically attracted to people with very different skin tones and facial features than my own, but I fell in love with, and married, a man of Scotch-Irish descent from Kentucky, who was raised Southern Baptist. Since by that time, I had left Christianity for Neo-Paganism, I experienced a lot of culture shock learning about the religious traditions he grew up with. I don't think I'll ever understand his family's brand of Protestantism - it's just so foreign to the Catholicism I was raised with, and the earth-based religion I follow now.

My husband was raised by rural central KY parents who did warn him never to bring home a black girl. On both sides of his family, there have been serial divorces and domestic abuse and drug problems. Oh, murder, too, and prison time. But no mixed-race marriages that I can think of. OTOH, while some new blood could only be a good thing for this bunch, I wouldn't want to wish them on anybody. They're racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-intellectual-and-proud-of-it. And anybody who isn't a stone cold conformist is treated like shit.

[Caitriona]

Sally, you wrote: I understand how profoundly it's a burden that someone of your ethnic background cannot understand and Your grandmother thought it was "selfish" for you to have children who would not have the racial privilege she took for granted. But since many other people's children would not have access to that racial privilege no matter what, I can't see how it wouldn't have been "selfish" of them to have children at all.

Sally, you assume much. My grandmother grew up in a time where there was rampant discrimination, and children of "mixed blood" were discriminated against more harshly than any, by those on all sides.

In addition, my family has a history that includes people who were "half-breeds," to use the old term for those of mixed caucasian and Amer-Indian blood, and those who were Scottish and Irish. "Half-breeds" didn't fit into either world and were often hated by both worlds. The Scots and Irish, especially the Irish, were hated by many, before the focus of most acknowledged racism became the blacks. It was not an easy life. Added to that is the treatment received by those members of the family who were members of historic peace churches.

Taking all of this into consideration, I can see where my grandmother developed her philosophy of not making waves and not discussing with people outside the family any areas where any of us differed from the established "norm." The problem I see with this is that it evolved into there being some members of the family who became a part of the "norm."

Throughout history, racism and discrimination hasn't been just a "black/white" issue. It has taken the form of anti-Indian, anti-Irish, anti-Scottish, anti-Asian, anti-German, anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, anti-Anabaptist, anti-non-Christian, anti-black, anti-white, etc. It is an anti-different issue, and it is wrong. But condemning those who hold some version of racism/discrimination without trying to understand *why* they feel as they do is ineffective in solving the problem and is just as wrong, IMO.

[Amanda]

Cait, it's selfish to tell your children that their happiness has to meet your approval. My great-uncle was forbidden to marry the woman he loved by his mother becaue she was in the "wrong" social class. He drank himself to death, but at least he met his obligations to his parents to choose his spouse according to their standards, not his. And you know who we all side with now? Him, not them.

My grandpa married my grandma over his mother's objections and she managed to survive.

[Mr. Bad]

Hugo asked: ”How can we form religious and political unity when we still hold historic allegiances to our own ethnic group, I wonder? Isn't Beatty's Bulworth, for all his madcap vulgarity, absolutely right about the solution?”

No. I believe that we can respect and honor other ethnic groups while still holding allegiances to our own. This is the very essence of “diversity” that is so often invoked by self-proclaimed “progressives” (who I believe are not nearly as “progressive” as they like to think they are).

He continues: ”But I'm aware of the weakness of what can be called the "Bulworth" solution. I know full well that the desire to retain cultural distinctives is not the same as a belief in racial superiority. For example, for Jews and Armenians whose forebears survived genocide, the preservation of cultural identity has an imperative to it that I don't always grasp but of which I am not unaware.” (Gotta love those strained double-negative affectations Hugo) ”In a culture that is predominantly Anglo still, is the Bulworth solution -- Hugo's solution too -- another form of well-meaning genocide?”

Yes, although I would characterize it more as self-loathing than “well-meaning.”

Hugo, this whole tome bothers me. It goes against everything that diversity is meant to stand for, and I for one have learned to honor and celebrate diversity. I used to believe in the “melting pot” model but then was forced to examine past efforts. For example, Native Americans and African Americans would probably be able to shed some light on what kind of effect the “melting pot” model has had on their cultural heritage. What you present here seem to suggest that we should all abandon our cultural roots for some sort of ill-defined greater cultural blend.

Or are you suggesting that only WASPs abandon their cultural heritage?

And this: ”The Bulworth solution excites and inspires me. But I also wonder if that doesn't say more about me and my whiteness (and my hero Warren Beatty) than it does about the sensibility of the solution itself.”

Yes, to me it does. Your missive seems full of self-loathing and what has been termed “white liberal guilt.” I for one am proud of my WASP heritage, that being the one of Newton, Cromwell, Maxwell, Churchill, et al., thus I celebrate my culture and heritage as much as any other member of a defined ethnic group. I refuse to feel guilty for my heritage and instead am quite proud of it.

As it should be.

[Mr. Bad]

mythago wrote: "The problem isn't the color we are; it's the importance we attach to that color."

Exactly - well put.

[mythago]

At one point in time, perhaps it *was* selfish to make certain choices - those that brought you pleasure but brought pain to others.

As Sally said, by this standard many ethnic groups should have quit having children and died out a long time ago.

Sally referred to it obliquely, so I'll be blunt: for centuries, Jews were subject to persecution, not merely with a wink from the law, but with its full force. How "selfish" of them to have children, knowing they would be subject to pogroms! How dare they have children who would suffer!

I'm sure you'll explain this isn't what you meant at all, and perhaps it's not, but that's certainly what you said. If it's "selfish" to have children knowing that they will be subjected to bigotry and harassment, then what you're really saying is that certain people shouldn't have children at all.

[Caitriona]

Amanda, nowhere did I advocate requiring parental approval in marital decisions. Nor did my grandmother. However, care should be taken in all our decision-making, whether we are the parent or the child. Wouldn't you agree?

One of our family stories is of the oldest son of a Virginia plantation owner who wished to marry a Cherokee woman. He stood to inherit the plantation. His father told him that he could inherit, or he could marry the woman he loved and be disowned. He married his love and they moved to Arkansas.

Surprisingly, last fall I stumbled across some distant cousins who remained closer to the Cherokee side of the family after that move. The woman I spoke with is a dancer with a local Native educational organization which teaches people about the cultures of various Amer-Indian tribes.