Hello. This is my first post. This topic caught my eye because I am currently in an interracial relationship. (My second actually). I'm a white guy and my girlfriend is black. As far as how we feel about each other, the race thing doesn't matter one bit. But because we both enjoy observing and discussing human nature, we do talk about our racial differences quite often. We often get stared at, and I used to be very uncomfortable with that, but I've grown accustomed to it I guess. Doesn't really phase me much anymore.
I guess there is one thing about interracial relationships that one has to be careful of: Raising children. From the direction of my relationship, it looks like my girlfriend and I will eventually get married and have kids and all that good stuff. But getting to know more black people over the past few years has taught me one thing: I don't know the first thing about raising black children. While you peeps, and I, might not really care what color they are, or we might see them as interracial children, society at large sees them as black. And raising black children may require a sort of knowledge of the "black experience" that I may never be fully equiped to teach them. I am trying my best to learn, because it will come up one day. I have never had any first hand experience with racism, and I am a bit afraid I would be completely unable to teach my children how to deal with such things.
I guess the fact is, being raised in an overwhelmingly white community left me completely ignorant to the fact that there is still racism in this country. I guess white America for the most part has no clue how much it can still suck to be black. Just ask anyone who has been pulled over for Driving While Black.
I have a black friend who describes himself as an "African Nationalist." And in my view, he is the most racist person I have ever met. If he sees a group of white people who don't look quite right, or are acting goofy, he'll just say "I HATE WHITE PEOPLE!" . . . I'm never quite sure if he's completely serious or not, but since I'm his friend, I guess he can't hate us too much. But he is against interracial marriage. He wants to keep the purity of the black race. I guess I can understand that, as he doesn't want his heritage diluted by an outside source. (Of course it's kinda silly coming from him . . his mother's mother is white). He dates white girls, or rather hooks up with them, and says "white girls are for using, black girls are for marrying." I guess I never will understand his line of thinking in these things. But not being black and not having faced any oppression at the hands of whitey, I guess there's no way I could understand. Other than that he is a good friend. Go figure.
And now, for the music topic that was brought up. I think it is very quick and judgemental to say that many black people who listen to rap and R&B are just fulfilling a stereotype. I think people just tend to gravitate towards the music they hear the most. My dad listened to lots of classic rock, Zeppelin, Stones, Allman Bros, etc, and I was basically raised listened to tons of that kind of music. That was the music that surrounded my environment, and I basically adopted it as the music I listened to and enjoyed myself. And the natural progression of that was to listen to Soundgarden and The Black Crowes and Tool and whatever else that came with my generation. I think the same thing happens with the music black kids listen to. Kids living in a black community are surrounded by the sounds of hip-hop and r&b. They absorb that type of music from a young age, and it is just a natural fit. Why would they like any other type of music as much when they aren't exposed to it nearly as much? Or it could be exactly like my situation. Black parents listen to The Supremes, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, so their kids are naturally drawn to black r&b artists, and they listen to whatever their generation's equivalent of those artists are. (Destiny's Child, or whatever else, I don't keep up with R&B ). Lastly, I think black kids might naturally be drawn towards musicians and artists that look like they do, that they can relate to, that may have the same experiences they do. But the claim that they are all just mindlessly fulfilling stereotypes could be in itself be regarded as a pretty bigoted statement. Besides all that, it seems ALL kids, regardless of race, are listening to rap and r&b these days, but that's another topic completely.
Well that's all I have to say about that. In conclusion, interracial relationships are super-awesome (and their offspring are so incredibly good looking), my black friend is a racist jerk, and don't give people grief for the music they listen to. And finally, Theo Huxtable is in fact the greatest rapper of our time.
Thanks, to anybody who read and understood a damn thing I wrote here at 4:00am.