Today is Loving Day, the celebration of the anniversary of the appositely named Supreme Court decision ever: Loving vs. Virginia. It is because of Mildred and Richard Loving that miscegenation laws were struck down across America, and you can now legally have sex with and marry any member of the opposite sex, regardless of race, anywhere in America. 
At the time of the Loving decision, 16 states had anti-miscegenation statutes, and over America’s history 42 states have enforced similar laws. Amazingly though, it took South Carolina until 1998 to remove the anti-miscegenation clause from its state constitution, and Alabama until 2000 to do the same!
Although there weren’t many desis in America before the 1967 Loving decision, they were affected by such restrictions as well:
Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging marriages between Whites and non-Whites were affecting South Asian immigrants and their spouses from the late 17th to early 20th century. For example, a Eurasian daughter born to an East Indian father and Irish mother in Maryland in 1680 was classified as a “mullato” and sold into slavery, and the Bengali revolutionary Tarak Nath Das’s white American wife, Mary K. Das, was stripped of her American citizenship for her marriage to an “alien ineligible for citizenship.” In 1918, there was controversy in Arizona when an Indian farmer married the sixteen year-old daughter of one of his White tenants. [link]
Such discrimination continued into the 20th century. Most desis were in California, which amended its anti-miscegenation statutes in 1931 to prevent inter-marriage between whites and asians. This could have caused problems for Punjabis married to Mexicans since desis had been classified as Asians under the Thind decision and Mexicans were considered white under California state law.
The original decision against the Lovings at the state level leaves no doubt that the judge was opposed to any interracial marriage whatsoever, not just between blacks and whites:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. [link]
Fast forward to the present where I grew up on a block with kids whose parents were Ethiopian & White, Korean & German, and Japanese & white American. Family friends included couples who were Japanese & white American, Chinese & white American, white British & dark Tunisian, Afro-cuban & white British (my father set up this couple), etc. Even America now has a bi-racial President whose “black” daughters have “asian” cousins. Thank you very much, Richard and Mildred Loving, for everything.
So true. More than half of my friends are in inter-racial relationships and its. no. big. deal.
But then, we are talking about black and white couples here, not desi, non-desi. Amongst the desi I know who are dating/marrying out, family. makes. big. deal. long. time. for. them.
those out-marriage rates for us-born desis are off the charts. in fact, hard to believe based on my anecdoatal experience. can sepia mutiny even survive a generation?
How come no mutineers are stepping forward to give their personal accounts of inter-whatever dating?
Whether its inter-racial, inter-religious, inter-caste, inter-class, inter-north-south-divide, inter-lingual, or inter-licious…. I know you guys here must have had loads of experiences. What were they and would you do it all again?
But then, we are talking about black and white couples here, not desi, non-desi. Amongst the desi I know who are dating/marrying out, family. makes. big. deal. long. time. for. them.
when i said i speak from personal experience, i my own personal experience ;=) and i’m brown. fwiw, my parents just want me and my siblings to get married at this point. N = 1 so i won’t generalize.
those out-marriage rates for us-born desis are off the charts. in fact, hard to believe based on my anecdoatal experience. can sepia mutiny even survive a generation?
there’s an easy explanation for the discrepancy between exp. urban brownz might have much higher endogamy rates because your pool is larger. but non-urban brownz might have much lower ones.
broken hearted, On Being Down With Dating Brown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage
In the United States, rates of interracial cohabitation are significantly higher than those of marriage. Although only 7 percent of married African American men have Caucasian American wives, 13 percent of cohabitating African American men have Caucasian American partners. 25 percent of married Asian American women have Caucasian spouses, but 45 percent of cohabitating Asian American women are with Caucasian American men—higher than the percentage cohabitating with Asian men (44 percent)[22]. These numbers suggest that the prevalence of intimate interracial contact is greatly underestimated when one focuses only on marriage data.[22]
So, since south asian women have much lower “intimate interracial contact” with caucasian-americans than other asians this must mean that the majority of other asian women, chinese, japanese, filipina etc, must be living with white americans. That confirms what I see all the time. Similarly, the number of black americans with white living partners is also much higher than their intermarriage rate, which is also observed all the time. Even higher is the number of black american men who have slept or dated with white american women and higher still is the number of black american men who have done so with non-blacks in general. So black american men and asian (non-desi) american women are the most active proportionally in inter-racial relationships.
So, since south asian women have much lower “intimate interracial contact” with caucasian-americans than other asians this must mean that the majority of other asian women, chinese, japanese, filipina etc, must be living with white americans.
if you’re going to speak in quantities, you should lay out your algebra.
But statistically black americans marry anyone, including other black americans, at a much lower rate than other people. That sentence probably doesn’t make much sense. Black Americans get married at a low rate. Period. They are not marrying as much as other groups of people are marrying.
What do y’all think have a greater effect on a persons psyche with regards to inter-group marriage, legal laws (either state or federal) or cultural and societal conditioning and influence. My take is that laws are not needed where culture has a strong influence so as to prevent the activity that laws seek to prevent in persons who would otherwise engage in such activity because their cultural influence is small.
I don’t think legal laws are neccessary to keep desis with their own, the culture does a good job of that.
Razib, I read that link. Mixed feelings. It makes sense but the post-modern “liberal” in me screams “racist!”
Re: “interracial dating,” I once was at a club in Du . . . nahhhh, never mind. :-p
It is not surprising that their son looks white since she looks like a mulatto (actually I think she looks more like an african-chinese mix). There are an estimated 30-50 million americans with part african ancestry who pass for white.
Mildred Loving was was of African-American and Rappahannock Native American descent. By Virginia law, that made her black.
My take is that laws are not needed where culture has a strong influence so as to prevent the activity that laws seek to prevent in persons who would otherwise engage in such activity because their cultural influence is small.
the jewish outmarriage rate went from 10% around 1950 to closer to 50% by the mid-1970s.
Razib, I read that link. Mixed feelings. It makes sense but the post-modern “liberal” in me screams “racist!”
if you’re colored you can’t be racist from the post-modern liberal perspective 😉 or minorities in general. WASPs can’t prefer WASPs, but jews can prefer jews.
It is not surprising that their son looks white since she looks like a mulatto (actually I think she looks more like an african-chinese mix). There are an estimated 30-50 million americans with part african ancestry who pass for white.
she was native american and black american. the 30-50 million number is made up. it has to be made up because the genetic data is really clear on this. really clear. the average black american is 20% european, though 10% of the black american population is 50% or more european in ancestry. the discernible amount of non-white ancestry in whites in the USA is very small (on the order of 1-2% when you use northwest european populations as references). as likely to be native american as black from what i have seen.
What part did you not understand? That the number of black american men living with white american women is significantly higher than their intermarriage rate? That is simple common sense regardless of the marriage rate of blacks. In America not every couple who has a sexual relationship ends up living together and not every couple who lives together ends up getting married. So just focusing on marriage rates grossly underestimates the rate of miscegenation and this is especially true for african american men, who have lower marriage rates than other races.
OK then, I guess I’m post-post-modern. That means, no one is allowed to be racist!
Wasps and Jews in the USA are both non-“colored” as you say, so how’s it ok for a Jew to prefer a Jew then?
And aren’t WASPs a minority in the USA right now? So then its PC for them to prefer “their own” now, right?
So not part chinese as I guessed (like many Caribbean blacks. Example Colin Powell) but part native american mongoloid. Either way she is an attractive woman.
Either way she is an attractive woman.
wtf dude? lol.
razib’s comments are despicably muslim-arab centric. the needless reference to al kitab fi hisab al-jabr makes me gibber and wring my hands.
gibber
wring
And aren’t WASPs a minority in the USA right now? So then its PC for them to prefer “their own” now, right?
jews are a light unto the nations. why would they want their witness destroyed through amalgamation with the nations? 🙂
a lot of ethnic groups think their own group is awesome and invented everything and stuff. makes sense people would want to be with their own kind.
I don’t know what “post-modern liberal” means but it sounds like the Free Republic version of “libtard” labeling so I will treat that part of the comment with the amused derision and patient eye-roll it deserves.
More to the point, why are you comparing WASPs with Jews? One is a color identification and the other is religious. Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, etc., do expressly marry within their faith, no differently than Jews. That has nothing to do with skin color or race. The former (color identification) can be racist, conceivably, while the latter (religion) has nothing or little to do with race. Jews are not a “race.”
Hence, it isn’t so much an issue of those “postmodern” (whatever that means) libruls arbitrarily defining racism so much as you (premodern conservative, I guess?) conflating two completely different issues.
One is a color identification and the other is religious. Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, etc., do expressly marry within their faith, no differently than Jews.
jews are a people as well as a religion. as an example, the syarian jews of new york ban intermarriage with converts. e.g.,: With these words, Chief Rabbi Jacob Kassin effectively excommunicated any member of his flock who married a partner with gentile blood. (There have been exceptions for converts judged to be “sincere†— that is, those who converted without the intention to marry — but these have been extremely rare and always controversial.)
this is an extreme case, but illustrates the problem with viewing judaism through an american confessional lens. but i think this should be comprehensible to some readers here; i’ve been accused of being a muslim despite my atheism because of my ancestry 😉
A geneticist would have to be called in to determine if Jewishness is a religion or a culture or an ethnic background, or all of the above. For goodness sake, there are “atheist Jews” so I’m on the side of it being more than just a “religion”.
Hindus marry other Hindus, of the same caste, generally. So then, what is up with that?
We know many arab-muslims feel that they are the authentic “real” muslims because of their ethnic and cultural background. We need not get started on how desi muslims are treated in arab lands.
Bottom line, many people prefer to mate with their own group in some way, whether that group be religious, racial, caste, class, cultural or what-not.
Is it wrong? Is it right? And for what reasons?
Is it wrong for some and right for others? If so, WHY?
How does the statement, “I’m brown and only date brown” sit with you?
How does the statement, “I’m brown and will not date brown” sit with you?
A geneticist would have to be called in to determine if Jewishness is a religion or a culture or an ethnic background, or all of the above. For goodness sake, there are “atheist Jews” so I’m on the side of it being more than just a “religion”.
been done.
Then are also certain individuals who are ashamed of their ethnicity and dedicate their lives to ingratiating themselves to an alien ethnic group they wish they belonged to, by feeding their vanity of racial supremacism. If you know what I mean 😉
A “people” is very different from race. All religions have “a people” of some kind in them. Jews are not a race unlike WASPS (White Anglo Saxon). Jews preferring Jews is not racist.
I don’t know who is accusing you of this and in what context, but the person might have been drawing on the fact that most Bangladeshis are Muslim and your name doesn’t end with Das or Sengupta or any number of Bangladeshi Hindu names. Also, “ancestry” can mean any number of things.
Regardless, that is not relevant. Religious preference is very different from racial preference. These laws listed in the post are very much about race not religion.
I would be curious to know if these laws translated to Hindus not being allowed to marry Christians or Catholics not marrying Protestants, etc., by law.
Nice.
Subtle yet sharp enough to draw blood.
A “people” is very different from race. All religions have “a people” of some kind in them. Jews are not a race unlike WASPS (White Anglo Saxon). Jews preferring Jews is not racist.
no, you’re comparing oranges to grape fruit. yes, all religions do have some “people” aspect to them. but some religions more than others. jews conceive of themselves as a nation with a specific covenant. the reform jewish movement reject nationhood in the 19th century and asserted that their identity was purely religious. this was an innovation, as jewish identity always had a strong ethnic dimension. the reform movement reversed on this in the 20th century and reasserted jewish nationhood. this is why some “ultra-orthodox” groups have weird attitudes toward intermarriage with descendants of converts.
i agree that jews wanting to marry other jews isn’t racist. but it isn’t just like catholics wanting to marry catholics. there’s an ethnic aspect to it.
I don’t know who is accusing you of this and in what context, but the person might have been drawing on the fact that most Bangladeshis are Muslim and your name doesn’t end with Das or Sengupta or any number of Bangladeshi Hindu names. Also, “ancestry” can mean any number of things.
no, no, they knew very well i’m an atheist. i’ve been around this weblog for a while (since 2004). their point was explicitly that no matter what i believed, a muslim is always a muslim.
Libtard is right that bias due to race and bias to due religion are two different biases, but they are both biases nonetheless.
Also, religion and “race” (either as a social construct or as a marker of ethnic background) are often intertwined.
Some Hindu converts are told they have to be “born into Hinduism” in order to be a “real” Hindu.
Who is “born into” Hinduism?
What about Desis who will only date/mate with other desis, regardless of religion. Where do they fit in? They are not staying within their own religion, which to you is perfectly fine to prefer, but rather, they are preferring to stay within their own ethnicity, regardless of the religion of the partner, just as long as they are “desi”.
What do you make of that?
Are they any less or more than desis who prefer desis of the same religious background?
What about culturalists? People who prefer people of similar cultural backgrounds to the exclusion of people who are not from same cultural background (regardless of race or religion?)
Where does it end?
When does it become OK or not OK to indulge in whatever preference.
And what makes one bias OK and another not OK?
What about “I’m OK, you’re OK”???
broken hearted, what does it matter if there are no laws about any of these things?
sour kraut’s anti-black and anti-non-desi-asian racism is out of control
Yes, we all know that as a bangladeshi nordicist (lol) you have a fetish for blondes. You are not alone. There are many other desis who proudly and openly lust after white women and look down on non-white females, as if this preference somehow elevates their status. You can be certain of one thing though: this woman would be considered a catch in your native Bangladesh on account of her much lighter complexion compared to the native bengalis.
prema? lol.
Whether there are laws or not, social and cultural conditioning hold sway over the hearts and minds of human beings even in today’s world.
So Libtard is conditioned to think holding a religious bias is OK in the dating/mating game, whereas holding a racial, or rather ethnic bias is not OK.
I’m just wondering why s/he thinks like that.
Yet we find more often than not, that for people with strong ethnic, cultural and religious ties, as you find amongst many South Asians, they often marry within the same of all of the above, and in addition to that – caste and class.
I’m willing to bet that they do not consider themselves racist in any way to boot. They chalk it all up to culture.
Is that OK? If so, why? If not, why not?
How does the statement, “I only date WASP” sit with you?
How does the statement, “I only date Hindu” sit with you?
What about “I only date desi (regardless of religion)”???
What color of skin comes to mind when you read, “my boyfriend is Hindu”???
Am I an asshole for finding Broken Hearted’s stream of (rhetorical?) questions hilarious?
No. You were doing that originally by comparing WASPS with Jews. Later, by conflating “a people” with race, you were taking a bunch grapefruit and apples and some oranges and labeling them all oranges.
You’re making your argument for me. What Jews “conceive of themselves” as well as concepts of “nationhood” and identity are constructions — political and otherwise. A South Asian with dark skin color might conceive of oneself, say, as a Dutch White rallying against Islamofascists, and it might be a conceit one can pull off as far as self identified constructions go, but it is still a construction and not a reality.
These LAWS discussed here are not about constructions of identity, which change with politics and need, just like modern concepts of nationhood. The laws presented above are about race. Although, of course, identity politics do feature into it, often the libruls call out racism when there is race involved.
Caveat: Broken hearted, I have no idea what your comments here are all about, and I mean that with no disrespect. The questions you are asking seem to be more along the lines of “What is the meaning of life” and I have no desire to engage with those kinds of questions.
But this I can say — I am not conditioned to think that holding a bias is OK (although we are ALL biased). I am conditioned to think that the “science” representative on this site should be more scientifically or ethnographically or sociologically precise with his language (labels of postmodern liberals included), analogies, and comparisons. I wanted clarification and wanted to offer some, for what it is worth.
No, Ananda, you’re not an a**hole (unless your last name is Jon).
They are not entirely rhetorical questions but are directly connected to my personal life where I’m trying to understand where the mindset the parents of my boyfriend are coming from in relation to our relationship. I’ve not received any clarifying or satisfying answers from them, so I’m asking here. Hence the moniker “broken hearted”.
Desi alert in the movie “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”. Just in case you haven’t seen it yet.
Complete with fake accent.
These LAWS discussed here are not about constructions of identity, which change with politics and need, just like modern concepts of nationhood. The laws presented above are about race.
yes they are constructions. e.g., someone who is 1/8 black is defined as black in some of the laws.
Ennis,
Hats off to you for including this. I just wish I’d been able to post sooner ;0)
Interesting story, my desi dad came to the states for grad school in 1963 and met my mom in Cincinnati. They eventually ended up in North Carolina. When a job change brought my dad to California, they decided to drive cross-country in their VW bug. My dad planned ahead and made hotel reservations along the way. His accent was quite smooth and American sounding so when he got rooms over the phone, no one said anything. But when they showed up at one southern hotel to use their reservation, they were turned away because the hotel didn’t allow interracial couples. See, my dad is sort of chocolatey and my mom has blonde hair and blue eyes.
Now I feel like mixed marriages are more accepted, and I appreciate the Loving couple for paving the way.
You wish. I am dark-skinned enough for my mommy to harp on it, but make no mistake–we Hindutva “fascists” are blood brothers with Vlaams Belang; weep if you want to.
This is an inherent limitation of a desi-oriented blog (so, no criticism intended)–but, damn! Go, Iranian kids, and overthrow that awful regime! I’m no fan of Mousavi, but, damn, seize power, kids–awesome!!
Please. Race in and of itself is now considered a construct, and still we see the world in terms of “desi” or brown, or black or white or Asian or Anglo-Saxon or Turko-Persian or whatever.
Let’s be real here. Judaism is a lot like Hinduism – a religion, a culture and an ethnic background all rolled into one. Hence the relunctance for widespread acceptance of “converts” in both.
Sure, an orthodox Jew and a Hindu may (or may not) applaud an African American convert, but they don’t want ’em to marry their kids!
clearly, that sorry state of affairs will only last till the to-be-historic ruling in gloving v. south carolina.
No rob, not weep. I laugh. At you. So would the members of Vlaams Belang.
Stick to your OWN kind.
As this video demonstrates, sometimes miscegenation (subjective that) is a GOOD thing. I couldnt but help echo–
People of a different stripe just do not understand your world view and the community you live in – let alone LISTEN and UNDERSTAND your emotions. But then again, if you have a FETISH for the exotic, do as you please. just mark my words, waking up to a new weirdo each day isnt exactly a GOOD thing.
From wiki regarding Rob’s blood brothers;
I’m totally onboard with multi-ethnicities adopting the languages of the countries they migrate too, and general aspects of the cultures, however, I wonder where religion would fit in?
I’m uneasy about expecting people to convert to any “state religion” or not being allowed full freedom to practice their various faiths openly. Saudi Arabia comes to mind and I don’t think that model is successful.
Is it better to be multi-ethnic and mono-cultured or mono-ethnic and multi-cultured?
They weren’t laughing when we were coordinating visits by K. Elst in Antwerp over Chimay beers. . . .
politics makes strange bedfellows, no?
Blame the Chimay.
When a man or a woman find a spouse, they may marry thinking that they will live ‘happily ever after’. They may think that nothing can disturb their happiness and that their life together will be like sunshine every day without any clouds. They may also doubt whether there will be any serious problems in their relationship because everything has gone so well so far.
However, the fact is that we live in an imperfect and fallen world in which nothing is as it was when Adam and Eve lived together in Paradise. In practice, this imperfection means that when people get together, they also bring to the marriage their own difficult personalities and especially their selfishness, which is a result of the Fall of Man and certainly the biggest reason of homes breaking up these days. If we do not want to be freed from this selfishness, it can greatly harm the relationship.
In any case, below we are going to deal with this area especially in the light of the Bible. We are going to concentrate on those common mistakes and ways of doing things of which we might be guilty because we have not seen them in ourselves, nobody has ever told us about them, or because we have not understood them in the light of the Bible. If you notice any of the issues we are going to bring up in your own life, you can be freed from them; especially if you ask for God’s help.
http://koti.phnet.fi/elohim/help_to_marriage
“It is not surprising that their son looks white since she looks like a mulatto (actually I think she looks more like an african-chinese mix). There are an estimated 30-50 million americans with part african ancestry who pass for white.”
As razib noted, her ancestry was native American and black. She generally considered herself Rappahannock Indian more than anything else. The case was odd for the 60s. Interracial couples had always been around in Virginia, legally or not. They were often socially marginalized but nobody arrested them. There is a Life Magazine spread from the 60s that I saw at somebody’s house. This kid’s parents had kept all the Life Magazines from the 50s on. The spread showed the couple and their 3 kids. Two looked white (one was blond even), and the oldest boy looked like the mom. They also showed the white grandmother (real country woman type) leaning at her doorway with the family. She said that at first she “didn’t like it” but now it was fine. She had delivered all three of her son and daughter-in-laws kids. You want to find out about life anywhere in the world, look at old magazines, especially those with a lot of pictures. Life as it happens.
This is from an article at the time of Mildred Loving’s death: “Mildred Delores Jeter’s family had lived in Caroline County, Va., for generations, as had the family of Richard Perry Loving. The area was known for friendly relations between races, even though marriages were forbidden. Many people were visibly of mixed race, with Ebony magazine reporting in 1967 that black “youngsters easily passed for white in neighboring towns.â€
Mildred’s mother was part Rappahannock Indian, and her father was part Cherokee. She preferred to think of herself as Indian rather than black.”