Talkin' 'Bout Miscegenation

In the long and tortured racial history of America, there have been few more tortured subjects than inter-racial sex. From earliest times, when Thomas Jefferson had an illicit love affair with a slave, the subject has been oddly taboo. Fear of black male sexuality - and white men's sexual insecurity in comparison - powered some of the most racist thuggery of the past. Many lynchings of black men were occasioned by claims of sex with white women, and formal laws banning inter-racial marriage date back to the 1660s. In fact, it wasn't until 1967 - a mere thirty-five years ago - that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the wonderfully named case Loving vs Virginia, struck down such miscegenation bans throughout the United States. Thirty five years out of over three hundred is not a long time.

And the bans on such marriages were not arid or legal affairs. They became, in some respects, the most powerful of all laws maintaining white supremacy in the United States. To give a flavor of the feelings aroused by such matters, here's part of the Tennessee state supreme court's judgment in the late nineteenth century, refusing to recognize a marriage between a white man and a black woman. If such a marriage were allowed to stand, the court reasoned, "we might have in Tennessee the father living with his daughter, the son with the mother, the brother with his sister, in lawful wedlock... the Turk or the Mohammedan, with his numerous wives, may establish his harem at the doors of the capitol, and we are without remedy. Yet none of these are more revolting, more to be avoided, or more unnatural than the case before us."

There you have it: worse than incest or polygamy. To some early Americans, inter-racial marriage was even worse than bestiality. And the marriage ban also lay behind many of the other institutions of American apartheid. I remember talking to the Southern father of a friend of mine who had grown up in the 1960s and attended the first integrated school in his small Southern town. I asked his father why there was such resistance to integration: "Well," he replied, "it was a mixture of things. Politics - and worrying about your children's education and so on. But the thing people were most worried about was not integrating the schools as such - or the quality of the education ... They were worried that once they started integrating the schools, the kids would get to know one another better; and then maybe some of them would get married. That's what they were really worried about." No wonder the U.S. military and schools were integrated and public segregation abolished long before the marriage taboo fell.

All that is a preamble to some terrific news. After decades of very modest rates of inter-racial marriage in America, the proportion of black women marrying white men has just experienced a dramatic jump. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported last week that, after an annual rate of 26,000 such marriages a year in 1960 and a stable 27,000 in 1980, the number of marriages between black women and white men soared to 80,000 in 2000. This coincides with other encouraging data from teenage black women as well: their pregnancy rates have just hit their lowest level since 1976. And in the latest survey of sexual activity among high-schoolers, the percentage of black teens saying they'd had sex in the last three months dropped from 50 to 40 percent in one year. Whites saw a much smaller decline - from 35 to 32 percent, while Hispanics saw a small rise to 35 percent.

Slowly but surely, black American women are making it. At least that's one plausible explanation for the sudden jump in inter-racial marriage. Women make up over 60 percent of black college degrees. They have more self-confidence, more independence and decreasingly see themselves as trapped in any particular identity, or required because of their skin color to marry one particular race rather than another. The most obvious examples of black female success are Oprah Winfrey - one of the most accomplished business executives around - and Condi Rice, arguably the most powerful woman in the history of American foreign policy (and, yes, I'm including Madeleine Albright in that list). In popular culture, the movies are also beginning to feature more black women dating white men: Halle Berry just won an Oscar for her role dating a white man in "Monster's Ball," and Angela Bassett was Robert de Niro's girlfriend in "The Score."

The reasons for the racial break-out are hard to nail down. Part of it may well be the impact of three decades of affirmative action in which black women were increasingly integrated into white work-settings. Interaction on the job led to dates which led to relationships. Then there's the effect of welfare reform. Since the reform took national effect in 1996 - against fierce resistance from the left - black women have seen their incomes increase, their pregnancy rates decline, and their family structures solidify. A woman with a job and self-confidence is far more likely to take the risk of dating across the racial barrier than someone trapped in the culture of welfare dependency. These women, unsurprisingly, are also more attractive to men of all races.

Sadly, the new numbers may also be a function of the dearth of black men to date. With much of the young black male population in jail or in some part of the criminal justice system, there's a huge surplus of datable black women. The remaining black men, according to many black women, know they can pick and choose and enjoy the game itself. One black woman told the Atlanta paper, "I've just found that there is a lack of appreciation of black women in Atlanta. We come a dime a dozen here. I haven't found any black men trying to take me to the museum. I wish they would make an effort other than, 'Let's go and have a drink' or 'Let's go to the Red Lobster for all-you-can-eat crab legs on Monday.'" Into that demographic gap, white men have jumped.

But the real promise lies in the future. If the rate of inter-racial marriage increases, the next generation may well not identify as "black" or "white" at all. That's a real fillip. Miscegenation has always been the ultimate solution to America's racial divisions. It blurs distinctions in the only way in which history can be definitively left behind. It was an interesting coincidence that the week in which the Atlanta Constitution ran its article on inter-racial marriage, a new proposition made it onto California's ballot in November. It's called the Racial Privacy Initiative, and it would forbid the government from asking any citizens about their racial identity. It's an attempt to accelerate the slow decline of fixed racial categories in a new and brownish America. And it captures a growing cultural mood. The comedian Chris Rock has noted that things are really changing in America when the best rapper is white and the best golfer is black. But what's more salient is that neither Eminem nor Tiger Woods sees himself as racially defined or restricted. That's the future. And black women are now helping to bring it about.

If the rate of inter-racial marriage increases, the next generation may well not identify as "black" or "white" at all. That's a real fillip. Miscegenation has always been the ultimate solution to America's racial divisions. It blurs distinctions in the only way in which history can be definitively left behind.

This is the money idea behind the article, and why this trend is crucial for the prospects of conservative truths making headway in minority communities.

Pardon me if I don't particularly appreciate the Brits telling the Americans anything about race relations. They are guilty of VAST ethnic cleansing against the Scots and the Irish. Brits can kiss my $%$%!

Oh, yeah, the article starts out assuming that TJ was the father of Hemmings children...not proven IMHO.

uh, interracial marriage was not always illegal. it was not uncommon in the deep south prior to the civil war. It was the Democrats who outlawed it. It was the democrats who passed segregation laws that forbade a white woman from riding in the same trian car as her black husband. It was the democrats who made all these seperate but equal laws.

this is according to the Smithsonian.

It's been pretty well documented that it is quite improbable that Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemmings. So Sullivan is off track right there.

As long as there are race panderers, there will always be 'black' and 'white' unfortunately. What will come to define 'black' may be more 'white' superficially than it is now...but rest assured, the good race panderers won't let a good mulatto child go 'unmolested' in their desire to keep their power unabated.

(I wish that statement were true tho...why can't we just be an 'American' race?)

I did some part-time Census work the past census.

I had many people refuse to give a race and told me to put "American."

Pretty much every last one of them was black.

"Condi Rice, arguably the most powerful woman in the history of American foreign policy (and, yes, I'm including Madeleine Albright in that list"

And even more clearly the most intelligent!

It's been pretty well documented that it is quite improbable that Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemmings. So Sullivan is off track right there.

Yeah, I'm surprised he missed that one. Last I heard (in NRO months ago) the most anyone could say is that someone related to Jefferson (and there were plenty of them around the plantation) fathered children by Hemmings.

"Slowly but surely, black American women are making it."

Black American women have always been the anchor of the families and have strongly held on to black culture. In the 60's you would seldom see a white man and a black woman. The reverse was very common white woman and black man.

Black women are more conservative than men and hold some pretty strong family values. I have seen many black women with white men lately and it show that their attitudes' are changing. Yes, I guess we all be brown in 100 years.

Pardon me if I don't particularly appreciate the Brits telling the Americans anything about race relations.

I believe Sullivan is an American citizen. He only publishes in a British paper.

it was not uncommon in the deep south prior to the civil war

If by "not uncommon" you mean "common" I'm surprised. Certainly it happened, but I've never heard that it was "common" or that it was condoned.

Black women are more conservative than men and hold some pretty strong family values.

That ties back to the church in and of itself, which points to what I've said repeatedly: that one of the keys to black conservatism and the elimination of professional black victimhood lies in the black church, just as soon as we can get rid of the "chicken eatin' poverty pimps" masquerading as preachers and get men of God back into the pulpit.

As long as there are race panderers, there will always be 'black' and 'white' unfortunately.

I guess I'm not as fatalistic as you are. Certainly the concepts will continue to hold on among some. But I don't think we have to assume that even as soon as a generation from now the majority of Americans will think in terms of racial identity. And a big part of the equation will be the public/community role played by the children of interracial relationships.

Black women are more conservative than men and hold some pretty strong family values.

I think this is true. And the more influence conservative black women wield, the better the prospects for breaking the liberal stranglehold on black communities.

We'll see...I hope you're correct. I personally don't care what color my descendants are, I just want them to be FREE and self sufficient, not on anybody's plantation.

Well, I hope the trend continues. If only for the aesthetic value. The most beautiful people I have seen are of mixed ancestry.

I'm reminded of an old Ray Bradbury story wherein this man could dream things into reality, and to cure racism, he dreamt everybody into the same skin shade of gray.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.