do interracial couples face stigma where you live

[roculist]

I used to live in south Africa, which is an extremely racist country. I myself am black and my girlfriend is white.

My girlfriend parents disowned their daughter after they found out she went black.

we now live in Canada which is a non-racial society.

to Canadians, race and ethnicity are absolutely meaningless concepts with no value in anyway whatsoever.

 

how about you guys?

[FMW]

I live in a large City in the middle of the United States that is about 50/50 black/white population.  It's really common so I doubt anyone really pays attention.  Several of my friends are mixed race couples and I don't notice anyone paying attention to that when I'm out with them, although I have heard them bring up the issue occasionally themselves.  I think their experience varies depending on where they go.  Sometimes it includes family disapproval as well.

I grew up further South in a small town and mixed race couples most definitely draw attention, and usually not positive.  

The US is definitely race conscious in general, but there are a few pockets here and there that are more neutral. 

[Woggle]

Not in public at least. I see interracial couples walking around all the time with no big deal but I bet some of these people are the same ones spouting hate online.

[ExpatInItaly]

I am Canadian, but have lived in Italy (Rome) for several years now. 

I can say that interracial couples are not common here, which is likely down to both demographics (not being a very multicultural country to begin with) and social discrimination. I live in the big city, so I do occasionally see interracial couples but know they generally elicit more stares and curiosity than in my home city of Toronto, where nobody bats an eye. I know from a couple friends in interracial relationships here  that outright hostility does exist as well, particularly in less metropolitan areas and as you move further south in the country, which has always been more socially conservative. Italy still has a quite  xenophobic streak in some areas and in some segments of society. 

However, as with many places, the younger generations are growing up differently and seem much more open to relationships of all types: interracial, same-sex, and so on.  I am hopeful they’ll continue to push for progress here. 

[snowboy91]

Australia here - most cities are a bit of a cultural melting pot in the same way a lot of major Canadian cities are.

It depends on your demographic. By and large, the majority groups (European backgrounds, anywhere between second and sixth or more) are pretty open to interracial couples. Some (especially in smaller towns) may be wary at first but get better with time. Overall though, no-one even thinks twice if they see you walking down the street.

The stigma may be greater with some minority groups, although is often cultural/religious based.

[jspice]

I’m from SA but don’t live there right now. It’s definitely still light years away from accepting interracial relationships. At best People still stare. At worst families will disown you. 
 

There’s prejudice from all races against others in the country. I think one of the worst insults levelled at my race is that Black people call us products of rape, and thus should just shut up and take a seat. 
White people call us names too and it’s awful that we still live in that world  

 I’m glad you and your girlfriend found a welcome place. 

[5x5]

I'm in Australia and I have been in interracial and intercultural sexual relationships. Of which in the late 1980s through early 1990s I had no issues with the outside world as a white man with a mixed mostly black African and little bit white French woman from England (my ex-wife). Just as I have had no problem despite being a British/Australian, being in sexual relationships with women from Spain, Israel, Italy (my now 2nd  wife), Russia, Cambodia, Japan and others etc.

[schlumpy]

The majority of attention a mixed race couple would receive is curiosity although I'm sure there are those individuals that are hostile for whatever reason they carry. 

I do take exception between those couples in love or have affection for one another and those couples who are making a show of: Look at me. I'm not a racist. 

[5x5]

4 hours ago, schlumpy said:

and those couples who are making a show of: Look at me. I'm not a racist. 

Really! Do you think that is a thing?

I've never heard of such a thing or see any point in it.

The only criteria I have  ever had for being in a sexual relationship with a woman, is she has to be someone I am attracted to and want to have sex with. Isn't that what most people are after?

[GorillaTheater]

8 hours ago, jspice said:

I’m from SA but don’t live there right now. It’s definitely still light years away from accepting interracial relationships. At best People still stare. At worst families will disown you. 
 

There’s prejudice from all races against others in the country. I think one of the worst insults levelled at my race is that Black people call us products of rape, and thus should just shut up and take a seat. 
White people call us names too and it’s awful that we still live in that world  

 I’m glad you and your girlfriend found a welcome place. 

That's interesting, something I didn't know about you (including being from South Africa in the first place). The term that at least was used is "Colored", right? That always sounded very strange to my American ears. Is the term still used? Is there a more preferred term among the mixed race community in SA?  I don't want to get all hung up on names, but evolving/changing self-identities are interesting to me.

Went to South Africa in early 2001. Loved Cape Town.

Anyways, long-time friends with a couple in which the H is White and the W Black. They get frowned at periodically, mostly by Black men and White women. But even in Texas, at least my part of it, it's not generally seen as a huge deal.

[mark clemson]

Major and reasonably diverse US city here. I'd say there's no stigma overall, but I think certainly such couples face the issue of occasional disapproval (or possibly even outright hostility) from "people who aren't racist, but just think the races shouldn't mix that way" or similar.

I knew a white woman who adopted a black baby and once in a while she'd get these very cold stares from random people, etc. Assumptions, assumptions.

As a white male, I'm aware that if, say, I were to ever date a woman of a different race (e.g. Asian, Indian, etc) while there would be no real overarching social stigma, realistically the risk would be there that her family wouldn't approve of/accept our relationship.

[Starswillshine]

I live in the south US. Overall, I dont see much of it these days. I have a lot of friends who are in interracial relationships/marriages and I dont see anyone batting their eyes. Overall, anyway. However, there still seems to be issues within families. 

[jspice]

7 hours ago, GorillaTheater said:

That's interesting, something I didn't know about you (including being from South Africa in the first place). The term that at least was used is "Colored", right? That always sounded very strange to my American ears. Is the term still used? Is there a more preferred term among the mixed race community in SA?  I don't want to get all hung up on names, but evolving/changing self-identities are interesting to me.

Went to South Africa in early 2001. Loved Cape Town.

Anyways, long-time friends with a couple in which the H is White and the W Black. They get frowned at periodically, mostly by Black men and White women. But even in Texas, at least my part of it, it's not generally seen as a huge deal.

Yep, I’m Coloured. 
It’s hard for most non-South Africans to understand and they sometimes get offended for me 😆

We don’t have any other term. We’re mixed but then the next question is “mixed with what?” And that’s impossible to answer. 
 

Some Coloured people want to be called “Black” but as you may know, “Black” in SA  is totally different to being “Coloured”. 
 

On the original topic though, many coloured people have a HUGE problem with a Coloured Person dating a Black person. About three years ago my cousin ( in his thirties) had to tell his mum ( my mum’s first cousin) he’d gotten his Black girlfriend pregnant. She was inconsolable. 
She kept it a secret and only told my mother. Every time she talked about it she started crying. 🙄

Eventually she got up the nerve to tell other family members. We’re still all about family and respecting elders and such so this pregnancy out of wedlock was bad enough 😆

He had to go and see all his aunts and uncles from both sides of the family to confess about the pregnancy AND the Black girlfriend. 
My mother didn’t really care, nor did the more open minded family members but there were some who definitely had some secret discussions about it. 
My mum likes the girlfriend better than she likes her cousin so they’re quite close .

On the other hand, my sister married a White American man and not a word has ever been uttered .

As I’ve mentioned before, he and his family are Trump voters so I’m sure there had to be some kind of discussion. She’s “mixed” but not very dark. She’s African but not Nigerian African (For example).

His father pretty much ignored her for the first few years of their marriage but recently he’s warmed up to her. 
 

My last few boyfriends have been Black American and I don’t really talk about who I’m dating but I’ve had to explain a few times too. 🙄

Crazy huh? 

 

[alphamale]

the higher the educational level and income makes it easier for interracial couples to co-exist with their neighbour

[gaius]

It's a weird dynamic in Florida.

A lot of white guys would probably not be all that accepting if their daughter brought home a black guy. But I don't think they would have a problem living next to, working with or showing respect to an interracial couple. I don't think they would stand around and gawk or stew about it behind their backs either.

It's actually more common than you think. If anyone watches 90 Day Fiance, Angela, who lives in Georgia and epitomizes the stereotype of poor white southern trailer trash has a few mixed grandchildren she's taken custody of. And it's abundantly clear from her interactions with them that there's nothing but love and acceptance there.

 

 

[vjk]

 I don't see any obvious stigma where I live in.  Interracial couples, particularly black men with white women, are very common.

[major_merrick]

I think it REALLY depends on the people you are close to.  Out in public, I think most folks know to leave others alone if they have nothing positive to contribute. 

Where I grew up (urban Midwest), there was some interracial and cross-cultural dating.  But among the Russians, Croatians, and a few others?  NOPE.  No girl of Eastern European descent that I knew would even think about dating a non-white male.  You'd definitely get disowned by your family.  Perhaps because of my upbringing, my husband is white.  I've had female partners of other ethnicities, but to me the possibility of having kids with somebody is way different. 

Where I live now, there's very, very few girls of Eastern European descent.  Most "white" girls are a mix of various backgrounds if they even know their family history.  They don't seem to care who they date, and neither does society.  Now, some Hispanic families disapprove of their children (especially daughters) dating white people.  And they can be vocal about it.  There's occasional comments about girls who prefer "white meat" (because apparently dating is like choosing part of a chicken.)  In my faith community, there's several families of mixed ethnicity.  One of my husband's friends married a girl from Ethiopia, and I don't see any negative sentiment towards their family.  Their children are the same age as my own, so they'll probably end up going to school together and being friends. 

With my husband's family, there's been an interesting mixture of reactions.  My MIL is fairly prejudiced, but her prejudices make no sense.  She has no problems with my husband's two Hispanic wives.  She's more-or-less OK with the Asian girl, and what issues they have are personality-related rather than cultural.  But me?  Even though I'm white, I'm the wrong kind of white.  She rarely misses a chance to be insulting of my ethnicity and that of my children.  And if she sees a couple in public that she disapproves of, she'll quietly make snide comments about it.  Out in public, I've noticed that not all people see our family with approval.  Older Hispanic women will occasionally stare and whisper to each other.  The older couple who lives across the road from my inlaws told them years ago that they were surprised that a "good Mexican girl" married my husband.  IDK if that was intended to be racial, or directed more at the fact that my husband has multiple partners. 

[Prudence V]

There was one “interracial” couple in this village - they’ve since split up and both moved away. This is not a part of the world black people feel at home. One of my (older) neighbours recounted how another neighbour’s daughter hard to wait until her grandmother died to marry, as her grandmother would never accept her marrying a black person. Luckily the university where I work it’s the opposite - very diverse, probably mostly South Asian, community, and white working class. I feel much more at home in that kind of place. 

[Lucy256]

Australia here - I‘m Caucasian and was in a long term relationship with an Aboriginal Australian man. I would say we definitely faced some stigma. It was very rarely overt, but more like strange unsolicited comments, or ultra-personal questions that people wouldn’t dream of asking a non-interracial couple. The fact that we were different races was an ever present undercurrent when people spoke to us about our relationship. 

Once a woman in a shop just said to my boyfriend that we’d have beautiful babies, because my ‘whiteness’ would balance out their features.... Still speechless 

That relationship really opened my eyes to the fact that if you are an Indigenous Australia, you are constantly reminded you are ‘different’ all day everyday by people being weird and inappropriate and sometimes outright racist. It made me realise that there is a lot more racism in Australia but because it’s not directed at me, I hadn’t seen it so much before. 

[maintainsub]

We have one interracial couple here in the Philippines, the girl was an actress with German decent and she fell in love and married to a native filipino decent. They've been an all-talk before and just like other interracial couples that went into news before. They've been widely accepted. I found them as a cute couple by the way, that they choose to love someone (especially the girl) by trusting her heart.

[Ellener]

In Houston Texas USA mixed race marriage and family is very common going back decades now. 

On 8/27/2020 at 4:08 AM, schlumpy said:

I do take exception between those couples in love or have affection for one another and those couples who are making a show of: Look at me. I'm not a racist. 

What exactly is that supposed to mean?

I think 2020 has shown that 'look at me, I'm not a racist' is a position a large majority of American people wanted to clearly display, just because they are not personally affected does not mean they are not personally concerned.

For people outside the US the issue of inter-racial marriage was decided in court in 1967-  Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court case that voided state laws restricting interracial marriage. The 14th amendment to the US Constitution states 

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Historically jurisdictions did just that and tried to create de facto racist norms which are now being rejected entirely once and for all. Bigotry is retrograde and unnecessary.

That one little phrase in the US Constitution means I can thus you can- love and marry any other adult legally within the spirit of the law here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Watercolors]

It all boils down to demographics of the city and state. Some cities are more interracial than others. According to: https://www.beyondblackwhite.com/interracial-friendly-states-city-city-county-county/
 

Quote

 

The top interracial dating countries are:

Brazil

Australia

America

United Kingdom

Canada

According to Pew Research, more and more American adults say that interracial unions are good for society. 10% of Americans say that they will oppose a union with someone of another race – and that’s a big drop from the 31% who took that stand in 2000.

14% of non-blacks say they’ll oppose a union with a black person, a drop from the 63% who had that stance in 1990. As of 2015, nearly 3 in 10 (29%) Asian newlyweds were married to someone of a different race or ethnicity.

One of the most dramatic increases is the intermarriage rate of blacks and whites. As of 2015, we had 18% blacks married to whites, a growth of 13% from 1980. 11% of whites are married to blacks, a growth of 7% from 1980.

Best places for interracial dating:

Washington

Virginia

Michigan

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Georgia

Texas

New York

Hawaii

Nevada

Arizona

Arkansas

Utah

California

North Carolina

Florida

Alabama

Alaska

Worst places for interracial dating:

Boston

South of 8 Mile in Michigan

Tucson

Mississippi

 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Watercolors

[Uruktopi]

No stigma at all 

Here and since our origins as a nation we are in a way or another from world wide mixed origins

Edited October 14, 2020 by Uruktopi

[TheFront]

On 8/27/2020 at 11:11 AM, mark clemson said:

Major and reasonably diverse US city here. I'd say there's no stigma overall, but I think certainly such couples face the issue of occasional disapproval (or possibly even outright hostility) from "people who aren't racist, but just think the races shouldn't mix that way" or similar.

I knew a white woman who adopted a black baby and once in a while she'd get these very cold stares from random people, etc. Assumptions, assumptions.

As a white male, I'm aware that if, say, I were to ever date a woman of a different race (e.g. Asian, Indian, etc) while there would be no real overarching social stigma, realistically the risk would be there that her family wouldn't approve of/accept our relationship.

Indian is not a race its a nationality 

[mark clemson]

Technically true @TheFront.   Do you think that means Indians never face prejudice based on the color of their skin (for many of them) and/or their nationality?

I've heard "racist" terms (I guess technically "prejudicial" terms) specifically to designate people of Indian descent. (One starts with a C, but I won't write it here). "Slavic" isn't a race either, but I've seen people who felt there was prejudice against them for being of slavic origin.

So, even though Indian is not a race, I think the point applies.

Edited October 16, 2020 by mark clemson