To think its sad in 2012

[Mrbojangles1]

To think this is still a issue in 2012 my mil was very opssed to me and my oh who is white we had many issue to do with this i just think its very sad.

And i do feel that many people would like their son or daugter to marry /date somone of the same race

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184351/Parents-jailed-beating-daughter-17-having-black-boyfriend.html

But the good thing is the daughetr did not hold these vile views dispite her parents best efforts

Krumbum that always makes me laugh the lady down my raod always gose on how she not attracted to black men and could never date one but finds ryhn giggs very sexy and would love to have 30 minutes alone with him i am never sure weather i should tell her the bad news

I also have a mate who is half asisn but looks white and had lost serval boyfirends who assumed she was white and droppped her sharpish when she took them hime and relsied she was mixed raced

I think these days espially in london you can never tell what race somone is just by looking at them

Willsmith :)

He's lovely

I think i have dated all diffrent races and i can tell you theirs not much diffrence all lazy sod who dont pick up their socks

I doubt very much whether we have something "deeply ingrained to be attracted to our own skin colour" given that the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK is dual heritage!

It's a very sad story, but not really surprising I think. A lot of issues that aren't being properly recognised and discussed and until then can't be dealt with.

GhostShip - it's far more socially ingrained than genetically. Look at children's media, stories and books and pretty much all couples look the same to each other. Race is an ever changing social contract that has a massive impact on interactions, but doesn't have a genetic basis (people of two different races can have more genetically in common than two people of the same race).

Can we not invoke strange colours to infer people of different races. That's pretty offensive. I know it's trying to invoke colour-blind considerations, but it's a problem being compared to a purple person (and as colour blind ideology as a social theory has been consistently proven increase racial problems not improve them I'm surprised it's still being used)

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with my child being with a person of a different race though would want my child to understand being with that person doesn't mean they understand the world view and problems that they face or feel they can speak for that group. I have enough problems discussing problem with my DH and having him understand and frustration at his family trying to talk for me and I'm a white passing (mixed) immigrant which causes far fewer problems.

I think mixed race relationships are much easier and more common these days than they were, but something still lingers.

I am from a mixed race family, and it was very common in the early 80s when out and about with my Mum for people to not twig that we were related - at the supermarket they wouldn't ring up goods I'd put on the conveyor belt next to my Mum's because they thought I wasn't with her.

I'm in a mixed race relationship myself, and haven't had any problems or comments in this country, though people have eyed us disapprovingly when on holiday. But, at my DS's last weigh in with the HV she asked whether I was his Mum or not .

But, the point I came on to make was, I don't really understand why people think life is more difficult/complicated in a mixed race relationship (DH's Mum made the same point when we first got together, and thought our children would have things harder). It's not like that at all, or at least not in my experience. Do people who marry within their own races really marry people whose backgrounds are identical to their own? Unless you marry someone from your town there are always going to be differences. The biggest difference between me and DH isn't race, it's country bumpkin vs city slicker.

Sorry this is long. I could go on about this all day...

I'd rather my DDs find a good person regardless of race or gender than a racist or homophobic person of the same race to share their life with.

Disclaimer. I do know that not all people of the same race as mine are racist.

Moxxie i agree 100% the biggest hill me and my oh had to climb was our class upper class vs working class our race has never been a issue for us more so sadly for other people

goodpharisee oh get a grip. I was expressing how it doesn't matter what colour person is, I didn't mean it offensively at all. If you chose to take it that way then more fool you. I'll have a rainbow coloured person if they make me happy.

And a link to 'stuff white people do'. Now thats pretty bloody offensive.

And it's not something white people solely say either.

I had an Asian boyfriend at uni whose family had a massive problem with the fact that I was white. His sisters were particularly unpleasant. My own family, from a small, mainly white Welsh village couldn't have cared less who I brought home so long as I was happy.

Moxxie, I often get asked if I'm DS's mummy, I thought that was quite common?

Cololur would not bother me on jot . It would however hugely bother me if my dd were to get involved with a strict Muslim man as I think the cultural differences might be too great.

Tinsie - perhaps I'm just sensitive then, but I was in the middle of taking his nappy off and plonking him on the scales, so reasonable to assume that I'm his Mum I thought. It was the first time I've been asked.

Moxxie, that's probably because it's often not mum who takes a child to be weighed. Sometimes it's the nanny or childminder because mum is working.

She could have asked if you were the grandmother

I've been racially attacked because I'm white. My dad was in the army and stationed abroad a lot. I had stones thrown at me in one Middle East country by some local teenage boys.
I also got beaten up in an English school because I was born in Germany and they lost the war
Which all goes to show that racial prejudice is based on ignorance and thugs will be thugs for the least excuse!

Awful! I don't mind whether my DD goes out with someone black, white, male or female (she's 18m so that's a bit of a way off!) - as long as they treat her with courtesy, respect and kindness, and as long as she is happy in the relationship.

A close friend of mine had older parents (she was born when they were in their 40's, and they grew up in the 1940's), who didn't so much as twitch when she started dating (and later married) a black man. I believe that they were able to see beyond the colour of someone's skin (possibly harder for people of their background/generation) and appreciate his true worth.

Tanith - there would have been hell to pay!

I must be sensitive about it all. I just remember having to regularly "convince" people that my Mum was mine as a child!

Thinking about it all has reminded me of a time at school, must have been about 13, doing genetics in biology and the teacher asking everyone in the class what colour their parents' eyes were and then looking at their eyes - dominant and recessive genes etc. She didn't ask me as she assumed that both my parents would have brown eyes (they don't). Just skipped over me without saying anything and explained when I asked why. Mixed race relationships were unexpected I suppose. Also remember my PE teacher talking about me as "half caste" when she thought I couldn't hear...

On the other hand I remember my English teacher telling the class that mixed race children/people are often more attractive. Not sure that's true, but put a smile on my face!

I'm a teacher and a few years ago I told my class I was getting married, we chatted about it and it came up that DH is asian. One girl who was mixed race said to me 'Yay, mixed-race babies Miss!'.
The rest of the kids think it's weird and sort of a novelty that DH is asian. Some can barely understand the concept of mixed raceness. There was a conversation about whether my baby was 'Indian because his dad is Indian'. These kids are in secondary school btw and live in commuter belt Surrey.
I think the more multi cultural society is, the less ignorance there is about this.

GhostShip Can you get a grip that whether one intends to be hurtful doesn't change how hurtful it is? That a person can intend nothing and their actions and words still cause harm? Here's a more neutrally named website that says the same thing but I took the first link google gave me because the content is the same. It's a well worn saying that causes harm not because people intend to do so but because it's part of the colour-blind doctrine - which was also well intended but has caused a lot of problems because ignoring a part of a person means ignoring how that part of a person causes their reality to be different and ignores how our communal reality and individual reality in today's society is still greatly affected by what race we are perceived to be. as explained very well in music there by Jason Chu. We can't change what we don't first recognise.

Just saying I read that whole of the "what white people do" link

I can't say anymore because whatever I say won't be right and will likely be taken out of context. And if I can't talk for fear of offending someone, then I don't see how that facilitates an open honest debate? No wonder some people resort to mealy mouthed trivialities in an attenpt to avoid offence. Which then causes more offence