I can’t be racist, I have interracial sex!
CVK
One of the big myths out there is the idea that interracial relationships are inherently good for ending racism. We’ve all heard the utopian notions that “we should keep mixing and soon we’ll all be mixed and there will be no more racism!”
The problem with this idea is that it assumes interracial couples and mixed race people themselves cannot be racist. And of course, we all know that’s not true. Check out former Nebraska Senator John DeCamp’s description of his Vietnamese wife as a “war trophy” for just one example.
As I wrote in a post last year, just because you sleep with/live with/marry/date someone of another race doesn’t make you automatically not racist. After all, slave masters had no problem maintaining their racist beliefs against blacks while raping their slaves and fathering mixed children with them. Neither did Strom Thurmond. And all you have to do is read Susan Crain Bakos’s article to see that sex doesn’t cancel out racism. If anything, sex and intimacy have always been intricately intertwined with oppression.
But people continue to use their interracial relationships or their mixed race children as proof that they can’t possibly be racist. We’ve documented quite a few cases of this before on Mixed Media Watch:
June 2005: Barry Bonds defends himself against allegations of racism by using his white wife as evidence that he doesn’t hate white people- December 2005: Officer Andrew “Drew” Cohen of the San Francisco police department was disciplined for producing an in-house video that was full of racist and sexist stereotypes. His response?“I’m a liberal Berkeley Jew with two biracial children” and therefore “the notion I’m racist is ridiculous.”
In the last few weeks I’ve heard about a few more cases of this defense.
A woman named Barbara Harris in Oregon is head of Project Prevention, a foundation that offers $300 to drug users willing to be sterilized or use long-term birth control. Critics have called the program a form of modern-day eugenics. Her response?
“My critics say I’m a racist,” said Harris, who is white. “Well, my husband’s black, my six boys are biracial and I’m ‘Mom’ to four African American kids. I’m the only white face in my household,” she said.
But the best story so far comes from Westchester, NY (thanks to Tariq for this!) about a man named Phillip Grant, who has been charged with the murder of a white woman. Grant confessed to the murder on tape, claiming he was afraid of white people and that he hated them.
During the trial, his defense lawyer attempted to prove that his client was not racist by introducing in court evidence that Grant had a sexual relationship with another white woman: Evidence of the relationship “would belie the truth of any pattern of racism,” according to the lawyer.
gatamala wrote:
I wonder how the significant others feel about being used that way…..
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 7:31 am ¶
bertie wrote:
Lets not forget that the cop who sodomized Abner Louima (I think his name was Volpe) had a black girlfriend. GQ interviewed her about a year ago–she also drank the koolaid, because she believed the fact that they had dated was proof that the attack was not racially motivated–although she did come across as conflicted on this point.
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 9:47 am ¶
site admin wrote:
Wow bertie, I didn’t know that! –CVK
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 10:18 am ¶
justin wrote:
One the skin heads that I worked with when I refer to him as a Skin head it’s a hyperbole. He was a skinhead in the past and a drug addict and a homosexual and a dozen other things. He thinks that he is or thought that he was reformed, I chose not to stay in touch with him. His road to redemption involved travelling around Asia shooting opium and having degrading sex with prostitutes. This guy had issues and a very complicated life but I totally hated him. He told me that the old man who hired me was gay. I was a trainee/apprentice and my paranoia made me feel like I was being groomed to be some kind of lady boy for these people. I probably could have worked with them for longer if I felt like they wanted me for my mind.
He was close to 50 and he had a girlfriend who was my age, they made ends meet buy taking in Asian home stay students. I had to listen to all his creepy fantasies. Back then I was leaving messages on MMW almost every day.
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 10:37 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
not racially motivated?? Did she have any problems w/ the fact that her main squeeze sodimized a man w/ a broken plunger?
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 10:57 am ¶
bertie wrote:
I believe several of the cops indicted for the whole affair were involved with women of color (Puerto Rican, Black, etc) and this was used by defense counsel as proof that the attack was not a hate crime (which would have meant a tougher sentence). But the black woman engaged to Volpe–the cop who actually did the sodomizing–was the only one to publically support her man–as far as I can remember.
It must be too hard a concept for most folks to understand that there is no bright line deliniating racist from non-racist. Its easy to just think of racist as red-necks who walk around in bed sheets looking to burn crosses. It lets most folks off the hook for exploring their own thoughts on race or their complicity in a system that does value folks differently based on race. Racism itself is illogical–so its not so hard to see that someone could like an individual from another race (thinking this person is the exception) and hate the race generally. And thats not even delving into the issue of how sexual subjugation of women of other races is completely consistent with most racist thinking.
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 11:00 am ¶
eric wrote:
If I seriously had a dollar for every guy I met at college who justified their racist comments by sayign “hey, I’ve f*@#ed a before” , I wouldn’t have all these Sallie Mae loans. Not surprising in the least.
excuse the harsh bleeped out language.
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 1:02 pm ¶
brad wrote:
Justin, sorry about your troubles. Your ex-colleague sounds really creepy in a sexual harrassment kind of way.
Last year, I visited Frank Sweet’s One Drop Rule site and got to listen (i.e. read) his comments about how racism would disappear throught the magic of interracial sex derived children. His thesis, which in this case came from interracial marriage in Britain, was that how can one hate a race when a member of one’s family is of that race. Hmmm: And Cain slew Abel! Family members have been hating and killing each other from the beginning of recorded history. Brazil and much of Latin America is very mixed but racism is alive and well there. In some families, members criticize each other for being too dark or too Indigenous or African looking. As long as the dominant thinking in a country admires one race over another, racist thoughts will permeate throughout society.
That said, sex in general does not confer respect for one’s sexual partner. If that were the case, why would sexism be so alive throughout the world? Even when someone marries a person of another race, there’s always the mental gymnastics that results in spouse being an exception to the rule nestled alongside the thought that any children will marry the “correct” race.
Posted 21 Jul 2006 at 7:00 pm ¶
Ailurophile wrote:
With those couple of exceptions (Susan whatsit, Barbara Harris) and judging by the comments in this thread it’s mostly men who do this, it appears. Interesting. Though not surprising.
Posted 22 Jul 2006 at 10:30 am ¶
Ben wrote:
I think the problem lies with the accusation itself.
The conception of racism as a personal characteristic (”You are racist”) allows for the logically tenable defense that, “A racist is somebody who hates all people of that race. There is at least one person of that race whom I do not hate. Therefore I am not a racist.”
Better, I think, to criticize the action(s) as racist (”That was racist”) and avoid the personal attribution entirely. “There is at least one person of that race whom I do not hate” does not logically exclude the possibility that one may have committed a racist act against another member of that race.
Posted 23 Jul 2006 at 11:59 pm ¶
S wrote:
That interracial “proof” is a bunch of crap. I know PLENTY of white guys who are only dating Mexican women for sexual purposes while secretly making jokes about breaking up with them, but keepping them as low paid sex servants like their illegal cousins.
I had a million white friends while growing up. That did not stop me from calling a woman a cracker after she followed me around a store. Didn’t stop me from picking an all black dance team and not inviting any of the white girls.
Air-brushed dance shirt: $22.
Mixed tape for dance rehearsal: $8
Admitting that you could possibly be racist against the very race of your 1st boyfriend and bestfriend: PRICELESS!
Posted 24 Jul 2006 at 1:35 pm ¶