Is Intermarriage a Form of Rebellion? « The Thinking Housewife

Is Intermarriage a Form of Rebellion?

October 1, 2009

Continuing the discussion on marriage and race, Hannon writes:

While it is difficult to resist the broad front opened by Ellen and Karen, I would like to offer a few thoughts on miscegenation. I think it is just as you say– the germane question is not so much to do with the principle of the thing, but rather with the long view taken by society toward this issue. In principle the marriage between any man and woman should not attract scorn or derision simply because their races are different.

However, I suspect in this age there is the risk, for society as well as the couple, that in addition to obvious racial dissimilarities, important cultural or class signals are ignored at the peril of all concerned. Somehow it strikes me as similar to the faddish phenomenon of “experimental” lesbianism; surely there are elements of rebellion in all of these relationships. Combined with cultural incongruities and class barriers such a union is recipe for a rocky marriage.

There are gradations of harmoniousness of course. A white male brought up without religious tradition (but not atheist) who marries an Hispanic woman with a faint religious background, both from middle class or lower middle class families, can be suited in their like-minded approach to life. If the woman is past (safe) child-bearing age, things will be easier in certain ways. What you said about the age-old attraction between races I think is very true. It would be interesting to study this aspect in more detail.

On a related note, and I hope you will not think this awful and sexist, a friend and I were talking one day about the “ideal mixture” of races for feminine beauty. Do women ever entertain such thoughts about hypothetical males? I guess the idea is awful and sexist right off the bat. He is a Philippino and as I recall the ideal hypothetical mixture we arrived at involved all major races and most heavily favored Asians. This may sound trivial or puerile (it was some years ago) but it raises interesting questions about miscegenation in, e.g., Latin America and the Philippines, both in kind an extent.

Whether “mixed” in some sense or not, in my experience it is a truism that the lighter skinned members of any group are more favored in general in their respective societies. This goes for Arabs (cf. the contempt of Saudis for darker-skinned Yemenis), blacks (just turn on your TV) or Hispanics (elite classes attach importance to ties to Spanish blood and non-mestizo appearance). These conditions have everything to do with a sort of infra-ethnic mixing of people with different skin lightness or darkness, and of course marriage.

Somehow I doubt that mixed race marriages will spread like wildfire in the West, even in liberal bastions such as the major coastal metropolises. In fact, they may act as a subconscious warning signal in many communities. Only when people think they are losing something worth protecting will they act to preserve it.

Laura writes:

Regarding Hannon’s point that some of these unions represent a deliberate rejection of one’s own culture, I do think more working-class white women are marrying black men as a form of rebellion. The type of woman I see who does this is often someone who appears to have had difficult and unruly teenage years. It’s an interesting question and I could only hazard opinions.

Hannon says, “In principle the marriage between any man and woman should not attract scorn or derision simply because their races are different.”

Again, I think this is said from a Caucasian perspective. Black women and Asian men who see potential partners marrying whites do not as readily see this principle. The movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was in many ways a sensitive exploration of the issue. Even the mothers in the movie, who believe love is everything, still understand why the fathers object. It is interesting that the black father is the one who is most upset by the whole thing. He is proven to be an unenlightened idiot by his cosmopolitan son, who is played by Sidney Poitier, but his view point is not summarily dismissed. This movie could never be made today as such a frank discussion of the matter is considered racist.

Hannon’s point about the attractiveness of Asian women to white men is not sexist. It simply is what it is. It’s only rude to say these things in the company of women. In normal social situations, women generally don’t care to hear who men find more or less attractive. This appeal of Asian women, high levels of immigration and the end of social disapproval have led to a dramatic increase in marriages with white men and it will be interesting in the years ahead to hear from their children and to see how they choose partners.

Hannon is right these marriages are not spreading like wildfire unless one looks at it in relation to yesteryear when they were a small fraction of what they are today. Regardless of whether they are likely to grow even more dramatically (it seems likely they will), I think they do present complications for the identity of children and silently promote a new type of being: the global citizen who belongs everywhere. That said, I repeat my earlier point. Many interracial couples have formed stable and happy families.

Rose writes:

There may be a pragmatic reason for the growth of interracial marriages, at least in the form of black male/white female pairings. I’m afraid that one of my cousins became the teenage mother of a mixed race child after multiple affairs exclusively with black boys. I have been told that the reason she only dated blacks was that she is overweight and that they are the only ones to pay her any attention. Combining the fact that thinness is in general less prized in the black community than the culture at large with that that black men will overlook many flaws for the status symbol of a white paramour, unattractive white women can have many handsome black suitors, men who would be “out of their league” physically if they were white.

Karen responds:

“Ella argues that America’s color-blindness combined with Judeo-Christian values make it resilient and able to inspire the loyalty and devotion of its citizens. She says Karen’s forecast of pending American collapse is alarmist and insulting.”

America and the Soviet Union have similarities. Both are states founded on ideologies rather than ethnicity. Both were also founded upon Judeo- Christian values, the bedrock of Western civilisation. America’s founding fathers aimed for the USA to remain an ethnic European country. However it has not remained so. The prevailing ideology of Liberalism, a form of Marxism, has transformed America ethnically, socially, religiously and culturally. The inherent aim of Liberalism is, like Communism, the creation of a world government and a new type of citizen, the global person (homo globalis). Such a system is run by unelected oligarchs and the remainder of the population are oppressed and impoverished proletariat.

Anyone advocating colour blindness as a strength, source of resilience and inspiration for loyalty is supporting this toxic ideology. If we analyse colour blindness and what it implies we can agree that people have colour and as we are not born colour blind, the practicing of colour blindness requires a deliberate and repeated distortion of the mind’s thinking process. It requires the development and maintenance of a delusional state, a suppression of the realistic images projected by the eyes on to the cerebral cortex and hence a false consciousness. As this is a totally unnatural process, it must be continually reinforced and practiced, assisted by soft totalitarianism (political correctness) and eventually by hard totalitarianism. No person, people or nation can survive for a significant length of time in such an unrealistic state. Thus America’s colour blindness is not a strength but a weakness.

Van Wijk writes:

You wrote: “Regardless of whether they are likely to grow even more dramatically (it seems likely they will), I think they do present complications for the identity of children and silently promote a new type of being: the global citizen who belongs everywhere.”

Mixed-race children almost always identify with their non-white heritage and seek to distance themselves from their white heritage. Look at Obama. The children of the black man – white woman coupling will grow up despising whites and white culture, just as he despises the whiteness within himself. He will be forever trying to convince himself and others that he is an authentic black man. Look around and you see that what is considered “authentic” in the black community is utterly antithetical to Western civilization. The son will pay for the sins of the father.

You seem to think that miscegenation is perfectly natural, but as humans do we not avoid some things that come naturally if we know that they are poisonous? The anything-goes, do-what-feels-good attitude is a symptom of a decadent society, and ours is already in an advanced state of decay.

Many white men will see a white woman walking down the street with a black man and feel a pit of revulsion in their stomachs. This is not something to to apologize for. It is the visceral reaction of a man who wants his people to survive. Miscegenation is harmful, it is particularly disastrous for Caucasians, and those who partake in it should be made to feel shame for their selfishness.

Laura writes:

I think miscegenation is natural given the absence of any disapproval of it.

Do you think white men feel the same revulsion when they see a white man with an Asian woman?

Van Wijk writes:

The short answer is No. While I certainly disapprove of it, I do not get the same visceral reaction. This may be because when I look at other white males I don’t feel any sort of protective instinct, but I do when I look at white women. And a white woman with a black man is a betrayal an order of magnitude greater than a white man with an Asian woman.

Is this because it’s possible for a male to sire a great many children with a great many different women, while a woman can only bear a few? Is it because I see the woman as having been kidnapped by a foreign tribe? I don’t know. I don’t know where the reaction comes from. What I can say is that it is the hardest of hard-wiring. I feel it in every cell.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Van Wijk writes, in regard to this post and a later one about a black man and white woman kissing:

If that had been a white man and an Asian/Black/Hispanic woman kissing, I think the reaction would be far less heated.

Modern men with conservative instincts are simply bewildered on many fronts. They know that saying what I’ve said in public will lose them their livelihoods. But the gut reaction will never go away. And that is reason for hope.

As a brief aside, Karen said “America and the Soviet Union have similarities. Both are states founded on ideologies rather than ethnicity.”

This is not strictly true. The United States has never been the Proposition Nation that Ella seems to believe in. While the colonists did cut ties with the tyrannical monarch and found a nation based on the principles of Life, Liberty, and Property, this kind of nation could only be created and maintained by Western white people. Not Russians nor Chinese, Mexicans, Nigerians, Mongolians, Indians, nor Afghans could have created the United States of America. And neither can they maintain it. Thus the more foreign and “browner” this so-called melting pot gets, the less like true America it becomes, as evidenced by our current state.

Hannon writes:

In place of Karen’s Homo globalis I would suggest Homo vulgaris, meaning common or ubiquitous. I have some experience with the Latinization of scientific names and the rules are much more complex than one might think. It is really a discipline unto itself and not a mere variant of Classical Latin.

The way things are heading we may soon have Homo globosus— a reference to general body shape!

Mary Keane writes:

Van Wijk commented that the children of interracial marriages almost always identify with their non-Caucasian heritage. I think this is a valid point, but it’s completely understandable. Physically, these children are usually more identifiable with their non-white heritage. I know a family with a black father and a white mother, and their two girls definitely look more black. This is true of Obama as well; he looks like a light-skinned black man. Also, our culture is inundated with “white guilt.” We’re taught that the white man is responsible for slavery, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears. Whites are the ones who must atone for the sins of their fathers. Ethnic non-whites are also shown favoritism through affirmative action, scholarship funds, etc. It’s expedient in many ways to claim non-Caucasian ethnicity.

However, I think the most important and easily overlooked factor is that most Caucasians do not havean internalized concept of racial or ethnic identity. I remember discussing our ethnic heritages in my almost exclusively white first grade class. One boy said, “I’m not really anything. I’m just American.” I think that sums it up for most American whites; we think of ourselves as “not really anything.” Granted, there are pockets of strong European heritage, like the German community in Cincinnati, but they are really the exception. That’s why I don’t think that in most cases interracial marriages are rebellious for a Caucasian person. They don’t perceive anything against which to rebel. Rather, I think it more likely that the Caucasian party is attracted to the feeling of belonging to a community that is simply part of life for their spouse. Human beings are meant to live in communion. If they do not have it through their faith, they will inevitably seek it elsewhere. There is the black community and the Hispanic community, but there is no such thing as the white community. The white community is a hodge-podge of European heritages. I am English, Irish, French, Welsh, Polish, and Ukrainian. I think it’s fair to say that the flavors of my diverse heritage have become muddled in the mixing. I don’t feel an especial loyalty to any of the five, and my family never did much that could be considered distinctly an ethnic custom. Whether we will someday have “citizens of the world” remains to be seen. But when you mix equal amounts of a spice blend and a single spice, the single spice is sure to dominate the dish.

Laura writes:

Mary says our culture is inundated with white guilt and also that whites do not have any consciousness of a racial identity. Given this pervasive guilt, it’s safe to say white identity is not simply forgotten, but deliberately suppressed. To speak proudly of being white can lead to grave consequences, not only social ostracism, but possibly the loss of opportunities and a living. A white nominee for the Supreme Court could not speak glowingly of his white heritage in the way Sonia Sotomayor spoke of her Latino identity. It’s not likely for a little boy to speak up in a first grade classroom and say, “I’m white!” Even at that age, he has absorbed the lesson.

Whites often don’t want to be white. Mary’s right. They probably sometimes marry outside their race to bask under the umbrella of that forthright and unembarrassed sense of racial community that others possess.

Mary says her past is a mixture of European cultures. These mixed ethnic groups do possess racial and cultural similarities. I think Mary would see this clearly if she lived in Africa or Asia, where the dissimilarities between her and the predominant culture would be on an entirely different plane than the differences between the Irish and the German.

I don’t think it’s possible for any but the most cold-hearted of humans to live as citizens of the world. We are made to belong. Homo vulgaris is not really human. Whether whites acquire this consciousness of their own identity and any pride in it or not, the fact is other races already possess this sense of identity and already see whites as whites.

Ella writes:

I respond again, as a matter of principle. Judging and inciting reasons to discriminate solely on race cannot stand for me. At some point, I’m sure the comments to this web page will be closed, but I think the comments debasing the USA and its constitution of civil rights must still entail a defense, as I think the world as a whole needs to be reminded real lessons about how statist ethnic national identity has been a weapon of oppression to millions in the past, and how those lessons can come back in real economic ways by those who have not forgotten.

Color blindness when exercised in how we are as citizens towards one another enables a congruous and fair balance of opportunity. Elitism withholds privileges, status, and wealth, based on skin color as merit for oppression. An ethnic elitist society burns bridges in international foreign relations, and loses the ability in forging strong allies, as this world now operates on an open equitable global market. The European nations are not able to monopolize and use unfair business practices and elitist power (more generally known as colonial rule) over the third world nations as they did so effectively in the past centuries. Governments operating under ethnic identity nationalism enforces exclusion and unequal status to secure for themselves greater financial gain by profiting from the advantage they hold over a less modern nation. In order to make other nations of different race more vulnerable and malleable they will use policies of ethnically driven oppression to reinforce their status as divinely suited for unchallenged rule. Ghandi realized after having attained a law degree from a British university, that he would still not be granted respect nor dignity from the British society simply due to his ethnicity. This drove home to him a powerful lesson of how the enforcement of cultural ethnic identity was a means for exercising colonial brutality and the order of British civility would be the main link between ethnic dominance over a weaker nation, and there will be no acceptance as equal citizens for the latter, no matter how “Occidentalized” an Asian Indian may become through western education. In other words, “scratch under the surface of the Asian in westernized in dress, education and speech, and you have still an unreconstructed Asian who can only react in their Asian way which would be primitive, violent, and inferior to the Westerner “. This was then the reason Ghandi organized the most famous peaceful civic protest movement ever to prove it was time for British rule to vacate India, no easy feat for all the Indians had come to know there would never be negotiation for civic equality from the British, and it took a leap of great faith to understand the only way this must be done. Ghandi was wise enough to know that in order to throw the British off balance, they could not fight for their freedom by violent means. By not challenging the brutal tactics of an oppressive government by a violent uprising, the British would not be able to react, as they were always effectively prepared to maintain control by less civilized ethnic control policies. When the Indians marched on while taking the beatings of the British soldiers without fighting back, the British literally were defeated on that day; and the world took notice, due to the fact they lost the colonial argument that had maintained the Asians deserved and needed British subjugation, as their race would never attain nor achieve a higher civilized state of culture. It was the most stunning overthrow of a world colonial empire who had ruled efficiently and profitably, by the means of using civic peaceful protest. The British knew they could not prove anymore any justification to exercise brutal reinforcement for its own national interests over a civilized, peaceful people. International support rose immediately for Indians to have independent rule. India, called the crown jewel of Britain, had caused the greatest collapse of colonial world domination. For America, accepting others on equal merit, enables a society to forge strong bonds of trust from the nations the immigrants come from. Lets not compare the global strengths of England, and USA. It is obvious by the quality of immigrants the USA receives which are very educated, productive, and motivated as citizens has proven a history of success by peaceful, civil assimilation, in comparison to the droves of immigrants exploding in England that are the un-assimilable from North Africa and Muslim countries, and not withstanding the bridges burned and not forgotten by those people that suffered under the ethnic identity policies of oppression and bigotry by British rule.

The Asian immigrants’ children in the United States are able to play classical music at an extraordinarily advanced level. They have excelled in the opportunities to take advantage of learning higher cultural pursuits at every level of education in our public schools. They graduate often with the highest scores, and are more often merit scholar finalists than any other race. Is this because their color made them this way? If you can look at an Chinese American kid who is able to play Beethoven’s symphony on a piano at a world class competition level, and win, and still think he has not nor will ever be able to attain the ability to produce and benefit western culture at its finest on merits of its highest significance of appreciation, then I would define the term opposite of color blindness is “ blind ethnic hate”.

I think the future will be evident with the interracial challenges we face by extending trust, assimilation and acceptance to other races and cultures and treating them as all men are made in God’s image, the third world are watching, learning, and remembering, they will bond with those that act and believe that Christianity truly produces, freedom and liberty.

Laura writes:

This discussion has been about whether it is wrong or culturally harmful for people to marry outside their race. Obviously, Ella does not believe it is wrong. Many Asians and blacks object to intermarriage, but this is wrong and racist in her opinion as it involves judging others on the basis of race.

As a matter of principle, I object to Ella’s latest statement. It shows hostility toward Western society and toward whites that meets the classic definition of racism. Ella states that the discussion of this issue and the remarks about the differences between races are examples of “blind ethnic hate.” If this had been a discussion among black women who were distressed that some of the few marriageable black men in their community were marrying white women, would Ella have accused them of “blind ethnic hate?” I doubt it. It is because we are Westerners and it is because we are white that Ella is ready to hurl insults and accuse us of hateful statements when we have made none. She has taken a statement of Karen’s and deliberately twisted it into ugly words. Karen never said: “Scratch under the surface of the Asian in westernized in dress, education and speech, and you have still an unreconstructed Asian who can only react in their Asian way which would be primitive, violent, and inferior to the Westerner.”

I would never ever have allowed such a statement at my website. For Ella to suggest that this was the meaning of Karen’s words is an insult and a grave accusation.

Ella explicitly states that there is nothing in between color blindness and blind ethnic hate. There can be no middle ground and no recognition of distinctions. To love one’s own or to seek advantage for one’s own is necessarily the same thing as to hate others even if you do not harm and do not intend any harm. Therefore, almost all of our American ancestors were guilty of “blind ethnic hate.” Interracial marriage was illegal in many states until as late as 1967 and even where it was not illegal it was widely frowned upon. Our legacy is one of hatred.

Ella states: “Governments operating under ethnic identity nationalism enforce exclusion and unequal status to secure for themselves greater financial gain by profiting from the advantage they hold over a less modern nation.”

All governments, whether they rule ethnically homogenous societies or not, have the duty to help secure financial gain through reasonable means for their citizens. They are not responsible for seeing to the welfare of other nations. Individuals do have the duty to extend charity toward others and may use their governments as a means of extending charity toward others. It is not governments that typically make money in foreign nations but individual businesses and corporations. Governments may promote the business interests of their people abroad. These efforts are the responsibility of the people who are alive at the time the government actions are taken. Any wrongdoing that takes place cannot be transferred to those who are not yet born.

Western companies often possess superior technology and know-how which is sold to less developed nations. There are instances of exploitation, but all cases of exploitation are wrong and it works both ways. What about the vast misuse and theft of Western aid in the Third World by corrupt politicians? Countries that do not have, and do not pay for, the vast infrastructure to create engineers and scientists benefit from these costly expenditures in the West. Ella appears to be saying it is wrong for Westerners to do business in undeveloped nations unless they are acts of pure charity. She appears oblivious to the immense harm done to Third World people by their own greedy and corrupt rulers. In Ella’s view, other countries are allowed to look out for their own interests; Western countries are not. Beneath Ella’s point is a materialistic view. She judges countries by how much money their citizens possess. A rich country is guilty; a poor country is virtuous.

No one in this discussion has advocated a return to colonial rule. I disagree with Ella’s assessment of colonial rule as nothing but oppression, but that is not for this discussion. Colonial rule is over. It ended in India with relatively little violence by the British. It unleashed tremendous carnage in the ensuing battles between Muslims and Hindus. It appears British society will always be guilty in Ella’s eyes and can never exonerate itself from its misdeeds during colonial rule. Even the admission of millions of Indians and Pakistanis into Britain as citizens does not absolve Britain of ongoing racial guilt.

The truth is governments can never absolve themselves of wrongdoing, only individuals can. And, individuals are never guilty of the sins of their ancestors. It is morally impossible.

All men are created equal in God’s eyes, as Ella rightly points out, but all men are not the same. To say that they are is to negate the very grounding force of love. Such a belief make loves literally impossible. How could we ever justify our preference for some over others? Christ never made any such statement. In fact, he honored and recognized differences. I quote once again from G.K. Chesterton:

Here is a statement clearly and philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with flatly denying: ‘The fifth rule of our Lord [as explained by Tolstoy] is that we should take special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, and those who are in sympathy with us.’ I should very much like to know where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that there were certain persons whom He specially loved. It is most improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest compliment He paid was, ‘Behold an Israelite indeed.’ The author has simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity: He loved men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a gigantic centipede.

Love between individuals of different races is natural. A feeling of identity with and protectiveness toward one’s own race does not preclude deep attachment with individuals of other races. But marriage has always been about more than love. This discussion has been about marriage.

Hannon writes:

I could not possibly say it better than G. K. Chesterton in the passage you cited. It might be added that whether we are speaking of biracial couples or the arrangement of infra-national societies, it seems to be a fact of history that without a “natural” and historically dominant group there will be contention and ultimately conflict between competing racial (ethnic) interests. The fight will be economic, political, “cultural” and even religious, but ultimately ethnicity plays an ineluctable role in how we relate to one another as groups.

No faction can maintain the top spot forever, but a prosperous peace depends on the long-term stability of such a condition of inequality. Traditionalists understand this without apology.

Lawrence Auster has written on the dominance idea and at first it sounds shocking, because most of us are not exposed to thinking in this way, but it makes sense. It is not turning back the clock. This is ultimately the concern of any racially-aware person, even if they belong to a minority faction. Maybe especially if they are in a minority.

No country is without ethnic diversity. Some speak of it in China, even though the Han are well over 90% of the population. Various “hill tribes” persist in Southeast Asia and many indigenous groups hold territory and special rights over large areas of Latin America. But it is the United States that is unique in being home to significant proportions of essentially all the major ethnicities of the world, and
a good many of the lesser ones. This makes our long term social challenges greater than those of most other countries, even if quite a few of them have experienced more persistent warring along ethnic
lines than we have.

“Color blindness” is like fence-sitting. If you feel it is somehow wrong to choose a side for yourself, or your family, in terms of ethnic fidelity, that is a corruption of natural affinity and affiliation. Usually this is not held in conscious awareness (whites being the bellwether example) and normally it should not need to be. But periodically it asserts itself as a matter of survival, as when one’s nation is being inundated simultaneously by mass immigration of people from foreign cultures and its political complement, the hegemony of liberal non-discrimination doctrine.

Is Ella equally troubled by the person who says I will not marry someone of another race, because of their race, versus the person who judges a couple that has taken that road? Does she extrapolate the personal to the communal or the national? Does she discern at all in these things? This seems as silly as one who says that “God Bless America” somehow implies a rejection of blessings for other countries. Not a perfect analogy but perhaps reflective of a similar mindset.

Van Wijk writes:

Excellent response to Ella. At any rate, Ella’s self-righteous objections aren’t terribly relevant since color-blindness and the melting pot are parlor games played by white liberals only. Western whites are virtually alone in the world in this extreme emphasis placed on individuality, and the vast majority of non-white individuals are always looking to agitate for their respective tribes, from lobbying congress to speaking their native tongues at work and in public. Blacks, Mestizos, and Asians aren’t a bit interested in establishing cohesion with whites or with each other, but they are more than happy to manipulate white liberals like Ella to further their own ethnic agendas. Look at the Balkans to see one possible outcome of the “melting pot.”

I think that were she to scratch the surface Ella would find her romance with the Other to be entirely one-sided. But despising her own as much as she does, I’m sure she would find this too to be more than justified.

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