Sheila Coyne writes in regard to the recent discussion on intermarriage:

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this thread, and thought I’d add a comment. I was raised in a liberal, agnostic, culturally Jewish household and as a teenager spouted the usual liberal platitudes – what’s inside is what matters, love transcends all, etc. I remember arguing with an orthodox Jewish family I babysat for that felt Jews should only date other Jews. Since I wasn’t attracted in the least to Jewish guys, I argued against this – in college, too, when others suggested I join “Hillel” (college Jewish students’ group) I always responded that simply having parents of the same religion didn’t mean we had anything in common. When it came to religion, I practiced what I preached, and dated primarily Christian men (my dissatisfaction with Judaism and religious searching – I had already started on my long journey of faith toward Christianity – certainly had a lot to do with this).

Somehow, though, I balked at dating black men, despite being unable to pinpoint my unease or articulate my reasons – aside from lack of physical attraction. Even in England in the early 1980s, doing graduate work, I noticed kids of half British/half American parentage, and started to really consider how much nature and nurture had to do with culture. I began to assess what precisely made me American in my views, and whether or not it was important to me and my identity, and whether it was something I valued enough to pass on to my future children.

Now, at the ripe old age of 51 and the mother of two sons, I know where I stand on this issue and why. Regarding religious differences, of course, my stance is dictated by the Bible and my real-life experience. One should not be unequally yoked, period. If you and your spouse cannot agree on a worldview or religious beliefs, there will be discord and divisiveness throughout the relationship, and having children will only exacerbate this. How many cases of Jewish/Christian marriages have you seen or heard or read about – and the children are either raised with no faith whatsoever (the “let the kids decide for themselves” fallacy) or, very often, the Jewish parent suddenly realizes, after the birth of children, that he wants his children to be culturally Jewish – like most Jews, he doesn’t believe in God, but he damned well believes in being Jewish! There’s so much of this, and it’s echoed in cross-cultural relationships. All these women married to Greeks or Arabs, and once they have children (particularly daughters) the spouse’s culture/religion suddenly becomes vitally important and destroys the marriage (and often the foreign spouse absconds with the children). I’ve known of a Greek/French marriage destroyed by this issue, Greek-American girls years ago in public school who could not date anyone but other Greeks, nominal Christians married to Jews and after a few years with a Christmas tree, suddenly the children go off to Hebrew school. On the one hand, my patriotic American nature finds this balkanization deeply offensive – are these people American first, or not? On the other hand, I now have both an emotional and intellectual attachment to racial and religious and cultural separateness. My husband and I are of one accord on how we raise our children and the Christian and American beliefs we want instilled in them. A mixed marriage, of any sort, is merely the infamous camel’s nose into the tent, and leads not only to broken families and alienated and confused children, but also leads to racial and cultural suicide for white Americans.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and perhaps your correspondent married to the black soldier is one of them. Oviously, if both she and her spouse are committed Christians and patriotic Americans, they will be united on transmitting those values to their children. However, racial differences are far more dramatic than skin color and bone density and IQ (although those differences, despite constant popular hysteria, are real and documented). Just as you described loving gospel music but feeling out of place at the Black church, I know when any situation becomes too diverse for comfort. As I mentioned previously, my younger son is part of a majority-Black football team. His coaches are phenomenal, insisting on good sportsmanship, hard work, and respect toward teammates and coaches. I find no fault with them in their field of expertise, as it were. Culturally, however, I know our differences are deep and dramatic, and we do not socialize outside of the football season. I have no desire to walk on eggshells about realistic racial differences, crime statistics, politics, or anything else. Polite disagreement is one thing, but bone-deep worldview differences make any sort of genuine friendship an impossibility. And quite honestly, at this point in my life and with my country’s fate in the balance (I lean toward the too late already theory), I don’t even want to spend time with people I have “mere” political disagreements with. My religious and cultural values, and my love for my country, are just too important to me and my opinion is non-negotiable.

Back to miscegenation, however. Racial differences are real, as I’ve said, and even if raised as culturally “white” or as patriotic Americans, biracial children will be visibly different at all times. If, as usual, they are clearly of mixed race, many whites will not find them to be potential spouses. Blacks will wonder if they’re authentically black enough, particularly if they speak standard English. They will be forced to declare themselves one way or the other, and this is not racism or prejudice, it’s just reality. The races are DIFFERENT genetically, and culture/nurture can only ameliorate this, but cannot erase it. This is documented historically and geographically in a book by Thomas Sowell (I don’t remember the title – and he is a prime example of an exception to the rule both as to cultural practices/beliefs and intelligence factor). Also, as I’ve stressed to my teenage son, when you marry someone you also marry their family. Perhaps a survey of all the white men married to Asian women would reveal this, if they were to admit the truth. Again, culture is transmitted through family, and if family is dramatically different, so is culture. Do Grandma and Grandpa speak English, or Chinese at home? Do you have the ubiquitous red front door for good luck/fung shui? If Mom is raising the children (and despite feminism, most children are still primarily raised by the mother) she will transmit HER culture and her values. Has your correspondent considered this? Her children may seem merely “American” to her because she is a White, Christian American. I have lived and traveled overseas extensively, and speak from experience. My son (a teenage libertarian) cites friends who are Indian by race (dot not feather) who despise Indian food and music and behave, as he insists, as American as he. I tell him to wait ten years or so, and see who they marry, and how they choose to raise their children. Values that a rebellious teenager often rejects become far more important when it comes to what to transmit to the next generation.

I’ve also told him, flat out, that if he chooses to marry someone of another race, they will not be welcome in my home. Yes, I know it sounds terribly harsh, but I’ve come full circle, in a way, and I now understand what that orthodox Jewish family was saying. Their faith and way of life were of prime importance to them, essentially DEFINED them, and they wanted grandchildren who were not alien to their values and lifestyle. This is a natural human desire, to socialize with and marry someone like oneself. While my son has been raised as a Christian and a patriotic American, I decided this was too important not to articulate clearly and unambiguously. Physical attraction, however important it seems at 18, doesn’t have the same pull at 45 (or as the saying goes, beauty is fleeting, dumb is forever). While values may change, I believe someone like myself who has made a total and dramatic transformation is far more rare. For example, I am not a “Hebrew Christian” or “Jew for Jesus.” I find these labels laughable and contradictory. I am a Christian, period, and believe in the new covenant between Jesus and mankind, which has transcended the old. My family’s business and church and school associations are primarily with other white Christians, and this has also shaped my personal journey. This was brought home to me about ten years ago, when I took my older son, then a preschooler, to a children’s concert by Joannie Bartel held at a local synagogue. I was appalled (as was another Christian family I knew and bumped into there) by the rudeness, the noise, the disorganization, the parents pushing their children to go onstage when Bartels begged them to stop for reasons of space and safety. Nothing mattered but that they get their way and their place in the sun. I would argue this is very much a cultural Jewish trait (I was raised in this milieu, remember) and I reject it. I don’t practice it, I don’t preach it, and my children do not associate with it.

I’ve gone on far too long, already, but must add one other point. These differences matter not only in marriage, but in adoption as well. I know you are aware of the numerous studies of Asian children adopted by American families. If raised as Americans, they often find as adults that they are perceived purely as Asian, and other Asians reject them. If raised to be artificially proud of their “native” culture, they often reject their adoptive parents and fully identify wiith Korea, or China, or whatever. And when the mix is even more toxic, such as so many Jews marrying Asians and adopting Chinese chidren, the result is a total mess. God created our differences, and I believe he intended these differences to remain (Tower of Babel) despite our being “one people” in our faith in Jesus Christ. If religious belief alone were transcendant, surely the Chinese and Koreans and Taiwanese would not each need their own churches, such as I see all over my suburb. Culture matters. Race matters. Marry wisely.

                                                                                                                     —— Comments —–

Ron P. writes:

There’s been a lot in this discussion lately along the lines of this:

Miscegenation is an unnatural behaviour which destroys races and creates a deracinated population.

Well, great. But what of the growing number of us who are already “interracial” to start with? I’ve got more races than a track meet, as do a rather large fraction of the people I meet and interact with (across socioeconomic boundaries). In short: What do people like me do? If I were to answer this clarion call to “avoid miscegenation”, I’d be left with a choice from probably about twenty people in the entire country who share my exact proportion of ethnic backgrounds.

Although the phrase “It’s not the 1950’s anymore” is normally used to further insidious social engineering, this is one of the few instances in which it is absolutely appropriate.

Rather than “avoid miscegenation”, the better advice would be “look beyond the superficial, and avoid people with whom you’re fundamentally incompatible on that deeper level.”

Granted, that advice will probably overlap, significantly, with “avoid miscegenation” (since the differences between ethnic cultures are real). But that latter advice is, to single-race people, demeaning (since it assumes a fundamental inability to determine a partner’s core values, substituting race as a proxy) and, to mixed-race people, just plain impossible.

Laura Wood writes:

No one has suggested that race is the sole factor in choosing compatible mates. We exist in a world that tells us it is not important at all and this is the view Sheila and others have argued against. That’s not the same as saying, “Go out and choose anyone who is the same race. All else will be fine.”

Most mixed race individuals consciously choose to be part of white, black, Hispanic or Asian communities by the time they seek mates and have children, if not long before.  As Sheila noted, it is when a person goes to form his own family that he becomes more aware of a cultural and racial identity. Some do lead lives relatively stripped of tradition, especially in cities, but a rebellion against this is inevitable at some point in a family line because it is unnatural and it is very difficult to raise children in such an artificial world.  Life in America is largely lived along racial lines (that’s not the same as along ethnic lines.) A choice is inevitable.

Those who live in ostensibly multiracial neighborhoods usually participate in the open glorification of non-Western culture and the denigration of historic white culture. This milieu is itself a culture, one that is bent on the gradual erasure of the West. Here’s the most important point: Everyone who is in the least bit reflective must have some stance toward the historic traditions of the West and will tend to feel some racial allegiance. A mixed race person inevitably chooses. He can be part of the historic culture of the West by supporting and promoting its health, by emphasizing his own personal share in it and by cultivating loyalty to it. The fact that large numbers of these individuals exist does not make the desire for, or the inevitability of, some degree of racial and cultural connection disappear.

Sheila made an important point when she noted that if Christianity could replace this sense of connection there would be no Asian churches or black African churches. All would be one.

Karen Wilson writes:

This subject, along with transracial adoption, is proving to be a hot topic with lots of interesting and stimulating comments. Sheila’s comments and insights are excellent.

Sheila writes: “A mixed marriage, of any sort, is merely the infamous camel’s nose into the tent, and leads not only to broken families and alienated and confused children, but also leads to racial and cultural suicide for white Americans.”

 Well put! This sums it up entirely. [Laura Wood writes: Sheila also wrote in reference to Laura H. that there are exceptions to this statement.]

“… when you marry someone you also marry their family.”

 Another vital truth! This is well known to Jews and Asians but many of the white gentile population either disregard it or, more commonly, don’t understand it and it is vital to the preservation of white culture that this is understood.

“Perhaps a survey of all the white men married to Asian women would reveal this, if they were to admit the truth. Again, culture is transmitted through family, and if family is dramatically different, so is culture. Do Grandma and Grandpa speak English, or Chinese at home? Do you have the ubiquitous red front door for good luck/fung shui? If Mom is raising the children (and despite feminism, most children are still primarily raised by the mother) she will transmit HER culture and her values.”

 As above, this must be stressed to more people.

“God created our differences, and I believe he intended these differences to remain (Tower of Babel) despite our being “one people” in our faith in Jesus Christ. If religious belief alone were transcendant, surely the Chinese and Koreans and Taiwanese would not each need their own churches, such as I see all over my suburb. Culture matters. Race matters. Marry wisely.”

Religion is practiced by imperfect humans who add their own cultural adaptations and so Chinese Christianity will never be exactly the same as African or American or Indian Christianity. Each culture emphasizes different elements of the worship and creates its own variation of Christianity. Religion is not the same as race and does not transcend race. Van Wijk’s comment sums it up! Christianity is being perverted by ideologues.

Laura H. writes:

On the topics of race and culture; do the posters here consider black Americans to be part of Western culture? Is it being postulated that fact of being black eliminates any real Western feeling? If yes, what non-Western association is the black American believed to hold more strongly than the one in which he was raised?

Laura Wood writes:

Of course blacks are part of Western culture, specifically American culture. Western culture was shaped by whites, but blacks have made their own contribution and American culture in particular would have been different without this contribution. Many blacks, however, believe that Western culture is essentially guilty and irrevocably tarnished by the treatment of blacks by whites. They do not possess pride in the West  or white culture, indeed they often appear to possess an active hostility toward these, and trumpet the moral superiority of Africa and of their African roots. There are definite exceptions to this. There are blacks who do not feel this way. But blacks generally do not rejoice over the achievements of whites in the same way whites rejoice over the achievements of blacks. Their support for Obama, who campaigned on the idea that blacks continue to be deliberately held down, is one bit of evidence for this. Obama still holds the support of 90 percent of the black population of America.

There was an article in the New York Times last week that stated that black college graduates are being discriminated against in their job searches. There was not a shred of evidence in the article for this other than the feeling by the black applicants that their difficulties were due to race. Articles like this are a dime-a-dozen, the point being that whites are actively holding blacks back out of sheer racial hostility. Meanwhile, every day of the week, whites are the victims of black robberies, rapes, and violent assaults. There are no articles saying that whites are being discriminated against by blacks or collectively mistreated. Why is this? Because blacks are viewed as morally superior to whites and excused from culpability as a group because of slavery. If blacks are intrinsically morally superior to whites, then all of  Western culture is evil and a sham because it can never be denied that it was formed by whites. So in answer to Laura H.’s question, I ask this: How can blacks now be part of Western culture when they are at the same time actively hostile to that culture?

 Laura H. writes:

Thank you for your reply to my question. It does clarify my understanding of what is being said here. I agree, people who are openly hostile to a culture cannot expect to be accepted into that culture or have their contributions to it embraced by those around them.

James M. writes:

Can this whole issue be simplified by saying, “Follow the Fourth Commandment”?

Miscegenation in many cases creates descendant lines in which the heritage and memory of half the original couple is actively forgotten. When you engage in a relationship that will one day result in grandchildren who actively try to forget about you and your mother and father, well, aren’t you violating the Fourth Commandment’s edict to honor one’s parents? How much time do you think the Obama children spend looking at or even thinking about the white fourth of their family tree? Furthermore, miscegenation not only frequently dishonors parents and ancestors, but it can put children in a difficult position in which they find it nearly impossible to properly follow the Fourth Commandment even if they really want to. As Van Wijk says, many of their decisions have already been made for them.

Laura Wood writes:

The Fourth Commandment? No society has, on so many levels, more enthusiastically engaged in the conscious and continual dishonoring of its ancestors than our own.

I think Laura H. would say that this does not have to be the case with regard to a mixed marriage, however much that might be the reality in most cases.

Laura Wood writes to Sheila:

You said that you told your son that you would not welcome a spouse of a different race. I’m curious, have you said you would also not welcome a non-Christian?

Sheila responds:

Yes, I have also told my son that a non-Christian will not be welcome. I’ve tried to avoid the pitfall of absolutely forbidding him to see any particular person (particularly since I can’t enforce this outside of the home and don’t want to make the forbidden more appealing), but I’ve told him very specifically when I’m uncomfortable with someone he’s seeing, and why, and mentioned particular issues he may not have considered. My husband has backed me up in this quite solidly, and has been able to add his personal experience of a failed, foolish, brief youthful marriage (no children, thank heavens) and the mistakes he made that could have destroyed his future. I don’t think I’ll fully exhale in this regard for another 5-10 years (my son is not quite 18, genius IQ but somewhat ADD and headstrong and impulsive and all that goes with being a male and a teenager). He has had the example, however, of a stable, intact nuclear family (albeit normal marital disagreements that tend to arise) and a solid Christian education. I would like to think we’ve done the best we could, as imperfect humans and imperfect Christians, and my son’s future is in his own hands via his gift of free will from God. What he makes of what his Creator endowed him with, and what his parents added to it, is up to him.

Nurse Bee writes:

I come from a different angle being the grandchild of an interracial marriage (of white and a Middle Eastern group), married to biracial man (Latino and white) and we have one child so far. We are both graduates of public schools and both Christians. Perhaps it is being a generation or two removed, perhaps it is living in a culturally diverse area, or the fact that our multiculturism is not necessarily visible to the naked eye, but neither of us has experienced any real difficulties related to being interracial or in an interracial marriage, although I know some people do. We have not suffered from any sort of identity crisis related to our ethnic backgrounds, The fact that we have particular cultures to draw traditions from makes life more interesting and colorful (and the food perhaps more tasty!). And in truth I would be thrilled if my children someday turned around and married people from even different backgrounds (although I hope and pray my child(ren) grow up to be Christians and marry Christians in return). Just a perspective from experience.

Van Wijk writes:

Laura H. wrote: “On the topics of race and culture; do the posters here consider black Americans to be part of Western culture? Is it being postulated that fact of being black eliminates any real Western feeling? If yes, what non-Western association is the black American believed to hold more strongly than the one in which he was raised?”

Blacks do have their own place within the sweep of Western history. Like the military, they also have their own culture, which is within Western culture but is, in many ways, antithetical to it. It is no great secret that many blacks, probably the majority, are virulently anti-white. This is a racial attitude that is seen across all classes and religions, from Henry Gates to Maurice Clemmons. Since the American nation was created by Europeans, and since an integral part of black American culture is the active hatred of whites and their good works (all of which are seen as having been accomplished on the backs of African slaves), it can be postulated that black American culture is anti-Western.

Of the contributions that blacks currently make to the American nation, the ones that stand out the most are in sports and violent crime. Blacks account for around 15% of the total population of the United States, and 52% of violent felons. According to Department of Justice statistics, in 2005 black men targeted white women for rape or sexual assault 37,000 times, while white men targeted black women 0-10 times. This is why when blacks start moving into a neighborhood, whites start moving out. They don’t want their wives and daughters raped or their sons butchered (and, in some cases, also raped). Despite the deluge of utopian propaganda, whites do not want to live around blacks. And this is the way it will always be.

Separation of the races (not segregation, but separation) is an idea that is gaining traction among more and more people.

In the continuing discussion on interracial marriage, commenter Van Wijk, who is white, looks beyond the issue of whether mixed race individuals suffer from identity conflicts and flat-out states that miscegenation is wrong.

In his comments, which can be found here, he writes:

Let me also state that I find it disturbing that the Christian religion is continuously used to justify miscegenation and interracial adoption. Marcus Aurelius said that if the gods are not just, you would not want to worship them. Any god who seeks the displacement or annihilation of my people is not just.

The discussion continues in the post, The View from One Interracial Marriage. Laura H., a mother of eight children and a white woman married to a black man stationed in the military in Germany, has been accused of not understanding the innate need for cultural and racial connection. She continues to resolutely defend herself, maintaining that her children will not be culturally adrift and are not headed for a racial identity crisis. They have a strong sense of being American, she says, and that provides them with the larger group connection they need. In addition, they have something many people lack: a large, stable family and a Christian foundation.

I want to sincerely thank Laura H. and all who have participated in this conversation for their civility. I appreciate it.

Some may ask: Why are you even discussing this? Intermarriage is no longer a controversial issue. It is not illegal and few people openly condemn it anymore. Here is my answer. It is important to discuss interracial marriage because race is a real facet of existence, a biological and cultural reality. Though intermarriage is not openly controversial, I believe many people harbor private thoughts – both pro and con – on the subject.

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Last week, a reader wrote to me about my past entries on interracial marriage and adoption. The reader, Laura H., is a white woman married to a black man. Her husband is in the military in Germany and the entire family lives there.  Here is our exchange, as well as some additional comments by me.

Laura H. writes:

I read with interest your blog posts about international and interracial adoption. Many of your thoughts are very similar to my own, based on personal experience. Whilst in Korea for two years I started to slowly realize that the traditional American understanding of international adoption was flawed in many important aspects. 

However, I wanted to broach with you some, I think, important ideas about your understanding of interracial marriage, again based on personal experience (amoungst other things). 

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