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182 Navigating Interracial Borders 182 CHAPTER 7 Listening to the Interracial Canary , Like the miner’s canary that warns of a poisonous atmosphere, black-white couples expose lingering racism, prejudice , and segregation in society. Interracial couples’ experiences are important not for what they tell us about themselves but for what they tell us about the racial attitudes and practices of the families, groups, and communities from which they come. The central question is not how these families and communities respond, but why black-white intimacy evokes such emotional and complex responses. Why couples come together is less telling than why more individuals do not come together across racial lines. Looking at the research as a whole, what emerges is the ways interracial relationships are problematized—how much more “difficult” it is to be an interracial couple and treated according to that image. Even though the couples did not describe their lives as difficult, their experiences reveal the many ways their identities, their relationships, and their lives are challenged by others. The ways that couples differentiated between the public and private demonstrated the complexities of being perceived as an interracial couple, even if they did not see (or want to see) themselves as such. A number of couples said that when they were alone race was not an issue and never even factored into how they related to one another; however, other couples were acutely aware of how their race and racial differences figured prominently in who they were as a couple in the eyes of others. While the opposition they experienced was often very subtle and easily overlooked, it still existed, which forced the couples to make choices. There was a stark contrast between the ways couples described their relationships and the ways that the communities (mirroring popular cultural Listening to the Interracial Canary 183 images) described interracial relationships in general. All of the problems that were identified by the community groups were addressed differently by the couples. For example, whites described interracial relationships as unnatural , nontraditional, or plagued by cultural differences, while the couples discussed their relationships as the same as intraracial couples, with race rarely playing a role when they were alone together. Many of the black respondents questioned the motives of those involved interracially and wondered how the white partner treated the black partner, though none of the couples mentioned these issues. The couples had varied backgrounds and experiences, and none displayed an individual characteristic or experience that would explain their decision. For example, some white partners grew up in households where racist language and beliefs were common, but at some point they had interests and experiences that led them to diverse surroundings and associations. Other white partners grew up in families and communities that espoused tolerance and acceptance. Some black partners grew up in families where interracial unions were common, while others had families who explicitly opposed interracial marriage. Beyond their upbringing and neighborhoods, the individuals’ experiences and beliefs were also much different. However, the couples were similar in how they were responded to and understood by the communities and groups they encountered. Furthermore, the commonality between the couples was their ability to maintain their relationship through the opposition of family, friends, and “societal others.” Black-white couples exist in a borderland in society at the intersections of race, identity, family, and community. Because the individuals in these relationships are viewed as coming from distinctly different groups in this racialized and segregated society, their experiences and the larger views of communities and popular culture tell us many things about American race relations. Like the miner’s canary, black-white couples’ experiences reveal problems that otherwise may have gone unnoticed, at least for whites. Interracial dating and, more important, marriage remain a line that many still do not want to see crossed, especially in their own families. In the color-blind ideology that exists, it is unacceptable and in some circumstances even illegal for whites to state that one does not want to work with, live near, or be friends with an African American. There are even the common discursive strategies such as “one of my best friends is black,” or “I don’t care if you are red, black, blue, or green,” statements commonly used by whites to “prove” that they are not racist. Yet in these color-blind ideologies of race, it is acceptable, common, and even seen as the desired norm to state that one would not date interracially and would not want their...

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