Love is Blind, but Is It Color Blind?

Roland Yearwood/Echo Staff Artist

More blacks and whites are dating each other — and marrying — than ever before.

In 1960, there were just 51,000 black-white marriages in the United States. In 1998, there were 330,000. That’s a sixfold increase in four decades.

But interracial marriage is still rare. In 1998, the year of 330,000 black-white marriages, there were well over 55 million marriages overall.

As recently as 1967, sex and marriage between whites and blacks was illegal in 16 states.

In Alabama, it took until the 2000 elections to remove the last traces of anti-miscegenation laws.

Even today, being an interracial Couple is no simple matter.

North Carolina Central University students Latisha Inman, a social work sophomore, and Jeremiah Caldwell, a business freshman, know just how difficult things can be.

Inman and Caldwell met in their hometown, Lillington, N.C. She is black, with some Native American heritage, and he is white, with some Native American heritage.

“My mother didn’t care for the relationship,” says Inman. “She didn’t think that it would work because of cultural differences. When I’m around his family, I can tell they sometimes act funny because they’re not sure what to say when it comes to black people.”

According to Caldwell, “the dirty looks and evil stares are the worst part of it.”

Both agree that they feel more pressure at NCCU than in their hometown. “When guys here found out that I was dating a white guy ... I got cussed out,” says Inman. “They made some pretty mean comments.”

According to Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy, author of “Interracial Intimacy,” an article in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly, African Americans fall into three camps on the issue.

One celebrates “interracial intimacy” and sees it as an indication of open-mindedness and reduced racism. This camp says that interracial intimacy can empower black women in their dealings with black men.

Another camp, the largest, sees interracial intimacy simply as a choice, as “neither cause for celebration nor reason for lament,” as Princeton professor Cornel West puts it in his book “Race Matters.”

The third camp, according to Kennedy, “opposes interracial marriage on the grounds that it expresses racial disloyalty, suggests disapproval of fellow blacks, undermines black culture and weakens the African-American marriage market.”

North Carolina Central students hold the range of these Perspectives.

“There is nothing wrong with it,” said political science senior Travaughn Lovick. “A person cannot be judged by race alone. If you are attracted to someone physically, mentally, or in any other way, then you should be with that person.”

Nursing sophomore Ariel Purvis agrees: “As long as you are dating the person because you truly like them, and not for social gain, I see no problem.”

“If it wasn’t for interracial dating, some of us wouldn’t be here, ” said English senior Don Caban. “It’s no one’s place to judge.”

But political science sophomore D’Weston Haywood said he is against mixed couples: “I don’t agree with them, and I cannot date anyone who does not look like my mother,” he said.

According to Haywood, black men’s desire for white women reflects the psychological affects of slavery: “The white woman is still considered the ultimate prize when one achieves success,” he says.

According to Chris Hallen, a criminal justice senior: “Interracial dating and marriage poses a threat to the African American race.”

If the threat to racial identity isn’t worrisome enough, there is the possibility of cultural misunderstanding in the relationship.

That’s what worries political science major Toccora Hardy.

“I don’t think white people can understand the struggles that black people go through, and I don’t believe that we can understand the lifestyles and struggles of white people,” said Hardy.

According to LaVeta Davidson-Waller, a processing assistant in the NCCU registrar’s office, the question is complicated by history.

“It started with slavery, because for black and white men, women outside their race were something they couldn’t have,” she says.

And it is complicated by the numbers.

“Sisters date outside of their race because they don’t have many options within the black male population,” she says. “Most of the men are either incarcerated or taken.”

And statistics show that more black women are becoming involved with white men.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of black female-white male marriages was relatively static at 26,000 to 27,000 between 1960 and 1980. The number jumped to 80,000 in 2000.

Chemistry professor James Schooler, who has been at North Carolina Central for more than 30 years, said interracial intimacy has taken place at the university since the 1970s.

“Everyone knew that it was going on, but it was never discussed,” said Schooler. “When I first arrived, there was big talk about the Black Power movement and there was no sensitivity to the subject of dating outside of one’s race.”

Some faculty members said the subject should not even be an issue.

“I don’t recognize race,” said Clay Eaton, a visiting history instructor. “There is only one race and that is the human race. I see it as a cultural difference and not skin pigmentation.”

Perhaps cultural differences are fading. Or perhaps Americans are now able to celebrate their differences.

“Latisha is beautiful on the inside and out,” said Jeremiah Caldwell. “She makes me laugh. She’s got my back and I’ve got hers.”

Stacy Cooper, Sheena Johnson and Ryane Nickens are students at North Carolina Central University and write for The Campus Echo.