{"id":2315,"date":"2006-05-02T20:21:39","date_gmt":"2006-05-03T03:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/05\/02\/what-about-the-children\/"},"modified":"2006-05-02T20:21:39","modified_gmt":"2006-05-03T03:21:39","slug":"what-about-the-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2315","title":{"rendered":""What about the Children?""},"content":{"rendered":"

Another one of the snippets from my Dissertation on Black\/White Relationships. Keep in mind all of these posts are snippets of a much larger piece of work, so feel free to add to things, ask questions or give critiques. I’d love to hear feedback from people. In my dissertation, I focused on family approval of Black\/White interracial relationships. The data is based on 39 interviews with people in interracial relationships (conducted individually) and 5 interviews with the relatives of some of these couples, so this is where most of the focus will be.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clearly biracial children and views on them were a very significant feature in the process of family approval of Black\/White relationships. In the interviews I conducted with Black\/White couples, “concerns”\u009d about the children of Black\/White couples was the most common reason cited for opposing a relative’s interracial relationship (IR), but ironically, the birth of a biracial child was one of the factors most commonly associated with an increase in family acceptance.<\/p>\n

Before elaborating on families objections to interracial relationships, I should acknowledge two ideas that have had a dramatic impact on how people with a Black parent and a White parent are viewed. Throughout American history the rule of hypodescent and the tragic mulatto image have shaped views of biracial children. Hypodescent involved a set of laws and rules that defined anyone with as little as “one drop of black blood”\u009d to be Black; thus, the children of interracial unions were almost exclusively defined as Black (Wright 1993; Dalmage 2000; Moran 2001). The tragic mulatto ideology portrays Black\/White biracial people as poor, lost souls caught in between two worlds and accepted by no group. According to this ideology, their mere existence was tragic, and they were destined to lead a life of sorrow because of their social ambiguity (Spickard 1989). Both these views are reiterated by relatives of interracial couples, especially White relatives. Several White respondents had heard negative things about biracial children well before they entered interracial relationships. However, it was not just relatives who had concerns about how biracial children would be perceived; even some members of interracial couples didn’t want to have children or were uncomfortable with having children with their spouse or partner.<\/p>\n

Those relatives oppose to interracial relationships “for the sake of the children”\u009d feel that biracial children will suffer because they are “different.”\u009d They also believe that the child will be confused about his or her identity. People who expressed opposition to IRs also felt that interracial couples couples are seen as selfish, irrational, and unconcerned with the children’s well being, which they base on their assumption that biracial children have identity problems.<\/p>\n

The one drop rule often comes up in interracial families because one of the primary concerns people have about such relationships is how the couple will raise their children to identify. In accordance with the one drop rule, most couples in this study tended to see their children as closer to Black. In some cases they said they would define their children as Black, and in other cases they said that their children would be seen as Black, in spite of their biracial backgrounds, something Rockquemore and Brunsma (2001) refer to as an unvalidated biracial identity. None of the respondents who had children identified them as White, and none of those who discussed biracial children referred to them as White; however, some did refer to individual biracial children as White looking, but not as White. Some couples and their families agreed (both Black and White) that the child would be treated as Black and should therefore be raised as such, but in many families racial differences emerged over how the child should be raised or identified (in terms of race). For White members of interracial couples the one drop rule was clearly racist, but for African Americans in interracial families the one drop rule was a racial reality that was part of being African American. Whites seem to prefer a biracial identity and Blacks seemed to prefer a Black identity.<\/p>\n

Generally, the families of women, both Black and White, raised more concerns about biracial children. Given that it is women who bear children and women who are primarily responsible for raising children; it is not surprising that concerns about children were articulated more for women’s families. For White women’s relatives the general view is that children are a marker of the interracial relationship that can have a negative impact on how their daughter is viewed, but for Black women’s families the concern is less with the potential loss of privilege and more with the ability of a White male partner to understand and relate to his biracial children.<\/p>\n

Families, particularly Black families worried about the racial makeup of the community the child will live in and the messages he or she will be given about racism. Many Black relatives were concerned about racism and\/or isolation from other African Americans that a child could face if he or she lived in a predominantly White area.<\/p>\n

Black relatives and White relatives generally had different ideas about the child’s racial identity and socialization. For some African American families, raising a child as biracial rather than Black was not seen as a challenge to the rule of hypodescent, but as a sign that the relative in the relationship or the child was (or could be) disloyal to African Americans. Given the long history of privileges bestowed on lighter skin blacks and those who could identify as “mulatto,”\u009d it is not surprising that a mixed marriage raises concerns in African American families (Spickard 1989). While white families appear to be more concerned with the loss of privilege that interracial relationships and biracial children bring, Black families are concerned about the privileges biracial children enjoy over their Black (especially darker skinned) relatives.<\/p>\n

Although concerns about children are cited as the primary reason for opposition to interracial relationships, ironically, most couples who had children reported that the birth of a child made their families more accepting of the relationship (which is consistent with Rosenblatt et. al., 1995). Several couples talked about how happy their family was when they had children. This was especially true if the child was the first grandchild, and this phenomenon was particularly dramatic in White families who had strongly opposed the interracial relationship. Grandparents wanted to develop relationships with their grandchildren, and in some cases, grandparents began to understand more about racism by gauging others’ reactions to their grandchildren. The birth of a child may lead to greater approval because relatives see the couple following some elements of the traditional family script; moreover, it is much easier for relatives to be upset with adults than it is for them to be upset with children. While having children tended to make families more approving, it did not necessarily mean that the relationship was completely accepted or that there was peace in the family.<\/p>\n

The question at the heart of families’ objections\/concerns is how children from interracial unions and their parents will fit into the current (and future) racial order. Will they be more closely allied with African Americans? Will they develop into a unique racial group (i.e. coloreds in South Africa)? Will individual children of interracial unions have the power to create their own racial identities? Or will they be forever lost souls with no group to call home as the tragic mulatto image would predict? Although it is not possible to predict the future racial order, it does appear that the way interracial couples and their relatives talk about children with a Black parent and a White parent provides a foreshadowing of the changes that contemporary racial ideology will bring.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in the subject of interracial marriage, I have a category<\/a> at Rachel’s Tavern explicitly dedicated to this subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another one of the snippets from my Dissertation on Black\/White Relationships. Keep in mind all of these posts are snippets of a much larger piece of work, so feel free to add to things, ask questions or give critiques. I’d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-families-structures-divorce-etc","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}