Interracial relations…

I am ashamed to admit that pornography was my first exposure to the word interracial. This is particular embarrassing because my great grandparents were of different races, and given that my father is mixed race (with green eyes, lucky git) and my mum is full black, I was born into an interracial home. The reason I never got a grip of the word was simply because I grew up not aware that interracial relationships were enough of an oddity to have its own term. You don’t see people saying they are in a ‘uniracial’ relationship when they are both of the same race? And in my country of birth (Nigeria) tribalism replaces racism so no one really pays any attention to colour.

The question posed by interracial relationship is mainly on how practical and genuine they are. As someone that has never dated a black or mixed race girl long term, I must confess to be curious about how different it is, if it is different at all. Cultural clashes are inevitable in interracial relationships, and black girls have harassed me a few times for dating other races. Even so now again you get the odd ‘aren’t we good enough for you’ stare, the braver ones have said it to my face, and some are cool with it. Of course interracial relationships are not limited to black and white. In fact black and white mixes seem to be the easiest to go down culturally. I have met Indian girls that have been disowned for bringing a black guy home. Orientals and Arabs also have their culture and they stay quite closed. Even some parts of Europe like Greece and Turkey still like to keep it in-house too. As you can see most of the problem highlighted above are with the parents and older generation. Now what about the actual individuals, should interracial relationships be avoided? And are most of the people involved in the right mind frame to make it work?

I will start with the latter of the two questions above. I have ran across a lot of girls that like mixed race boys just because they remind them of JLS (British Boy Band), and I know guys that will chat up a girl just because she is a ‘lighty’ as they say in the UK, or half cast as we say in Nigeria which I found out the hard way was politically incorrect. I also know white girls that want black boys just because they are into black boys and they will go around saying ‘I only ‘do’ black boys’. Guys are just as guilty but I will admit it is rare. We tend to go for anything with humps in the right places. I particularly find it annoying that people will try to make a relationship with a person of a different race with little effort to learn about their culture.

The former of the question asks if interracial relationships should be avoided. I personally believe that love is colour blind but care must be taken ensure there is a foundation of understanding deeper than colour. I am talking about an understanding of culture. Differences must be addressed with maturity if a good co-existence is to be reached.

As always I look forward to your opinion in the comment section. Feel free to run wild.