When God Sends Your White Daughter a Black Husband

[samurai_sarah]

8 hours ago, amandaaries said:

(snip) @samurai_sarah Interestingly, she is frequently asked if she is Hawaiian, including by Hawaiian people.  She seems to laugh it off now, especially since most people who ask lately are kids her age.  

I used to laugh it off too, quite a lot, but now I'm just tired of it. For her sake, I hope your daughter retains her good humour!

My issue with it all is that the question, and the assumptions people make...well, they say more about them than me.

Like the lady who wrote the blog post- it says a lot that she even found it necessary to post about that. Maybe it's a step in the right direction, but I'm not keen to make her personal acquaintance. And if she has to say stuff like that out loud, I'm not sure I want to know the social circles she's in.

 

[CyborgKin]

So I just stumbled across this den of racist claptrap: http://faithandheritage.com/2011/11/the-reality-of-race/

Ugh, just looking at the words makes me feel very uncomfortable.

[libriatrix]

8 hours ago, Geechee Girl said:

I'm a day late and a dollar short. The post has been removed. 

Apparently it was removed at the author's request, not just because she "regrets hurting many readers" but also because she was threatened by white supremacists. O_O I think everybody is better off with the article removed, but the fact that this family had to deal with being threatened and harassed by white supremacists is horrific.

@CyborgKin, haven't slogged through your article yet, but the image at the top is already disgusting. Not only have we catalogued precisely 5 races, each corresponding to a color and pictured with stereotypes from 100+ years ago, guess which race gets to be front and center, in the very middle of the page, with a larger picture since it's not sharing a row with another race.... hm, no, no supremacy here for sure! 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, libriatrix said:

@CyborgKin, haven't slogged through your article yet, but the image at the top is already disgusting. Not only have we catalogued precisely 5 races, each corresponding to a color and pictured with stereotypes from 100+ years ago, guess which race gets to be front and center, in the very middle of the page, with a larger picture since it's not sharing a row with another race.... hm, no, no supremacy here for sure! 

And it quotes a definition of race from a 1828 dictionary. And the word "racism" has such a complex meaning that it's useless. This people is so backwards. Rage inducing indeed.

[backyard sylph]

Here's a Washington Post article on the blog post, and why it was taken down.

[formergothardite]

I saw the article being discussed on Dailymail too. It got a lot of attention. I do think one of the problems is that she never really addressed her own racism and tried to claim she had never been prejudiced against interracial marriage. If she had framed this as an event that helped her recognize her racism in her own life, it would have been better accepted.

[SilverBeach]

21 hours ago, princessmahina said:

I find this interesting because I "came of age" in a place where that's a common question and no one really gets offended (Hawaii). On the contrary, people liked to brag about how diverse their ethnicity was. I guess that kind of question depends on context, as well as the way it's asked. 

I hate this question. Me and DD have been asked what are we a million times. I would never ask anybody this question. I cannot think of an acceptable context and it doesn't matter how the asker asks. Usually, I respond "what do you think I am", then "ok". I feel no need to outline my ancestry for strangers. Sometimes I respond "why are you asking? Does it matter?" DD sometimes creates an elaborate ethnic profile, and nobody catches on that she is toying with them.

I am not in Hawaii though, maybe that would make a difference. I am proud of who I am, but if I talk about it, it shoud be at my initiation and should evolve organically. Not be the result of inappropriate inquisition.

I am a light skinned Black woman with very short hair and this question is asked by blacks and whites alike. Ugh.

Just my opinion, developed after many years of dealing with this. YMMV.

[Cleopatra7]

One thing this article and the controversy around it shows is how ineffectual fundie and fundie lite thinking is in helping address major social issues. TGC is supposed to be about "engaging culture" and "cultural transformation" but as the OP article shows, its members blithely accept toxic ideas about race without even thinking about it. For them, women wearing pants is a more pressing and controversial issue than racism. The article was full of fundie lite boiler plate, none of which adequately addressed how to make society less racist for her son and law and future grandchildren (the thing about not confronting racist uncle Fred comes to mind). We often talk about the fear the Duggars had when they went to that church in Little Rock, but I honestly don't think many white fundies or fundie lites would react any better, since the view seems to be that black people are "doing Christianity wrong." TGC can't really "engage culture" because it refuses to confront the aspects of culture that challenge their preconceived notions. They think that all we need to do is go back to the 1950s when everyone was "white, superficially polite, and uptight" without thinking that the decade was in many ways an anomaly and not a good time for all people.

[vspielman]

"Die to your expectations" is a phrase I've only ever heard in fundamentalist circles and has to do with giving up any of your own beliefs of how things should be, and giving yourself completely over to Christ, and basically sacrificing your entire self to him. I expect it came from some long dead evangelical preacher.

I wanted to add that, fairly recently,  I was speaking with a white grandfather, who has a black son-in-law.  Without any kind of hesitation whatsoever or even a pause, he told me how grateful he was that at least "one" of his grandchildren "could pass without a problem." He has two, a boy who is dark skinned, and a girl who is light skinned.

I couldn't even respond, because I couldn't think of a sensible thing to say.

[Emme]

I hate the idea of having Glenn's mom co-author a piece. Make the white lady do her own work on racism without making the two or three black people in her life educate her...there is a ton of stuff out there written for white people confronting their own racism. Hopefully the daughter is better educated than the mom. 

[AmazonGrace]

19 hours ago, Jucifer said:

This has been a serious and very interesting  thread, but did anyone else burst into laughter reading the title of the mother's article?

When God Sends Your White Daughter a Black Husband

You can't write this stuff...

 

It sounds a bit like, "Don't blame us, God did it!!"

Sorry that her family got harassed.

[princessmahina]

3 hours ago, SilverBeach said:

I hate this question. Me and DD have been asked what are we a million times. I would never ask anybody this question. I cannot think of an acceptable context and it doesn't matter how the asker asks. Usually, I respond "what do you think I am", then "ok". I feel no need to outline my ancestry for strangers. Sometimes I respond "why are you asking? Does it matter?" DD sometimes creates an elaborate ethnic profile, and nobody catches on that she is toying with them.

I am not in Hawaii though, maybe that would make a difference. I am proud of who I am, but if I talk about it, it shoud be at my initiation and should evolve organically. Not be the result of inappropriate inquisition.

I am a light skinned Black woman with very short hair and this question is asked by blacks and whites alike. Ugh.

Just my opinion, developed after many years of dealing with this. YMMV.

I really do think it's a cultural thing. Hawaii may be part of the US, but the culture is very different. There it's a way of sharing something important and wonderful about yourself and doesn't really have any negative connotations. It's also generally introduced by "I'm a mix of this, this, and this, what about you?" It's a way of connecting and building a diverse community. I think it may come from the incredibly diverse population there. It really is a melting pot. 

It seems strange to a lot of people, but I kind of liked it. Now that I live on the mainland, it's not a question that I ever ask someone. 

[SilverBeach]

@princessmahina, its ok to be part everything, but sometimes when that includes black, the judgements start. I don't know much about Hawaii, but perhaps black is not typically part of the mix. I appreciate your insight, one of the best things about FJ is learning from such a geographically and culturally diverse group.

One day I'm going to do that DNA ancestry thing and then I can just whip out the results when asked what am I, LOL! 

And I do think that prefacing the question with disclosure of your own ancestry is a far better approach when making this type of inquiry.

[princessmahina]

9 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

@princessmahina, its ok to be part everything, but sometimes when that includes black, the judgements start. I don't know much about Hawaii, but perhaps black is not typically part of the mix. I appreciate your insight, one of the best things about FJ is learning from such a geographically and culturally diverse group.

One day I'm going to do that DNA ancestry thing and then I can just whip out the results when asked what am I, LOL! 

Black is sometimes included, but the majority of people are a mix of Asian and/or Pacific Islander, sometimes with some European (often Portuguese). Since black people aren't as common there, it can be more of a bragging point. One of my best friends is half black, half...seemingly everything else lol. She loves to tell people about it. It's commonly thought (at least among people I knew) that the more mixed a person is, the more attractive they're going to be. 

I live in the south now and it's worlds apart. Ugh.

[SilverBeach]

7 minutes ago, princessmahina said:

 

I live in the south now and it's worlds apart. Ugh.

Unfortunately, its not just the south. Nor is the south necessarily the worst for not appreciating the diversity of the USA melting pot (or stew). It's a problem nationwide, except for beautiful Hawaii!

[princessmahina]

15 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

Unfortunately, its not just the south. Nor is the south necessarily the worst for not appreciating the diversity of the USA melting pot (or stew). It's a problem nationwide, except for beautiful Hawaii!

Oh, racism is still an issue, although mixed marriages don't seem to be a problem like they can be here. There are places one doesn't dare go if they're not Asian/Pacific. A guy I liked told me straight to my face that he didn't date white girls because we were too fat and ugly. Another time I got punched in the nose and called "a fucking haole." I have a number of other, similar anecdotes, both personal and collected from other people. 

If anything, if you're not substantially mixed, you have it worse off. Most people who live there and are all/mostly white or black have talked about experiencing racism and have left because of it. 

This is kind of a weird post to write because I want to be honest about living there, but don't want to paint it in a wholly negative light. Most people are pretty nice and even though they say some off-handedly racist things, they don't generally mean it to be nasty and are apologetic once you make them think about what they said. 

If I had to compare, I'd say things can be better there, but it's definitely not a utopia for racial relations. 

 

 

[hoipolloi]

4 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

One thing this article and the controversy around it shows is how ineffectual fundie and fundie lite thinking is in helping address major social issues. TGC is supposed to be about "engaging culture" and "cultural transformation" but as the OP article shows, its members blithely accept toxic ideas about race without even thinking about it. 

Spot on.

Other TGC headliners are shaking their heads over how mean people were to the OP, causing her to take down her essay. Fortunately, some of the commenters are pushing back:

Quote

I think, sir, you may be missing the point. It become tiresome to people of color when they raise concerns or feelings of being marginalized by a white person who is “being honest” or “showing such courage” because such perspectives presume that white people are to be celebrated for their attempts at inclusion or understanding. but, no. this is nothing to be celebrated; it is simply long overdue. and suggesting this attitude be revered and hailed as something special is in itself supporting white privilege by underscoring how blind white people are to the realities of living life in a world which caters only to them.

ETA: And the pastor of the young couple & OP has also weighed in. 

Quote

We all wept with joy on their wedding day (I cry at all weddings). We wept not just because of the beauty of seeing a godly man and godly woman come together in marriage, but because of what such a wedding represented in our church in particular. First Pres was founded in 1804. Slaves once sat in our balcony. Pastors once preached from our pulpit that slavery was instituted by God. The Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America was founded in our sanctuary. The Moderator of that Assembly, Benjamin Morgan Palmer, preached that the eighth commandment demanded the preservation of slavery because without it the white man’s standard of living would be compromised. We keep Palmer’s Moderator’s chair in the sanctuary so that I can remind our people that the most brilliant of Christians can succumb to damnable heresies.

NB - Links are to a webarchive copy of article so may or may not work as intended.

[SilverBeach]

20 minutes ago, princessmahina said:

 

If I had to compare, I'd say things can be better there, but it's definitely not a utopia for racial relations.

Oh, I'm sure not a utopia, but the addition of Pacific Islander/Asian to the mix is interesting since my experience has been with black/white issues.

BTW, my daughter's ex husband is white. I was very fond of him. I just wanted her to be treated well, and he treated both of us that way. I had no problems at all because of his race.

Thanks for illustrating that white people can be mistreated too when in the minority and there is no power advantage to being white. Ugly behavior has no racial or ethnic boundaries.

[2xx1xy1JD]

On 2016-08-09 at 6:58 PM, Cleopatra7 said:

Given that the author lives in Augusta, GA, a city I have some familiarity with, I'm not surprised that she would be have some issues about interracial marriage. There's definitely more of an "Old South" vibe there than, say Atlanta. Of course, it's not like interracial coupling, both of the voluntary and involuntary sort, is new to Augusta or anywhere else in the South, but rather that people have and continued to lie about it; on Rod Dreher's blog, some posters told me that the large variations in skin tones found among blacks was attributable to voluntary sexual relationships between black and white indentured slaves during the colonial period and naturally light-skinned African tribes, not rape during slavery. That conversation was enough to send me to the fainting couch. In any case, it's probably good that the author is at least confronting her prejudices and is willing to evolve, but given the way the Gospel Coalition is obsessed with heterosexual marriage and theological purity, it seems like any "godly" male-female union should be acceptable, regardless of race.

Thanks to things like Ancestry DNA, we can prove that's bullshit.  I remember reading a blog post from a family that did the testing, and while  the majority of the husband's DNA was from Africa, there was also part from England - the same part that the plantation owners had come from.

[apandaaries]

9 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

So I just stumbled across this den of racist claptrap: http://faithandheritage.com/2011/11/the-reality-of-race/

Ugh, just looking at the words makes me feel very uncomfortable.

This is one of the most vile and ignorant pieces I've ever laid eyes on.  The author felt the need to flee multiracial California to find safety in Idaho, eh?  That entire website seems devoted to white supremacy cloaked in Biblese. Gotta go clean my eyes and brain now.  

[FundieFarmer]

The Friendly Atheist has some things to say about Gaye as well: 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/08/10/christian-website-wrongly-removes-article-about-how-to-handle-a-black-man-marrying-into-the-family/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

[libriatrix]

8 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I saw the article being discussed on Dailymail too. It got a lot of attention. I do think one of the problems is that she never really addressed her own racism and tried to claim she had never been prejudiced against interracial marriage. If she had framed this as an event that helped her recognize her racism in her own life, it would have been better accepted.

Exactly! It took me a long time to untangle what I felt about this article because so much of what she says about the marrage being good is actually accurate that it was hard to put my finger on what was so wrong. But what's wrong is that she completely refuses to unpack her initial racism and clearly has not completely moved past being racist. She hasn't arrived, but she thinks she's arrived and she's ready to lecture others. She still feels pride and superiority, it's just gone undercover.

[Anonymousguest]

14 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

So I just stumbled across this den of racist claptrap: http://faithandheritage.com/2011/11/the-reality-of-race/

Ugh, just looking at the words makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Wow. Just wow. I didn't read all of it,  just skimming was enough.  Why am I always surprised that there are people who actually believe things like this? I'm well aware prejudice and racism exists,  but this is so above and beyond that. I was a bit...relieved?  To see that this person also believed the witch trials were legitimate. It means they aren't completely rational in other areas either, right? 

[Coy Koi]

Another thing that bothers me about this article: the part where she says not to call out racist relatives, because in addition to inexplicably "dehumanizing" them by accurately labeling their behavior, it does nothing to help your daughter. Maybe she should speak for herself, because personally, it DOES help me when my mom stands up for me and my family to bigoted relatives. Or at least I thought it did. But her daughter married a black guy like last week and she's kinda okay with it as of about last week, so I guess she's the expert here.

[JemilyJ]

On 10/08/2016 at 1:56 AM, Emme said:

Ok, I think that with time she could get to a place where she might actually speak out against racism and not suck on this topic. Hopefully by the time her grandkids come along? But oh boy, white privilage. So much of it. Also fuck that part about being kind to your racist uncle. If someone says something racist in my presence I call them out on it. 

Couldn't read the article as it's gone but had to comment on the grandkids issue. I'd be very surprised if she got to that point

Someone I know has a daughter who has a black husband.  And he comes from a different country - I think they met while she was travelling there - although they live here in the UK.  She was very "surprised" to hear they were going to marry because she "never thought this trip would end like that." AKA a little bit racist (it's fair to say that this person doesn't deal well with people who are different to her - I've found my disability can make her uncomfortable)

Her grandchild is now 5 I'd guess and she was showing off pics of her in school uniform and doing the proud grandma bit but also making sure that people were told "she looks like that as her dad's black"  It made me really uncomfortable.