Interracial Marriage Woes, Thoughts from a Mixed Kid

Note from Cat – This topic is in reference to my original article relating to the success of interracial marriages – Black Daddy, White Mommy. After receiving a comment (#27 on that post) that we felt was written from the heart and not intentionally inflammatory, we decided to openly address it to not bring attention to the commenter but to express personal feelings and thoughts directly from a “mixed” point of view. Read the original article here.

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Greetings, I’m Jon, Cat’s husband. Some of you, if not most of you are aware that I’m “mixed” (African American/Caucasian). I usually don’t post on Catherine’s blog as I don’t feel it is my place but I feel a moral obligation to do so in reference to a subject that has generated a few comments recently . It is such a rare opportunity that has presented itself to educate many.

As previously stated I’m a mixed male, my father is African American and my mother is Caucasian. My mother’s parents originally objected to the marriage and no longer had any relationship with my mother and father. Several years later I was born. Again, my grandparents made no attempt to form a relationship with me in any way. Now don’t get me wrong, my grandpa was not Archie Bunker, the hard core racist that he may sound like but he was at the time firmly against interracial marriages and children.

After much convincing, he made a step in the right direction and met my father. My grandpa was totally shocked, this “Black Man” isn’t so bad after all, he is educated, he is a professional, he is religious and he LOVES my daughter and treats her with respect and dignity. Now I did not learn of these things until I was old enough to understand.  I began a relationship with my grandfather at the age of 3 or 4 so I really never knew the difference. I never felt mistreated, judged or any different than any of my cousins or white siblings from this side of the family. Actually I kinda felt a little better liked than some of my cousins.

My dad and my grandpa grew very close and a stereotype and prejudice was broken by my grandpa simply getting to know him for the MAN he is not the ” Black Man” that he appears to be.  My grandpa passed away in 2004,  several days before me and Catherine’s third wedding anniversary. My dad was deeply saddened by this as was I. You see my dad had become more of a son to grandpa than his own dirt bag leach of a son.

That’s right, I have a dirt bag uncle whom I have only seen twice and whom I have never spoken a word to in my thirty years of life. You see my mother’s brother is  an extreme racist. The first time I ever saw him was when I was about 8 years old and we were at my grandparents for Thanksgiving. He walked in, saw us at the table and walked out.  Being so young I can only assume that my grandpa didn’t tell him we were going to be there in an attempt to bring the whole family together. The second was at my grandpa’s funeral. As my grandpa began to fail he gave my mother and her brother one request….. “Don’t be estranged any longer, bring your two families together. Donald (my uncle) put your racist feelings aside,  Get to know Harv (my father).  He is a great man and get to know Jon he is a great young man. My mother did her best to honor her father’s wishes but to no avail. I still don’t know her brother after thirty years.

There have been many statements made about the children feeling out of place or looked at differently. Now I’m not a naive person after being a Police Officer for the past 8 years,  3 1/2 of which were served  in the city rated the Crime Capital of the nation.

During my time I have seen and been subjected to much racism on all ends – from both black and white.  But growing up as child I have never felt any different than any other child. I did not feel out of place because of my race, to be completely honest it never presented itself as a problem. The key to this was my parents and other parents who taught thier children to look at a person based upon their character and there actions, not the color of their skin.

On the rare occasion of having to deal with race ( there were a few kids in my neighborhood raised with extremist views) my simple reply was ” So I guess you can only hate half of me since I’m half white too, which half would you like to hate? ….I just have the best of both worlds.”  I usually got no response as the simple minded could not come up with a comeback.

When  I first met Catherine it was my mother and father all over again. Catherine’s parents strongly disagreed with the the mixing of races. To Catherine and  I it did not matter…We were in Love, we were human beings all created the same in God’s image.  After taking the first steps of meeting me they came around, again stereotypes were broken, Jon’s not so bad, he is nice, polite, comes from a good family, career minded and he LOVES our daughter. Once they got to know me as a MAN and not the “black man” I appeared to be, all of their stereotypes and prejudice were broken.

I know I’m a little long winded here but the Moral of the story is this…..

Everyone was created equally. We all have the same struggles. We all deal with the same issues. We are all humans.

ALL MEN/WOMEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, WE ALL HAVE THE SAME STRUGGLES WE ALL DEAL WITH THE SAME ISSUES, WE ARE HUMANS. DON’T JUDGE SOMEONE ON THEIR RACE. JUDGE THEM FOR WHO THEY ARE.  AS A FATHER IF ONE MY LITTLE GIRLS COMES HOME WITH AN AFFRICAN AMERICAN, CAUCASION, LATINO OR ARABIC BOY FRIEND HE WILL BE JUDGED ON WHO HE IS, HOW DOES HE TREAT MY DAUGHTER AND WILL HE MAKE SURE HE DOES EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO MAKE SURE SHE HAS EVERYTHING SHE WANTS AND NEEDS NOT THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN. IT’S 2009 PEOPLE IT IS TIME TO UNITE AS HUMANS AND ADDRESS ALL OUR ISSUES AND PUT RACE ASIDE.

Thanks for letting me rant Cat  we can go to the store now !!