Traditional and Popular Believes
When people settle down to consider from which tribe, race, religion or dialect to marry, there are a number of factors that are available for consideration. First of all, marrying from ones’ culture will not only cement the culture of the particular race or tribe but will also ensure that the history, dialect, arts and traditions of the particular culture are maintained and perpetuated. There are two major perspectives that come into play whenever such considerations are made. Such perspectives are the traditional belief and popular culture belief.
The proponents of traditional belief believe in upholding their culture in all aspects while the proponents of popular culture belief view marriage in terms of modernity and therefore see nothing that could bar them from crossing the other side of the divide and interact with the other races. This paper will interrogate both perspectives with respect to Black American men wanting to marry White American women.
Research has established that the so called “men of color” i.e. black men or men from other races love marrying white American women more than any other race. This is the basis of traditional belief that by so doing, they are seen as betrayers and as escaping from their culture. Moreover, they are seen by the traditionalists as people who are not proud of their values, traditions and history. The proponents of this belief maintain that there is a lot to be safeguarded in a person’s culture that escaping from it and running after other cultures. They hold that the culture of a people, the values and the things that the people of that culture share racially are supposed to be safeguarded against and also protected.
It is their belief that marrying from one’s culture enables them to cement the bond that binds them together and, therefore, they uphold the love they have for each other and the race. Somebody getting married from their own culture, they argue, feels secure and protected with their parents, close to their siblings and sharing many things with the friends they had since their childhood. Therefore feel no pressure of learning new culture, new dialect, new history and new traditions owned by their partners. There is a long and interesting history behind the idea that black people are a minority, segregated and the group that is most affected with race. As such, they are expected to be the ones to struggle with breaking all racial ties and barriers. The history of black’s minority dates back in the era of slave trade whereby most Africans were sold as slaves in America and they later settled there to form a minority group as compared to the Americans themselves.
The black men who refuse to marry women who are their fellow blacks are seen by the black minority as running away from the black culture. They are seen as ignorant of the beauty that lays with the black women but instead run for white women for selfish reasons. Such men are seen as deficient in one way or the other and by marrying white women; they are seen as seeking a way of looking for perfection elsewhere. Such men also claim that the women from black culture do not have the sophistication that the men find in white women. This perspective therefore emphasizes on marrying women only from the black continent so that the values, customs, history, dialect and continuity of the people is perpetuated.
On the other hand, and still using black men and white women as our control group, the proponents of popular belief maintain that there is nothing to be regarded as betrayal in marrying white women instead of marrying their fellow blacks. In white women they see love and affection satisfaction and trust. They are guided by mutual love and respect which binds them together as one people. To them, they do not see anything that should bar them from marrying white women yet they have found love and solace in them. They view the position of having to marry black women just because they are black as conservative and barring them from exploring love elsewhere. Their position is that they marry white women out of an urge of love and attachment to one another.
They further argue that to them, there is nothing as inferiority and superiority of cultures and that modernity is their guiding factor. When they marry, they argue that there is always an opportunity to teach the white woman the black culture and therefore the difference in culture should not be the barrier. Asked if their love would last long after the marriage bearing in mind that the two partners are different in culture, dialect and history, the black men upholding the popular believe maintain that love is a concern of two partners who share mutual love and therefore as long as they love one another, culture is an ancillary.
With respect to love and race, the proponents of popular belief maintain that love takes precedence over such thing as race, material wealth, color, and religion and therefore as long as the white women reciprocate the love that the black men show them, their love is deemed to last for a lifetime. Research has shown, however, that interracial relationships are usually faced with challenges and in most occasions they do not last long. There is always a likelihood that the partners are going to differ in one issue or the other, in most occasions the culture issue.
There is therefore the need to strike a balance between the two beliefs. In one hand, we have the traditional belief that people must remain obedient and faithful to their culture and therefore must only marry a person from their race. Then there is the popular belief guided by modernity and cross-cutting interests who maintain that there is no barrier as to marriage, and; therefore, people are free to marry from whichever culture provided that there is mutual love and affection. To them, as long as the two partners love one another and that the love is affectionate; they are free to exercise their right of love.
In an attempt to find a solution to these conflicting interests, there is the need to look at the essence of marriage. The essence of marriage is that the two parties are mutually in love, that they respect one another and that their future is bright. The two partners should be able to respect each other’s culture. Respect for culture is the most paramount. If there is no respect for each other’s culture, the relationship is as good as hopeless (Twine 1997). The only rationale for determining whether an interracial relationship will last is by looking at how possible it will be for the two parties to maintain respect for each other’s culture. That is the only rationale.
It is the position of this paper that for whichever belief, the most important factor to consider is the opposite partner’s ability to respect the culture of the other partner. The other factors are determined by this paramount factor.
Bibliography
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Latimer, Heather. "Hybridity and Whiteness in Claudine C.O'Hearn's Half and Half: Writings on Growinf up Biracial and Bicultural." Purdue University Press: Comparative Literature and Culture, 2005.
May, Joseph. "Introduction: New Hybrid Identities and Performance. Performing Identity. Ed May Joseph and Caandra Talpade Mohanty: Feminist Politics. What's home got to do with this?" New Brunswick, 1997.
Twine, France Widdance. "Brown Skinned White Girls: Class, Culture and the Constructioin of White Identity in Suburban Communities: Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism." Durham: Duke, 1997.
