In “Guess Who” a humorous interpretation of the modern day classic, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, Percy Jones, a black urban professional, has plenty to say about his daughter dating Simon Green, a hard worker who happens to be white. Some of the more interesting points in this movie are the idea that Simon Green has quit his job because of his boss’s indifference to his marrying a black girl. Mr. Jones himself is a proud black man who has worked hard to provide for his family, and simply assumes that his daughter would date and marry a black man like himself.

Thing is, Mr. Jones is not without his own faults, and while the daughter breaks off the engagement with Green as he tries to hide the fact that he is now unemployed he is worried that she would not want him because he is now broke, not because of his being white.

The movie taps into some common stereotypes about interracial relationships, from a humorous perspective. One of which being that a black woman from a well to do family would only be interested in a white male who is either already successful, or moving in that direction. However, the analogies are light, and, in the tradition of all great comedies, ignorance is always put aside for the greater good at the end.

This is not always so in real life, however, as evidenced in the November 2002 issue of Essence magazine when Audrey Edwards makes an interesting, if not convincing case for why African-American men should only date other women of the same race. She begins her article stating that she told her son Ugo to ‘bring me home’ a black girl early on, at the age of 7, in front of other people, at that. She then digresses to explain that the message is one she always reinforced, along with those any parents would communicate to a child, don’t do drugs, finish school, and use a condom. OK so my parents didn’t reinforce the idea of using a condom to me but I didn’t necessarily need for them to either, while children think they’re superheroes and that it won’t happen to them I never had those delusions about having sex. Furthermore the idea that this is something that most African-American parents should or have done is a bit offensive.

To further her argument she brings up the fact that she spoke to the son of a black magazine publisher back in 1992 about the subject. And then further aligns her argument about why she has instructed her son in this way, with her realization of how it affects adolescent African-American men later on in life. If Edwards, with her own writing career and connections to Black magazine publishers, is belligerent concerning her ideas about miscegenation, what example does that serve to the rest of us who aren’t part of the ‘in’ crowd, in the African-American community, aren’t one of the many doctors, lawyers, writers, or artists.

Is it important that African-Americans who do not have as much at stake, who few would carry if they were to marry to begin with, let alone someone of a different race, try to keep our resources ‘in’, the community, instead of being traitors and allowing them to fall ‘out’ to the rest of the world. While Edwards goes on to suggest that while African Americans are more concerned with whether or not their children marry blacks who are ‘light-skinned’ as opposed to whether or not they are white is an honest attempt at using the fact of our cast system within the African American race to support an anti-miscegenation viewpoint (of which the two have little, if anything to do with each other) her view, while well researched and documented, is still a biased one.

As you can imagine Edwards article, while printed in a progressive African-American publication, still drew the ire, indifference, and hatred that it would if published in Cosmopolitan or Esquire. Many of those that wrote in were Caucasians that you would not have expected to have been avid readers the magazine. Then again, the idea that in the 21st century, we are still as insulated and set apart as we were back in the 1950s, when you could provide a solid case for anti-miscegenation (because you might be killed otherwise), was a little naive to begin with. Nevertheless, if Edwards is as good of a writer as I think she is, she was looking for such controversy to provide exposure to her career, if needed.

If Edwards does have a valid argument, it might be because historically, African Americans have been indifferent or frowned upon someone in a position of authority and influence that did marry outside of the race. If anything, what happened to Walter F. White when he married Poppy Cannon might have served as a point of reference in the days when those in the NAACP tried to align his agenda along with the example he was providing, or not, in his personal life. While Carl Murphy wanted him fired, others figured it was hypocritical to fire him over his interracial marriage when he was preaching equality. Of course White was able to pass for being Caucasian, perhaps part of the reason why he was about to marry Cannon go begin with, I’m not sure, but again, arguments about the socioeconomic indifference within the culture would be blurred with an anti-miscegenation agenda, if you were to use this as an example of why one should not marry outside of racial lines.

This is the bottom line, the idea of whether or not blacks and whites, or blacks and any other culture, marry to consolidate socioeconomic resources is a moot point that aligns the African-American establishment with the attitudes of such high-society as the royal family in Britain, for example. Mixed marriages have little if anything to do with any transfer of power within anyones community, and is not a threat or attempt to bring Caucasian women into the establishment that we have as a result of our own attempts to creating an upper-crust among our own. While those in the black community would prefer that it be another African-American woman that reaps the benefits of the financial success that comes along with being aligned with a successful black man there is no clear reason to assume that doing so is enough to put her in that position anyway. It might provide her with an advantage over her peers, and enlighten her to some opportunities, but she still has that responsibility to herself. If anything, if the woman cannot find another that is as successful as she is chances are she might go outside of her race anyway before settling for someone on her level or that is perhaps not as focused and ambitious as she. It happens quite often, and while the motives are not as criticized nor the discrepancies made, it is funny that it is the other sex who receives the cold shoulder for doing so.

The underling argument is that the black male should do what he can to bring the black woman along with him, at all costs. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t in love with the individual or that she isn’t necessarily the right person to support you in your time of need. The danger in this argument is that shows too many similarities with the assumption that it is only another African-American that will truly understand you, or that is capable of loving you, anyway. While it was another African-American woman that I married, you couldn’t tell me anything or convince me with any arguments about the ‘greater good’ when I was dating inter racially. It is something that people have to go through for themselves, that they have to learn by themselves, if at all, and you can’t expect the outcome to mirror your own opinions and racial issues. If anything those who do receive a lot of opposition and flack tend to find themselves in interracial relationships more often, if for nothing else than to find out what it is that is so appealing about what everyone else is opposed to. While I wasn’t necessarily encouraged to do so, I was more or less free to do what I wanted to do.

This is how it should be for everyone else as well. Individuals will continue to present arguments to you for, and against, interracial relationships, throughout your dating years. Just be sure that whatever you do, it is truly a choice that you have made, for reasons that only you and your partner have to deal with, because at the end of the day, it is whether or not you feel that societies encouragement for, or indifference to, who you’re with is worth the trouble that determines whether or not it is you that is the best person for this relationship.

resources:

A reprint of Audrey Edward’s article as seen on Free Republic

A quick summarization of Walter White’s career at the NAACP

The definition of miscegenation as found on dictionary.com

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