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rgod -> RE: Interracial Relationships (7/15/2008 11:43:10 PM)
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Lexie, I agree with you. In a way, the assignment of race is a bit ... schizophrenic (I'll explain more later in the post) - having less to do with culture than with physical appearance. Yet for some people it is more real that Christ, more real that God's word. I self-identify as a Christian first, woman second, and black american next - and I am fine with who I am. In my house, I was basically raised as a west-indian and also as a black american. So, some african-american cultural things come to me second hand - but I embrace and love both cultures very much.
I find that I tend to have more in common with people who have a middle class upbringing, regardless of race - because there is a sameness to middle class culture (At least in the USA). I don't have any problems with dating someone who is not black, west indian, american, or middle class. I personally feel for myself that it would be limiting to me to exclude people. But, even though I've definitely experienced discrimination, I've also had a lot of positive experiences with people of different cultural backgrounds - so it isn't really that big a deal for me. I think if someone has had a lot of negative experiences, it might be a lot harder for them - and I can understand that and have compassion. It also helps that I find a lot of different looking men to be attractive - I can't say that I necessarily have a type - I just know what I like. So, I wouldn't have a problem with being in an interracial marriage.
Pman- I would have to say that interracial marriages are definitely not wrong. I know that people have provided scripture on that. But another reason that they aren't wrong is just a very practical consideration. Sometimes your racial identification changes depending on where you are in the world. I have an Arab friend who is considered white in her country. She sees herself as white. Well, the first time she referred to herself as white during a presentation in the U.S. you could have heard a pin drop. No one in the class considered her white and in fact some had treated her really poorly because she is Arab (and for other reasons that related to her personality). Yet, because she is also from Africa, she is treated in the country lives in (in the middle east) as an African in some ways, but white in other ways. It is a very complicated situation. For myself I have been considered "colored" in South Africa because of the texture of my hair when it is natural. I'm very dark skinned, so this was quite a shock to me. But colored there isn't quite the same as bi-racial here. It all felt very schizophrenic to me to go from town to town and to be treated differently based on the way I wore my hair and whether I spoke (and they heard my American accent). And of course, if I'm with my family in the United States (everyone has an accent except for me, my sister, and my dad), there are people who don't really consider me to be a real American because of the accents - although I've been here for most of my life. I have a good friend who is considered black, but because she has an accent and speaks spanish fluently, sometimes gets moved over to the hispanic category (which is ethnicity and not race - but we treat it like race which is why I mention it). So in my experience, this race thing moves around quite a bit depending on where you are in the world and even the time in which you live. The reason is because it truly is a social construction - real in a sense, but artificial in another sense - and we use it to make a lot of decisions about a person's character, worth, personality, motives -- and worse, we divide over it.
But in reality, the only real divisions in God's eyes are saved and unsaved. Even male and female are together in Christ (though we are still our distinct genders). So the only thing that God asks that we do is marry a saved person of the opposite sex. In actuality racism is one of the major largely unrepented of sin in the American church. And believe me, the rest of the world sees this and takes note. But we aren't the only country to sin in this way. It is the elephant in the room that very few seriously address. We notice it sometimes and guilt/shame drives us to address it every once in a while - but we still sit in the room with it and tolerate it because it has always been there.
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