Forty years ago, I would have been illegal in several states

[jlh]

(Just a reminder that this icon is a chibi of me, drawn by bhanesidhe.)

Last week there was an excellent series on National Public Radio about the fortieth anniversary of the Loving decision. For those of you that haven't heard of it, in 1967 the Supreme Court ruled that a state (in this case, Virginia) could not nullify a marriage on the basis of race.

The Lovings had got married in DC in 1958, where they could be legally married, and then went back to their Virginia home town. In the middle of the night, the cops woke them up, arrested them, and charged them with violating Virginia law. Their sentence was suspended on the condition that they leave the state and not return for 25 years, so they moved back to DC. Missing their family, they decided to sue in 1963. In 1967 the Supreme Court overturns the conviction in a unanimous decision based on the Fourteenth Amendment.

The other thing that happened in 1967 was "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." As a kid I used to watch this movie, in which a white girl presents her black fiancee to her liberal parents, and pretend that the couple were my own birth parents. (The timing is right; I was born in 1969, and I'm biracial.) The Hays Code, which delineated morality in film from the mid-thirties until the implementation of the MPAA ratings system in the 1960s, specifically prevented interracial romance that did not have an unhappy ending so as to discourage miscegenation. So "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was the first film with an interracial couple who got their happy ending.

In their story on the decision NPR talked to an interracial couple living in the Loving's Virginia hometown now, and they talked about the verbal and physical violence that they have to deal with on a daily basis. In 1998 the law against interracial marriage in South Carolina, unenforceable since 1967 but still on the books, was struck down even though a poll found that 22% were against the removal of the law. It took Alabama until 2000 to get rid of their law. Heck, I'm in New York City and my own racial ambiguity makes people nervous all the time. So let's hear it for the Lovings and their bravery, and the bravery of all the interracial couples around us, because it still is a brave act, and remember that even certain kinds of heterosexual love are under attack from many in this country.

In fandom we have so much difficulty talking about race, perhaps because fandom is generally white, whiter even than the American and British cultures at large, and white guilt gets in the way. I don't know; I'm not white. I only know that when I talk about race, I don't get many comments, or the sense that many of you are listening. Given our ability to rally around issues of sexual orientation, I find that to be both sad and frustrating. If I felt that my lone voice in the wilderness was really making a difference—if I thought that even one person would link to this, or stop and think about how far we as a culture have and have not come around issues of miscegenation, which is so much at the very heart of what racism means—I'd be happy to make more race posts. I'd like to say that this isn't begging for comments, but to be honest, it is. On the one hand, it's upsetting to feel only five people care about these matters, and on the other hand, it's upsetting to post about them and confirm that only five people care.

Comments

[tartpants.livejournal.com]

white guilt gets in the way

That, yes, and also there's a whole "I shouldn't comment because I haven't been there/don't want to presume/have no authority." Colleagues of mine who want to teach ethnic literature at the University level are now claiming ethnicity as a way to talk about these things freely - and also to get jobs. There's a lot of Native American relatives being rediscovered, some authentic, others perhaps constructed.

One woman, a Israeli-born American, referred to herself as a woman of color during a presentation; everyone raised there eyebrows and later, I heard them whispering, "how does she have the right?"

So, academically speaking (and real-world speaking, I'm sure), it's become a bit of a hot button issue. Something people either pussyfoot around or become so passionate about that it seems to embarrass others into silence. All of that is unfortunate, though, because all it really means is that nothing ever really gets discussed.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've always found interesting about fandom is that it tends to be sort of blind to things like race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and yet at the same time very white, female, straight, and non-disabled. Because we can't see each other in this medium, we tend to interact with each other as faceless entities, but I wonder if people really do that, or if the default is (for most people in fandom) unconsciously that of straight white female?

[lessthangreat.livejournal.com]

I second tartpants and emmegrant01's comments. I also just want you to know that I always thoroughly read your posts on race/racism. I just haven't commented yet because I never really know what to say, and I'd like to leave a half-intelligent comment. :-/ Mostly, just know that I support you, darling, and that I do care, even if I don't always comment.

[wednesdayschild.livejournal.com]

Heck, I'm in New York City and my own racial ambiguity makes people nervous all the time.

Can you explain this to me further? I have never encountered the idea of people being made nervous by racial ambiguity, or really thought of it as an issue at all (being, as I am, very obviously white it's not something that occured to me).

[conob.livejournal.com]

I hear you.

Having two generations of emigrants nearby has imprinted me more than race has--ethnicity more than color, anyway. (My grandmother left Russia, my father left a European country split in two, my mother left an Asian country split in two.) It still isn't useful to look for "people like me" in stories, since they're usually set in the distant future and/or deemed situationally contrived.

In Los Angeles during the teens and twenties (20th century), anti-miscegenation laws prevented marriage and limited social contact between white women and yellow men (mostly Chinese and Filipino, then). I don't know when those were repealed, but George Takei's role on Star Trek was just as groundbreaking as Nichelle Nichols's....

[misscake]

Like others have said, I think part of the reason why more people don't comment is because, if you aren't a person of color, you feel somewhat unqualified or intimidated. And yet, many straight women have strong and very vocal opinions about homosexuality that we don't feel afraid to share; why is that?

But I do have an observation to share. I just returned from 8 days at Disney World and this was perhaps the first time I really took notice of how many more racial groups I saw represented. And I don't mean in the guests, but in the staff. For so long, Disney was a bastion of white males and minorities were relegated to housekeeping and maintenance. But I was really pleased this time to see more minorities and people with disabilities in the park and hotel management and recreation staff and in their advertising as well. Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that their upper management may well still be full of good ole white boys, but the every day faces they are showing to their public isn't anymore. I can't help but think that if a company as large and influential as Disney can recognize strength in diversity then there is hope on the horizon.

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

I think this is an interesting and important topic and I applaud you for wanting to address and discuss it. And i think part of the problem with getting people to respond to posts like these is race - you have a point when you say that fandom is predominantly white. I know that as a white person, there are times when I'm not sure how my opinion is going to be taken.

I'd love to see more posts on these subjects because you have an interesting and unique point of view. Bring it on.

[longtimegone]

Yay for accessing LJ at work!

The Hays Code, which delineated morality in film from the mid-thirties until the implementation of the MPAA ratings system in the 1960s, specifically prevented interracial romance that did not have an unhappy ending so as to discourage miscegenation.

Wow, I was not aware of that! How...yucky of them.

It took Alabama until 2000 to get rid of their law.

Yeah, I remember that vividly, as it was the first election/vote I was able to vote in. I was shocked that the law was still on the books, and that it was actually touch and go for a bit that it would pass. O_O

So let's hear it for the Lovings and their bravery, and the bravery of all the interracial couples around us, because it still is a brave act, and remember that even certain kinds of heterosexual love are under attack from many in this country.

They've definitely got my support/appreciation/kudos. Het, gay, bi, black, white, Asian, Native American, shit, it's hard enough to find love and happiness in this life, so I don't begrudge anyone for carving out their own niche. More power to them. More power to all of us!

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

I always read your posts about this subject, but to be honest, I really don't feel qualified to comment most times. Being white in Germany is very different to being white in the States. Cologne has a significant minority of around 12% Turkish / German-Turkish people, and it is not an extremely white town when it comes to people of other origin, either. But the difference to say, London or Paris with its huge communities of (former) immigrants is palpable - and the only U.S. towns I ever lived in were Toledo OH, where all black people I knew were private school buddies of mine, and Salt Lake City, where it was a HUGE event to have seen a non-white person on the street (happened, like, thrice in four months). But back to my argument - because I know how much of an issue this still is in the U.S., I think I have nothing to say on the issue.

I grew up in a middle class bubble where until way into my twenties, I didn't realise - because I never ever saw it happen - that some people were treated differently even in Cologne due to their race/ethnic background. I had German, Turkish, African, Polish, Croatian, Russian, Spanish, Italian, and South-Korean classmates in my class of 28 students in years 5-10 in high school, and we were all the same, always, treated each other the same and got treated the same by teachers. We were very aware that elsewhere in Germany, asylum seekers were killed by neo-nazis - we talked about that in class a LOT (post-Hitler Germany has an extensive curriculum on hate and what it can lead to) - but the point is that growing up, treating everyone and being treated the same as everyone was the norm for me. I was a little pissed off to discover that this wasn't the same in the U.S., that despite the possibility of being friends, when it came to events such as football games, the whites stayed with the whites, the blacks with the blacks. I was quite flabberghasted, actually. Class council only had a handful of blacks, too, when I'd say a good 25% of the student body was black. I couldn't believe it, and I still don't understand why, after SO many years - even if it's only as few as 30, that's a whole generation! - there isn't a genuine mix of all "races" in about the same percentages as the areas the people live in. It just puzzles me, I *cannot* understand why. I mean, I get that all ethnic groups also shouldn't lose their identities, but I *know* it is possible to be true to your Italian roots and still be German, as well, the same goes for the Turkish people, *even* those girls who are very traditionally raised and only wear long skirts and always have their headscarf on. Still, they are in mixed friends groups. I guess that was the long explanation on why I hardly ever comment.

I am, however, always very interested when you post about race issues because I haven't given up hope that one day, I might understand why the Americans just can't seem to get a move on with their integration process, even though they've been at it SOOOOOO much longer than the Germans in particular and the Europeans in general have.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I care. That is so interesting about the Hays code change. Thanks for this post. I don't really have anything to add except that I read it and found it interesting. (Actually as I kept typing I guess I do have stuff to say.)

I will say that working in Harlem for the last year has been interesting. It is kind of cool to be in the minority when I am walking up Lennox Ave (though as that neighborhood gentrifies the demographic is changing, which is kind of sad.) It isn't always comfortable suddenly realizing you are the only woman or the only person of your skin color, but I think it is a good experience for me. It makes me aware of how other people might feel a lot of the time.

My problem is not so much "white guilt" -- or maybe it is and I just don't think of it that way. I'm worried about offending people by saying the wrong thing, or failing to say the right thing and I get flustered easily. I feel like there is this balance between recognizing and respecting someone's race and labeling them with it. I can't ignore that I am white or that you are biracial or that my best friend growing up was Japanese. But I don't want to primarily identify any of us with race labels. Because we are all complex individuals with identities that cannot be summed up in a word.

Do you remember that old PSA with a grandpa and a kid fishing and the kid says something like, "You know Timmy, he's my Jewish friend." And the grandfather lectures the kid about not labeling his friends racially.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Yuck, yuck, yuck. In American History, anyway, it's been slightly less of an issue because the study of race predated the entry of ethnic folks into the academy because you just can't get around slavery. Even if you want them to be happy slaves you still have to talk about them. But I did read a roundtable recently about the state of history after the linguistic turn and one of the people was like, "but if we do away with African American history as a discipline then how will the black scholars get jobs?" and I was like, Christ Jesus, lady! I mean, you didn't have to be doing Women's history to get a job! I mean, I'm definitely aware of how being a woman of color positions me differently, and I try to work with and against it. I don't actually do race history all that often, but I'm more of an integrationist, myself, even if it is too early for the academy to be doing so. And I think we have to break through the idea that you have to have a born-in authority to talk about things, rather than just being sensitive and stuff, as if you make ethnic lit something only ethnic people can talk about, then it will become something only ethnic people will care about. It's a puzzlement, and just as essentialist as anything else, really.

I'm really trying to work on that wall, that white guilt wall, because it's a badun. Like, I don't want to become the one stop for everyone's racial education, but I do want to encourage the conversation in a safe way. And you know me, I'm much more likely to be like, "gee, blah blah" than anything directly confrontational.

Thank you SO MUCH for commenting, lovely!

[darth-kittius.livejournal.com]

there's a whole "I shouldn't comment because I haven't been there/don't want to presume/have no authority."

That's most of it for me. If it makes you feel any better about the status of non-discussion on your journal in race matters, I've taken many courses in race theory and stay likewise silent in those (annoying a great many professors -- especially when I was a graduate student). I just feel like I really have no idea what to even chime in with. Any experiences I've had… just aren't relevant. They could be similar, but I'm white, so I'm guessing they're not even close. Nor can I relate on any level. I like learning and thinking about things from new perspectives.

I always enjoy reading posts like this. I wasn't familiar with the Loving decision and will be bookmarking it for future reference now.

[stinaleigh.livejournal.com]

I do read your posts on race, but like others have said I often feel unable to comment due to my own ethnicity. Living in downtown Detroit for the past couple of years has given me some perspective though. I remember my first week here going to the Target that was on my way to work. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what was different. The layout was the same, the products were the same. . . I was the only white person in the store, there weren't even any white employees. I think that is the thing that interests me the most about Detroit itself, is the segregation of the city and the suburbs. In Minneapolis, the stores in the poorest neighborhoods wouldn't be any one ethnicity, there is still a mix but here, the segregation is blatant.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

(Der. Typos. *reposts*)

I am frequently boggled, when I find reminders of how long ago it wasn't since racism was literally legal in various areas of the country.

I guess, there is the evidence that stereotypes and prejudices exist today, and there are the arguments that they don't exist, and it's the latter that makes me want to draw out a timeline for people and say: Look. This was still the law just a few years ago, and it hasn't even been two hundred years since slavery itself was abolished. Cultures don't change that fast, so of course the stereotypes and prejudices are still out there. They're the scraggly persistent weeds that keep popping up because the root hasn't been buried deeply enough yet. So, you know, recognize it, admit it, whatever, and then if arguing that it doesn't exist really does equal a desire for it not to exist, work on it.

If that makes sense.

Given our ability to rally around issues of sexual orientation, I find that to be both sad and frustrating.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me, when it comes to things like laws against same sex marriage or interracial marriage, or things like people being blatantly persecuted because of race/ethnicity/sexuality/whathaveyou, it's easy to rally. Those are big, obvious Things That Are Wrong, you know?

When it comes to discussing the nature of prejudice, or philosophies or definitions/examples of some of the elements of prejudice, I tend to want to just shut up and listen (or read). I don't trust that I know all of the ins and outs of what everyone might consider evidence of prejudice because the parameters can be so different for different people. By parameters I mean everything from what word is no longer PC that was totally PC before, to the fact that depending on who you are and what culture/race/ethnicity/gender/sexuality you identify with the rules are different for what it's okay to say or think or do. So, if there is a thoughtful discussion going on where I feel like I'm somehow out of my league, I tend to think that it's better to not participate unless I have something absolutely relevant and informed to say.

I mean. The thing I said at the beginning of this comment post, I feel like maybe that's not absolutely relevant and maybe I'll come off as talking out of my ass, and my gut tells me to just not say anything in that case. But I went ahead and said it because of the point you made about people not jumping into discussions, because I wanted to at least try. Which is not a plea for gentle handling; if I am talking out of my ass, tell me, because I do want to know. :) Just, there's an example of the sort of thing that causes my shut-up reflex to kick in...

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

This is a very interesting comment. I tend to think of people according the their lj icons and as disembodied ideas. I get a sense of their online persona. When pressed to consider the actual body sitting out there somewhere I do tend to think everyone is female by default. I try not to assume race, but probably do unconsciously think everyone is white unless I am told otherwise. I don't know. I think I was more startled to see actual normal people when I first started meeting online people in RL, if that makes any sense at all.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

perhaps because fandom is generally white, whiter even than the American and British cultures at large, and white guilt gets in the way. I don't know; I'm not white.

I am--and I don't know either. I don't know if it's guilt. I think it's probably a lot of things that we'll never unpack because we don't talk about it. It's like...there's probably a hump that needs to be gotten over where people can disagree and also be different races, but right now we can't even really get to the disagreement because we seem to always be having two conversations. Like it seems that so many posts I see about non-white people or characters always somehow ends up being about white people--and not in a way that's about their relationships to people of color either. It seems like it's often hard to get people to talk about the issue instead of any other issue in the vicinity.

It has gotten me trying to write a post about race actually, that I've been thinking about since a recent conversation. I feel kind of funny that it's about fictional races, but it was a conversation where people were explicitly using their own experiences of race to understand the fictional scene in a way I thought just went to the heart of why people might talk past each other sometimes.

And also--here's to your being legal! And figuring out why even today there are probably many many people who would see no reason to strike down those kinds of laws.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I have seen people get weirded out when they cannot place someone else's racial identity. (This is setting aside the idea that some people are upset by people of mixed race on principle. I don't have much to say about those people except that they make me furious.)

My best friend growing up is half Japanese and half Italian. She gets stopped by people all the time who say things like, "What are you?" People cannot place her racially and sometimes they get wigged out by it. She is also very pretty and that seems to make guys kind of stupid.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think you have a great point there. I think that everyone's unconcious default is always pretty much themselves, and that those in the dominant group are surprised by the disconnect much less often than those who are not in the dominant group, and therefore the surprise is larger.

The dominant group often claims the norm, against which other groups must define themselves. I am a woman because I am not a man. I am black because I am not white. I am gay because I am not straight. Though actually, of course, the act of definition happens the other way, again, because the dominant group doesn't have to bother to define themselves until they come across the difference. There was no "heterosexual" until the literature needed to define "homosexual" as a sexual pathology rather than just another way that a man might cheat on his wife.

I do know that people in fandom with disabilities have made me much more aware about things that I do that are unconscious, and that's awesome. And when I confront racism it always leads me to be much more aware of parallel ways that I might be heteronormative at times. I mean, we're all doing the work every day, all of us, because the human mind tends to us and them at a very root level. That's how social animals stay safe.

Here's an off-topic question: That icon, I mean, I've met you, so I see it as you, but is it an actual drawing of you, or a happy accident? Because either way it is EMOSEWA.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you sweetie! I do not require intelligence, actually; just sincerity. I try to make this a really safe space where people can say whatever if they aren't just being provocative or obnoxious. And even when I disagree I always try to work out why I disagree, how I disagree, and why the person who disagrees with me feels the way that they do. And I think that you know, the experience of white folks in this big multicultural country is just as valid, since we all have to figure out how to live together.

[phoenixsong]

I can't ignore that I am white or that you are biracial or that my best friend growing up was Japanese. But I don't want to primarily identify any of us with race labels.

I had much the same feeling growing up, in Buffalo, NY. There was one black girl in the competition choir, and when trying to identify her to my parents out-of-context one day, I remember desperately trying to find any other way to do so besides skin color.

Living around (but not in) DC now, and oh boy is it different! I definitely appreciate that race is discussed more openly -- but there are still plenty of divisions along race lines in some respects. On the other hand, people of color are just plain more prevalant here, too. This was brought home when I visited friends in Rochester, and realized there was exactly one black family in the entire park -- and they stood out like sore thumbs, even though they probably weren't any different in most other ways from the other people there.

I think, at least where I grew up, ethnicity and religion were a bigger deal than race. But that's likely because race was relatively homogeneous in the 'burbs, while religion became HUGE in my school district when different groups wanted different holidays off, or objected to having to sing particular songs in the winter concert. And everyone knew there were certain areas that were more likely to be Irish, Italian, German, or Polish than other areas.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Katie got it—I get asked by complete strangers all the time, and I find it really weird. I don't find it weird from friends at all, or even from people that I've met in a social situation; I find it a question akin to "where did you grow up" or "where did you go to school." But when I'm just standing on a subway platform and someone asks, that's weird. And it's because people need to be able to categorize you, and they can't, and it bugs them.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I admit, at this point someone who "looks like me" in a film or a book is usually someone who's a little curvy. I guess I've kinda given up on the race thing, sad to say.

I would guess that they were repealed in the 1960s, when a lot of the laws were repealed as part of the Great Society, and the immigration law was finally changed. As you say, California was hugely anti-Asian for long parts of its history and you still don't see nearly as many Asians on screen as you do even blacks or hispanics. It's funny, last night I was watching I'm the One That I Want, Margaret Cho's first stand up DVD where she talks about everything that went on around her failed sitcom All-American Girl and she spoke a lot about being a so-called role model and whether the Asian community really accepted her as such. George Takei coming out was also huge as it's like, yes, there are also gay people of color! Imagine!

The teaching of western history (I'm a history grad student) was really changed in the late 80s by work from many scholars to point out that the west wasn't just "cowboys and injuns" but escaped and later freed slaves, Mexicans, Chinese and Japanese immigrants, plus the white settlers coming west and of course the Native Americans who were already there, and the whites used their experience of slavery and Jim Crow in defining blacks into a very narrow citizenship (can't vote easily, can't testify in trials, can't sue, can't have certain jobs) to control the non-whites they found in the west. Certainly there were plenty in California who were happy to take advantage of the war against Japan to ruin the very successful Japanese farmers who'd been in the valley for some generations. It's a mess, and a story that isn't told often enough, that the racial history of this country is not nearly just black and white.

May I ask the landmine question, how do you usually identify? I've been checking the "other" box for forever, and if someone asks I'll say "biracial", and I feel more affinity for people who are biracial even if it isn't black/white than with the black community, for some reason. And it is a growing racial identity, nowadays. You can even check it on the census.

Thank you so much for your comment!

[conob.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the context--seriously, even a thumbnail sketch is very helpful. I was an English grad student: escaped into the Middle Ages after being asked one too many times why I wasn't working on Asian Am lit.

I drew a little "other" box on the undergrad application for a snooty private school in the early 1990s because there wasn't one. :) I still prefer "other." If we're going to level me for statistical purposes, may as well go all the way. Your comment re: affinity interests me; I too find that there's often more shared experience with others of mixed heritage, however it's configured.

The former Los Angeles anti-misceg. issue contrasts neatly with its reported current status as the U.S. locale with the highest percentage of ethnic intermarriage. (I grew up in/near LA.)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I know, and I hate that trend. Like, I understand where it comes from, and I understand why people of color say, "you don't know." But I think, it doesn't mean, "you don't know about race" but more, "you can't speak for my experience, only your own." And I, for one, do want to hear other people's experiences. It's the conversation that needs to happen, the talking AND the listening.

That's so encouraging, your story about Disneyworld! You know, I find that many corporations are pro-diversity; they often file friend of the court briefs on behalf of affirmative action because they want to be able to have lots of qualified candidates of color to hire. But they have to be extraodinarily pro-active in order to make it happen. It's too bad, how consistently education is the bad link in the chain in the US.

Thank you so much for your comment!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll say that I want this space to be really safe and welcoming of anything sincerely meant. So please, feel free to pop in with whatever your experiences have been!

And thank you so much! I really appreciate that.