Love in Black and White

Love In Black And White

Nothing brings out our hidden, forgotten prejudices like interracial marriage.

Shortly before Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed, he wrote about a woman who said to him that she had no prejudices: “I believe Negroes should have the right to vote, the right to a good job, the right to a decent home, and the right to have access to public accommodations. Of course, I must confess that I would not want my daughter to marry a Negro.”

King correctly pointed out that the woman’s failure to accept interracial marriage negated her claims. “She failed to see that implicit in her rejection was the feeling that her daughter had some pure, superior nature that should not be contaminated by the impure, inferior nature of the Negro.… The question of intermarriage is never raised in a society cured of the disease of racism.”

Has America, since King’s murder, been cured of racism? Has the church? Most evangelicals have long ago denounced the “curse of Ham” theology. We have published countless words about equality and reconciliation, exegeting that the “middle wall of partition” between races has been broken down by Christ. Yet the hard fact is, a great many still feel what the woman voiced to Martin Luther King, Jr.

For instance, the daughter of an evangelical pastor fell in love with a Black man. They married, and today the pastor lovingly visits them and his biracial grandchildren. However, it is very clear to the pastor’s daughter that she is not to bring her family to her father’s church. What does that say about this pastor and his parishioners?

I was stunned when a well-respected evangelical father in my community, upon learning that his daughter was dating an African-American, did not merely warn her about the many pressures and problems she would surely face. He made it clear that not only should she immediately end the relationship—but she herself would not be welcome in their home until she did.

Yet I must confess that I understand the feeling of this father all too well. Recently I approached a video store with my seven-year-old son, who is Black. I have two adopted sons and an infant daughter, all of whom are Black. We hug and kiss; we share the same pop bottles. They are fully family, fully loved. As we stepped into the store, a young couple passed us. She was very blond, like my other, older daughter; he was very black, like my young son beside me. And ironically, those old feelings born of countless images and comments flowed through me: “This just isn’t right. What was she trying to prove? What did he really want?” And I thought I was past all that.

Intermarriage is a tripwire that reveals our deepest attitudes about race. After all, it was only a generation ago—1967—that the Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws. In Loving v. State of Virginia, a White man and a Black woman were finally freed to return home, having fled their state to avoid a year’s jail sentence for getting married.

The church must repent not only of bad theology, but also for failing to protest racist laws in the past. We must face up to the studies pointing to evangelicals as very prejudiced in this area.

God does not use race to separate humanity. The only “mixed marriages” Scripture objects to are of believer with nonbeliever.

Good intentions, bad results

None of this is to deny the difficulties inherent in interracial marriages. Both racial and cultural differences put pressure on the relationship. Some couples embrace interracial love for rebellious, escapist, or other negative reasons (as do couples of the same race). Parents want their children to be happy, and in a racist society, they know what happens to Black-White couples and their children.

However, exclusively emphasizing the problems rather than attacking the roots can simply increase those difficulties. In the name of saving children from prejudice, we may reinforce the barriers that create that prejudice.

The truth is, we are mostly all “cousins” anyway. Some estimate that 75 percent of the Blacks in this country have some racially mixed ancestry. The oft-heard argument that “cardinals and blue jays don’t nest together” did not mean much to slave owners who fathered children with a Black housekeeper, then left their new sons and daughters in the slave huts.

Intermarriage is sometimes strongly resisted by African-Americans. With the significant shortage of marriageable Black men, Black women can feel betrayed or deserted when a Black man marries a White woman. Some Black activists feel mixed marriages weaken African-American solidarity, and many Black parents object as strenuously to mixed marriages as their White counterparts. Yet, interracial marriage is increasingly common: According to a recent Time poll, 72 percent of those polled know married couples of different races. Throughout America, we see White-Black couples more and more frequently.

Is it possible God actually calls some Blacks to fall in love with Whites, and vice-versa? (See “Guess Who’s Coming to Church,” p. 30.) If that is true, then we should celebrate.

Yes, celebrate! Let’s rejoice over the beautiful children born to interracial marriages and do everything possible to make them fully accepted. Let’s recognize the contributions intermarriage can make toward breaking down prejudice. And though we may not necessarily promote interracial marriages, let’s take the lead in defending, protecting, and supporting them in our churches.

Our theology says Christ came to make all things new, where there is “neither Jew nor Greek.” Can we see the beauty of Black and White love as easily as we see love within a particular race? Can we equally celebrate the potential of a biracial child, a White child, a Black child? And as Christians, can we begin to lead the way?

By Harold Myra.

The Condom War On Children

Picture yourself as a high-schooler. Basketball games, rock and roll, and hormones raging like Niagara Falls in the spring. It’s Friday, first period, and your teacher reads the day’s announcements: “Condoms are still available from the nurse, but the principal is concerned that not enough of you are taking advantage of this service. Remember, safe sex is the best policy.”

Later that night, after the basketball game, you and your steady are settling on the sofa for some late-night, nonverbal communication. Someone turns on the TV to catch a bit of a movie. The program is punctuated by the ususal commercials, but one in particular catches your attention. A young man and woman are giggling in an obvious precoital wrestling match. “Did you bring it?” she asks. “Uh-oh. I forgot it,” he replies. “Then forget it,” she says. The voice-over states, “Next time, don’t forget it.”

Your parents’ tax dollars have paid for condoms in your school’s health office, and the same tax dollars have fully subsidized several new condom commercials that cost about $1 million to produce. You know what you want to do with your steady, but now you discover that the government expects you to do it. And that’s what is wrong with the Clinton administration’s condom ads. Casual sex between young, unmarried couples is glorified.

Sex in the 1990s is confusing enough as it is. On the one hand, eros saturates every fiber of our indulgent society. On the other hand, there are signposts testifying that the party is over. Casual sex, once held up as a virtuous pastime, is now understood to be a dangerous, potentially life-threatening activity. Often, both messages come through the same medium. Consider the September issue of Playboy magazine with its interview of Larry Krammer, founder of the homosexual activist group, ACT-UP. In the interview, Krammer, who has full-blown AIDS, exposes the myth of the sexual revolution that Hugh Hefner and Playboy helped create. The man who has been called the “Paul Revere of the AIDS epidemic” states:

“The road [of the sexual revolution] was taken for the most logical and perhaps virtuous reasons. But in the end it proved to be the wrong road. Let’s face it: That’s the life we were all leading, gay and straight. But it costs too much. I tend to be very hard on the sexual revolution.… Something inside me rebels against the notion of using the body as a thing. I think that’s the bottom line with the sexual revolution.” Yet despite this somber warning, the usual exploitation still graces the center pages of Hefner’s magazine.

Krammer, in his postpromiscuous, infected frailty is onto something—something that the administration missed with its condom ads. Sex is more than pleasure. The body needs more than protection from a piece of latex. True, condoms are better than nothing, but why not tell the entire truth in our tax-supported advertising? Why not insist that every ad include the Centers for Disease Control admission that condoms have a 30 percent failure rate when it comes to HIV transmission?

A responsible condom ad campaign will focus less on the beauty of two young bodies about to have sex and more on the fact that one should not think it odd to postpone intercourse until protected by marriage. James Pinkerton, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, puts it succinctly: “We don’t need to force adulterers to wear a scarlet letter, but it wouldn’t hurt to send a stronger signal that unacceptable behavior is … unacceptable.”

By Reed Jolley, pastor of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Community Church.

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