Does love have a color?

Before taking this class, I had the unrealistic idea that at least 20% of marriages, or at least serious relationships, in the United States are interracial. Little did I know that “last year, 9% of unmarried couples living together came from different races, compared with [only] about 4% of married couples” (Alpert). Not only did this surprise me, but it made me wonder why more interracial couples are unmarried as opposed to married. Perhaps it is in part due to the cultural and religious differences that can become issues, or the risk of disapproving parents. One thing is for sure, there can be many more hurdles for interracial couples to jump than those couples of the same race or ethnicity.

One suggestion that Alpert gives in her

article is that since interracial couples already have the mindset of breaking boundaries, they don't feel as rushed to get married. I would have to agree with this. It also seems like many of the interracial relationships she speaks of in the article are of a younger generation. Bonilla-Silva adds to this idea that the younger generation is more accepting of interracial marriages by explaining that in his survey “the approval rate was higher among college students-80 percent for white-black unions and 86 percent for white-Mexican unions…”, and that this finding “fits research that suggests educated people are more likely to express approval for the principles of integration” (Bonilla-Silva 164). This makes me wonder if the age of the majority of those in interracial relationships is young and they are not ready to marry. Will we see a spike in the numbers of interracial marriages as these couples get older, or is there still something that will be holding them back from marriage?

            This question brings me to the point that Bonilla-Silva makes that interracial marriage is more opposed by whites than other interracial relationships. He explains that the white participants in his survey “are an example of what the white habitus produces, as they signify, despite the color-blind rhetoric, that

whites are not very likely to engage in interracial unions with blacks” (Bonilla-Silva 171). The white habitus being the force that conditions whites into their way of thinking; it is the way their psychology has been wired. It is interesting to me that what could continuously stand in the way of interracial marriages is the way that people have been conditioned growing up. Maybe it is too hard to break out of the mold that society has shaped us in, and only a fair few are actually able to do it. Could this be the real reason interracial marriage rate stay low? And although the rate of interracial couples in 2012 was double was it was in 2000, it is not nearly to the rate that I had first supposed (Alpert). I am curious to see if the rates will double again in the next ten years, and if our society’s way of thinking will steadily change. Can our society break away from the idea that “whiteness as a lifestyle fosters whiteness as a choice for friends and partners” (Bonilla-Silva 171), or will new ideas form over the next few decades that will increase the acceptance of interracial marriage?

Sources:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/31/nation/la-na-adv-interracial-love-20130901
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. "Peeking Inside the (White) House of Color Blindness." Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. N. pag. Print.