The Black Republican

This must be my month. First I find a local story that has national implications to blog about, and now a nationally recognized writer, Nicholas Kristof, has penned an op-ed piece in the NYTimes on an issue that, according to the numbers he sites, I know more about than over 90% of the country. Actually, since it does have so much relevance to my life, I have been toying with the idea of a post about this topic for some time, I just didn't know how exactly I wanted to approach it.

I agree with Mr. Kristof's assessment that Hollywood, despite being populated by self described progressive liberals, has been woefully behind the times when it comes to portraying interracial relationships. I have to take exception, however, to his characterization of the interracial relationship in the movie Guess Who.

The latest "Guess Who" is about a white man in love with a black woman, and that's a comfortable old archetype from days when slave owners inflicted themselves on slave women. Hollywood has portrayed romances between white men and (usually light-complexioned) black women, probably calculating that any good ol' boy seeing Billy Bob Thornton embracing Halle Berry in "Monster's Ball" is filled not with disgust but with envy.

Does Mr. Kristof really think that the only real interracial relationship worthy of portrayal are the ones where a black man is with a white woman? And his snide, backhand insults to white southerners - which I assume is who the "good ol' boy" reference is intended to intimate - and his reference to Hollywood only teaming white actors with light-complexioned black women seems to contradict the very point he makes in his article. And honestly, is there any man alive today - of any race - that would have a problem embracing Halle Berry? But more to his point, wouldn't a white man with black woman also be considered an interracial couple? And what of blacks with asians, or whites with hispanics? It seems to me that Mr. Kristof should look to his own prejudices before he starts criticizing Hollywood.

Back in 1967, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" helped chip away at taboos by showing a black man and white woman scandalizing their parents with their - chaste - love. In 2005 we have a new version of "Guess Who," but it only underscores how little progress we've made.

How can you explain an entire article dedicated to chastising Hollywood for not portraying interracial couples accurately, support that claim with proof of the amazing ratios that interracial couples actually exist in America, and then make a statement in the middle of the same article about how supposedly we've made such little progress?

Huge majorities of both blacks and whites say they approve of interracial marriages, and the number of interracial marriages is doubling each decade. One survey found that 40 percent of Americans had dated someone of a different race.

Does Mr. Kristof mean we the American people have made such little progress, or should he have said they (as in progressive, liberal, forward thinking Hollywood) have made such little progress?

Which is it? Mr. Kristof really doesn't seem to have made up his mind. Or perhaps his political leanings, or those of the paper for which he writes, just wouldn't allow him to accept that the relationships between the races have actually improved without the help of Hollywood and in spite the constant caterwauling of racism by the so-called "black" leadership and the liberal elites.

In actuality, Mr. Kristof, you have it all wrong. The fact that Guess Who portrays an interracial relationship in a humorous manner is a huge example of progress. Though it was controversial in it's day, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (GHCTD) garnered critical acclaim and would still play well today for the power of it's message. Guess Who (GH) on the other hand, while no masterpiece by anyone's estimation, was still fairly popular. But can anyone really say that if played in 1967 it would have done anything other than stir hatred and loathing? GHCTD was a serious movie about a (at that time more than today) serious subject. GH is a comedy, poking fun at the very same subject. What has changed? The country's attitude toward the wrongness of those relationships, that's what has changed. What was controversial and rare in 1967 is so commonplace today that we - black, white, brown, yellow, or red - can laugh at how absurd it is to distrust, dislike, or even be suspicious of someone simply because of their skin color. The numbers that Mr. Kristof himself sites suggest that a large number of Americans have seemed to accept that it's who a person is that makes them attractive, no matter what the color of their skin happens to be.

Don't get me wrong, having been in an interracial relationship for 12 years I know for a fact that not everyone accepts an interracial couple - on either side of the color spectrum - and that irrational distrust, dislike, and suspicion still exists. But when my wife and I have seen disapproving stares or heard disparaging remarks (extremely rarely), it has tended to be from those belonging to an older generation... a generation who grew up with Jim Crow, segregation, and lynchings - and we tend to laugh at their pigheadedness. Perhaps the reason we have a different attitude is because our generation grew up with The Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King Jr., and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. And how much better will things be in the future with today's generations growing up with 10% or more of the country being in an interracial relationship?

Last year my 9 year old Godson and I were playing a game of I Spy when I decided to test his powers of observation. I put my left hand up to his right - palm to palm - and asked him what was different. I knew what I had in mind but his guesses were predictable - "your hand is bigger", "your hand has more hair", "you have more wrinkles", but none came close to what I was looking for. Just so you know, he and I are of different races - one black, one white - and not once did it even enter his mind that that was a difference between us, or that was the difference I was looking for (which it wasn't). He didn't see the difference in our skin color at all - the thought never even entered his mind. How beautiful it was that he didn't see the most obvious visual difference - because he wasn't raised to see that as a difference! He finally guessed what I was looking for was that I was wearing my wedding ring... and I told him he was right! Not just because that actually was what I was thinking, but because that was, is, and will always be, aside from age and size, the only real difference between us.