Interracial Dating: Holding Hands

This is the third part of the series on Interracial Dating. Read the first two parts here and here.

Holding Hands

After you navigate the maze of the rules of attraction, there is the actual dating. This is when the fun begins, as the carnival of culture clash comes to your town.

Dimsum or Samosa?

Race, or ethnicity, is almost synonymous with culture. What race you are, usually pinpoints to the environment one grew up in, the customs observed, the festivals celebrated. It can impact the thousand different ways we carry ourselves, conduct our daily lives.

Hence, when two people of two different ethnicities come together, there are bound to be cultural differences. Maybe she is appalled that you can eat food with your fingers. Maybe he is rolling his eyes when you use water, not tissue paper. Differences can be a source of conflict, or it can be the starting point of mutual discovery.¹

To add another layer of confusion, even within certain 'races', such Indians, there are several small ethnic groups with drastically different cultures. Malays are not a uniformly descended group from one Malay ancestor, but a socially and legally enforced grouping of several small indigenous tribes. And of course, there are the myriad dialect groups in the Chinese community. There is more diversity than we think there is.

From my previous articles about Rules of Attraction, the readers would remember the Totem pole, a ladder of sexual superiority and inferiority, and the phenomenon of internal racism. The 'inferior' race may sometimes try to suppress her racial characteristics when with her partner, believing them to be unappealing. Or perhaps they think that the lack of cultural traits make them more like their partner, hence more relatable. Suddenly she stops wearing her favourite salvar kameezes, or maybe he doesn't listen to his Javanese folk music collection anymore.²

Meeting the Folks

Whether you tell your folks that she is your best friend, or you tell them she is the love of your life, an important part of meeting the folks is making them like your partner.

In that, of course, lie lots of racial prejudices that the older generation may possess in more abundance than the younger. I cannot speak for the parents of those higher up on the totem pole, and whether racism is an issue among them. Sometimes the prejudice is worse in minority-ethnic families for several reasons. I can tell from personal experience that my parents are much warmer to Indian friends than others, believing them to be a much better company than 'those Chinese people'.

Add the dimension of a being a romantic partner to it, and you have several reasons why parents will object

1. Perceived loss of culture, as the presence of the other party might make one ignore one's culture
2. Perceived dilution of bloodline
3. Perceived 'corruption' of values [a point which applies to friends as well]
4. Resentment against oppression and/or contempt for the race

If your parents have not even come to terms with the fact that you are queer, the presence of the other-racial partner may reinforce their conviction that you have been corrupted and led astray. This feeling is stronger for those races whose culture is more important to them, and have concerns about 'erosion of values', being under a cultural siege from others.

Religious clash

Interracial relationships do have a propensity to be inter-religious relationships as well, but not necessarily. However, inter-religious relationships have more potential for conflict. While race is a matter of being, existence, religion is an issue of faith and belief system. Today's troubled world can adequately demonstrate the extent to which faith can be the centre and cause of conflict.

Religious practices and beliefs are much harder to step around. She can't step into the temple because she is Christian. He can't even share a beer with me because he is Muslim. She thinks I am pagan because I've never been baptised. She is an atheist and thinks the Bible is a farce, and the Bible is central principle of my life. I think he is going to hell because he worships several deities. I am so embarrassed to go out with her when she is wearing that tudung of hers- can't she take it out?

Queer people may have an added dimension of religious conflict, especially if the said religion is queer-condemning. How do you manage a relationship where your girlfriend is Muslim and severely conflicted, while you are non-religious and carefree? Or maybe he is a closet-queen as he is a Church leader, while you are out to the entire world.

Each relationship has cornerstones, to those people whose religion is important to them, faith can be that cornerstone. When that cornerstone does not exist, friction can easily crop up, to the extent of destroying the relationship. Mutual respect, I've always maintained, is the key to managing a inter-religious relationship. If you think the Bible is a huge hoax, shut up about it in front of your Christian girlfriend. And you, in turn, stop trying to convert her and salvage her soul through Christ. [And yes, I am deriving this from experience.] It can also help to learn more about the other's religion, if possible. More knowledge does not hurt anybody, and if you are truly secure in your faith, or lack thereof, learning about other religions won't hurt it.

In a Nutshell

Interracial dating is a massively complex issue, and there are probably many aspects I have not thought of, or have analysed wrongly. I hope this three-part series have adequately covered most of the pertinent issues, and hopefully given you some food for thought.

The queer community was the first to openly confront sexual racism, and lets hope we are the first to move towards eradicating it. As I have said before, there is nothing wrong with having preferences, as long as you keep an open mind, and not close down possibilities even before they have a chance to appear. While interracial relationships may seem to be problematic at first glance, it can also be a rewarding and enriching experience.

At the end of the day, as per the logo of the queer community... that love is love and gender is immaterial, then ethnicity is also immaterial. If she or he makes you happy, who cares about the melanin content of his/her skin?

Footnotes

1. When I searched on the internet about any resources on queer interracial relationships, all the links I obtained were, very interestingly, about Caucasian-Asian relationships only. It was as if the possibility of East Asian-South Asian relationships or other permutations did not exist. It was as if the dating world was divided into Caucasian and Asian, with Asians as a homogeneous group that did not have racial issues. And when I came to think of it, it made perfect sense why no one was talking about it. It is easy to point fingers at the 'whites' and say they are being racist, Asians have colonial mentality etc, as they are far removed from us. But talking about racial differences within ourselves, and accompanying sexual racism, is too close to home, and it hits on our own bigotry. It is much more comforting to pretend the problem does not exist. 
2. This is not said in condemnation of those who choose to abandon their culture, but an observation on my part. Some people are also just naturally not bound to their culture in the first place, due the emergence of the global citizen identity, and the effects of westernisation.