LITTLE BLACK BOYS AND BLACK GIRLS WILL BE ABLE TO JOIN HANDS WITH LITTLE WHITE BOYS AND WHITE GIRLS AS SISTERS AND BROTHERS: A few years ago, and by that I mean exactly a few years ago, I mentioned that when my parents' marriage was consecrated, it was also illegal in a great number of states. Today I'll note that, while their marriage was not illegal in the state in which they lived, it nonetheless was painfully scandalous, even to my family. I grew up biracial when there seemed to be very few of us, and even when I shared a geographic, economic, social, and educational background with mostly white people, most of the time my chief identifying characteristic was the part of my race that wasn't white. I had a lot of friends and family who, when we were growing up, probably couldn't have imagined themselves dating someone who isn't white.
My family today is not scandalized by interracial marriage -- all of my cousins' children are biracial. I live in a city, or at least a part of a city, where it seems that half of the families are multiracial, and I'm sending my kids to a religious school where almost all of the families are interfaith. If you read this site at all, you know that I am not prone to excessive sentimentality. My most common emotion is mild irritation, followed by annoyance, pique, exasperation, dumbfoundedness, strong irritation, schadenfreude, despair at the human condition, concealed affection, and all-consuming rage. Nonetheless, I always think that today is a good day to remember that in a lot of ways we live in a better world than the one in which our parents lived, and that we ought to be grateful to the people who sacrificed a lot to get us here.
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