Interracial Relationships

Drawing on his own experience of having lived with different racial groups, the author writes about those who are trying to reduce the significance of race in society and, through their actions, to create models of behaviour for America's future.

Despite the increased number of interracial marriages in recent years, Black/White couples still experience a host of problems in American society, particularly in the South. Drawing on extensive interviews with 28 Black/White couples living in the South, this ethnographic study describes the issues and obstacles these couples have to face and documents their overwhelming sense of social isolation. The problems include hostility, encountered while the couple is in public, ranging from stares to outright attacks, as well as a lack of support and ostracization by their families. After discussing the nature of Black/White relationships and the historical implications of interracial couples--beginning with slavery--the authors adopt a life history approach, which allows them to probe deeply into the meaning of the interviewees' responses.

Interracialism, or marriage between members of different races, has formed, torn apart, defined and divided our nation since its earliest history. This collection explores the primary texts of interracialism as a means of addressing core issues in our racial identity. Ranging from Hannah Arendt to George Schuyler and from Pace v. Alabama to Loving v. Virginia, it provides extraordinary resources for faculty and students in English, American and Ethnic Studies as well as for general readers interested in race relations. By bringing together a selection of historically significant documents and of the best essays and scholarship on the subject of "miscegenation," interracialism demonstrates that notions of race can be fruitfully approached from the vantage point of the denial of interracialism that typically informs racial ideologies.

With contributions from the leading experts on relationships, this book covers important issues, such as love as self-expansion, equity in maintaining close relationships, commitment, social support, self-verification, and minding the relationship. The end result is a comprehensive account of the reasons why close relationships are or are not maintained and the manner in which these principles can be applied to current social issues and clinical interventions. Divided into two sections, Part I describes models developed to characterize how relationships are maintained over time, accounts of specific mechanisms at work in close relationships, and conceptualizations of the maintenance and enhancement of close relationships using existing theoretical paradigms. Part II addresses contemporary social issues, as well as clinical applications. Close Romantic Relationships will appeal to students, researchers, and professionals due to its broad sampling of theory and research on relationship maintenance and enhancement.

The number of black-white mixed marriages increased by 504% in the last 25 years. By gathering hard data as well as a series of intensely personal and revealing vignettes, Dr. Brown offers a rare glimpse into the lives, struggles, frustration and joys of mixed race people. She investigates psychosocial issues unique to mixed race children. Also, experiences that influenced their adjustment in a country that has subjected them to racist abuses from the white as well as black side of the racial divide and has shoehorned them into a racial category that denies half of their physiological and psychological existence are explored.