I am the product of an interracial relationship. A white American woman and a black East African man with half Arab ancestry sat next to each other on a flight from London to Nairobi, and they fell in love. These two people from different worlds and different racial backgrounds have been together for almost 30 years and have produced two hybridized offspring, my sister and myself. Undeniably, growing up tri-racial is difficult in a country where everyone wants to immediately dump you into an objective category from which they can stand back and analyze. But I see my multiracial background as a blessing, and believe that I am a more worldly and learned person than I would have been without my interaction with these three different worlds.
So what is my stance on interracial relationships? Well, surprisingly to some, I do not completely agree with the statements made by Adam Hollowell in his Nov. 19 letter to the editor responding to Phil Kurian's column on interracial relationships. Hollowell said, "While Kurian may choose to advocate caution because of the social backlash against interracial couples, condemning the practice of interracial relationships is unacceptable." Here I think he has missed the point. While it is true that Kurian didn't quite provide enough support for interracial relationships in an abstract sense, I believe that the situation is more complex than simply supporting or not supporting interracial relationships. In the following lines I will attempt to explain a few of the reasons why I believe condemning an interracial relationship is sometimes necessary.
In her book, Black Looks: Race and Representation, CUNY Distinguished Professor of English Bell Hooks discusses the politics of representation of black men and women in a white supremacist culture. In the essay entitled, "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance," Hooks claims that modern depictions of the Other have been transformed through a consumer culture that seeks to profit off of perceived difference.
This "commodification of Otherness" entails the colonization of the black body as white males seek to defy the status quo by using the black body as the vehicle.
This new potential form of colonialism is contrasted from the old in that instead of reaping the supposed benefits of the Other's country, we have dominant groups exploiting the Other's body. The body of the Other then becomes the medium through which white males can simultaneously seek to gain some sort of inner-transformation through contact with the Other. Hooks states, "The direct objective was not simply to sexually possess the Other; it was to be changed in some way by the encounter" because "[white men] believe their desire for contact represents a progressive change in white attitudes towards non-whites." It is in this sense that my condemnation of certain interracial relationships is directed at those groups who typically conceive of themselves as members of liberal or progressive-minded circles.
Additionally, what some might see as Orientalist conceptions of difference allow those in positions of domination to perceive of the Other as somehow more exotic and appealing because of their supposed ethnic qualities. Here I would return to Kurian's points about the Asian female fetishes of many white males, or traditional perceptions of the over-sexualized black body. Again, Hooks is useful: "The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and felling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream while culture."
All this is not to say there are not reasons for supporting interracial relationships. Society has not yet moved so far that white people are scrambling to get involved in interracial relationships--even if for the wrong reasons. I have found this to be the case throughout my whole life, but especially during my time at Duke. A particularly blatant realization for me occurred during my brief experience in the predominately white, all-male selective house Wayne Manor. When the idea of having a mixer with a black sorority during rush came up during my first year living with Wayne Manor it was dismissed by house leaders with roughly the following explanation. "Now just wouldn't be a good time. I mean, lets face it, a lot of guys just aren't attracted to black girls, so we might loose a couple of good rushees by having a mixer with a black sorority during rush. Maybe next semester though." That precise moment served for me as a breaking point, and I decided then to de-activate from my selective living group.
The people who espouse such views today, however, are for me the same ones that have black, brown, yellow and red friends. Racism today is not predominantly the version of the KKK that we study in our American history books. Instead, racism today often comes from people who generally believe in the equality of all human beings. It is this new complex form of racism that we must examine and seek to understand. In such examinations, however, we must be careful not to ostracize individual racists or people with over-simplified notions of racial interaction as having something inherently wrong within them. Instead, we must remember that racism is a problem that is produced and reproduced at the societal level and therefore must also be attacked at that same level.
Yousuf Al-Bulushi is a Trinity senior. His column usually appears every third Tuesday.
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