In “Is Love Colorblind?”, Steve Sailer takes a multi-pronged approach when dealing with interracial marriage. The paper is equal parts history lesson, sociological musings, and a call for change. Sailer begins by documenting how far interracial marriage has come in the last few decades: it has gone from being legally outlawed to increasingly prevalent. He then offers up an interesting sentiment: as more and more white men and women date and marry outside the race, mostly by dating and marrying black men and Asian women, Asian men and black women are now suddenly the ones taking a stand against interracial marriage.
Sailer gives several poignant examples of how black women are coming out against interracial marriage, the most powerful of which refers to the OJ Simpson trial. Instead of identifying with Nicole Simpson, the majority of black women jurors saw her as “The Enemy”, an attractive blonde that “stole” a successful black man and thus deserved whatever she got. This motif of white women “stealing” successful black men has become a prevalent pattern of thought, to the point where it’s been featured on television talk shows, popular literature, and mass-market films.
Sailer then focuses on the resentment Asian men have towards Asian women marrying outside of the race. Sailer attributes this to a growing trend of listening to hormones in the name of “freedom and feminism” instead of listening to elders. Asian women tend to see white men as more athletic and masculine than Asian men, whereas white men tend to see Asian women as more feminine than white women. Since white men make Asian women feel more feminine and Asian women make white men feel more masculine, white/Asian husband/wife couples are becoming increasingly more prevalent. Meanwhile, Asian men raised on the notion that being successful, hard-working, and loyal would result in marriage and happiness are more or less left to fend for themselves.
Sailer wraps it all up with a statement both startling and powerful: instead of being of bastion of racial equality and harmonious unity, interracial marriage has instead found itself predicated on a series of fascinating racial patterns. Instead of everyone marrying whoever they feel like and all of us being happy, things aren’t nearly that cut and dry: Asian men and black women are increasingly left to fend for themselves as white men and women compete for Asian women and black men, whereas gender couplings such as Asian men and black women are still thought of as highly unusual.
I find myself agreeing with Sailer, even if I think a lot of his article is self-defeating. Sailer makes a point of refining several large statements into something that can be analyzed closely, but then nearly defeats the purpose of his analysis by giving us examples that go against it. He has several interesting points that make the article worth reading, but I can’t shake the feeling of self-defeat I get when he gives examples that go against the various points he’s trying to make. It almost feels like he’s trying to get the rebuttals to his points out of the way before anyone can even ask them, but he never spends the time answering those rebuttals…he just lists them. Still, I enjoyed the article and I think that it puts a very interesting spin on our pre-conceived notions of the history and development of interracial marriage.
3 Important Questions
1. How do you feel about interracial marriage?
2. If you have ever dated outside your race, why did you choose to do so? If not, why not?
3. How do you feel about the “they’re taking our men/women” belief held by some people?
Filed under: Creative Writings, University Works
