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Upward Trend in Interracial
Marriage
At one time it was almost unheard of to have an interracial
marriage within your neighborhood, never mind your family, but
today, the boundaries of the world are shrinking and tolerance
of the unknown and the different is – for the most part –
increasing as we discover that despite differences in our
beliefs and our culture, fundamentally we are all very much
alike. As immigrants from one nation descend upon another
nation and call it home, so the cultures blend and so it’s
inevitable that from this mixed race culture that interracial
marriage occurs.
Not everyone is happy about the upward trend in interracial
marriage however. There are those who believe that mixing the
races in this way will end with the obliteration of most races
and with one or two large mixed races taking their place. This
could well be right over a large number of generations, already
today we see many children of obvious mixed race background in
the school yard – but is this really such a dreadful thing? An
interracial marriage is one of the most positive steps for a
world that is no longer interested in picking at the
differences between one culture and another, but instead,
focuses not only on the similarities but also the strengths
that one race can share with another.
Although there is personal prejudice in some areas against
interracial marriage, this is usually nothing more than an
opinion based upon fear. Unfortunately for some cultures
however, this prejudice is more than that. Some cultures frown
upon their children mixing with other races. They think it a
matter of family shame if one of their own marries out into a
different race – this can have dangerous consequences for the
people involved as the culture tries to defend what it believes
to be a matter of honor. Despite this being a characteristic of
the cultures involved, it’s a situation that needs looked at
when these cultures are living in countries where basic
freedoms to choose are common for all people who live there,
even those born into a culture that doesn’t, for the most part,
believe this is right.
Past generations have dealt with issues regarding mixed
religion marriages. Not everyone is still happy about these
marriages taking place. Certain churches take steps to ensure
that the couple, and any children that come from the union, are
taken care of in one religion or the other – usually requiring
that one person convert to the religion of the other. Amongst
the general public however, people aren’t usually judgmental
against people from different religions marrying, even if they
don’t agree with it. In the years to come, it’s to be hoped
that a similar situation as regards interracial marriage will
occur so that people have a right to marry the right person for
them, regardless of which race they are from.
Marriage should be something that is private between two
individuals, and not something to be dictated by society or
cultural groups. The person you spend your life with ought to
be a personal decision, and if an interracial marriage occurs
as a result of that decision, then the couple ought to be
encouraged for taking a path of learning each other’s ways
rather than frowned upon for marrying outside of their own
race.
Hopefully one or two generations from now, as the children from
these tentative first interracial marriages start to create
their own marriages, the boundaries will be further relaxed and
people will be allowed to love and live as they choose, rather
than have their choices narrowed to one race for no other
reason than that’s how it’s always been done and therefore
should always be done. Prejudice affects freedom, if freedom is
to be embraced by all races living in a democratic country,
then that freedom must cover everything – up to and including
freedom for an uncontested interracial
marriage.
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