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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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