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January 26, 2008

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manuelbuencamino

The all important question lurking beneath bi-racial coupling is the color of the male.

In terms of stereotypes in America, it breaks down like this:

Black man marries white woman - trophy
White woman marries black man - loser
(Black here meaning someone who is not causacsian so it can be African, Indian, Asian, Latino etc.)

White man marries black woman - nuts
Black woman marries white man - also nuts
(Black here refers more to african and afro american blacks.)

Have you observed this in other cultures or is this peculiar to america?

bambinawrites

Manuel, not sure about other cultures but I somehow get the feeling that a white woman is the ultimate trophy wife for a black man and a white man marrying a black woman is the fulfillment of some primal desire.

But the Chinese and Indians can still be quite rigid about interracial marriages. In Mauritius, despite the much-touted multicultural society people lived in, crossing racial lines so to speak is still rare. I know Franco-Mauritians for instance whose families/clans have remained white for several generations, with no one descendant ever marrying a nonwhite, be they Indian or Creole.

bambinawrites

Also, bi-racial couplings have become quite prevalent in contemporary (mostly English) fiction. In both White Teeth and On Beauty, Zadie Smith had white male characters married to black women; so did Helen Oyeyemi in The Icarus Girl and Diana Evans in 26a - British males married to Nigerian women. In Small Island by Andrea Levy, a white woman has an affair with a black Jamaican soldier...

Makes me wonder if it's more mainstream in England, or at least London. In America, I only see such couples on Jerry Springer! Of course Obama is the new poster boy for bi-racialism at its best...

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