So, as if you all don’t know enough about my personal life already I’m going to share just a little bit more. If you know me at all, or if you just read my PO/DAC blog, you know that I heart black people! All of my boyfriends up until now have been black (save one who was Puerto Riccan) and because of that I have experienced the stigma of being in an interracial relationship. I didn’t really understand big deal about a black guy and a white girl dating, but apparently that is a huge deal. Kassin et al. (2008) defines discrimination as hostile conduct aimed at others because of their association with a certain group of people and let me just say, even currently in 2008 discrimination is everywhere!
I was with my high school boyfriend for 2 years and yes, he was black and I was white, and I swear to Pete the whole world took notice of us. EVERYwhere we went people open-mouth gawked at us even (and especially) in inner city Dallas. Was it so hard to fathom a black guy and a white girl being in love? Of course it is! Silly me what on earth was I thinking? Equality? Personality? Nope, the only thing that matters is that white girls DO NOT date black guys and blacks DO NOT date white girls.
One my most vivid memories happened junior year of high school during our first year together. It was between 3rd and 4th period and I was fighting my way through B Hall to get to G Hall when I was suddenly shoved against a wall of lockers and a hand threw my head back against the metal. In my right ear some girl hissed through her teeth “Bitch, what the f*** do you think you doing stealing one of our good men? Who the f*** do you think you are?” I was antagonized in a similar manner for the next week or so by different girls from different black cliques. It was horrible and humiliating. When I walked between classes I cowered in corners hoping to somehow avoid the attacks; but even when I did, I was met with cutting eyes and mouthed threats from others.
I couldn’t understand what I had done to deserve this amount of punishment for simply dating a guy that I liked and who liked me. I didn’t tell anyone about what was happening to me for a while. But then, as all great bullying stories go, I got fed up and fought back. Well, I won’t bore you with the details of the fight, I’ll just put it this way: there was weave to retrieve.
It is strange to say that I, as a white person, have experienced discrimination, but I don’t think another word can be used to describe these events. In a strange way, the best way to describe this kind of behavior would be to employ the realistic conflict theory, which states that contest for valuable but also restricted resources creates antagonism between different outgroups (Levine & Campbell 1972). In this case, the “restricted resources” would be what these girls considered “their good men”. The fact that I was a member of an outgroup and I was penetrating their ingroup was perceived as caustic and disruptive causing the hostile discrimination that I was subject to.
In the two years that I was with my high school boyfriend I experienced a type of discrimination that is incredibly hard to explain or even for most people to believe.
Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H.R. (2008). Social psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Levine, R. A., & Campbell, D. T. (1972). Ethnocentrism: Theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes, and group behavior. New York: Wiley.
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2 comments:
This same kind of situation happened a lot at my high school. Two of my friends, a black guy and a white girl, started dating in high school and experienced so much discrimination. Most of it was towards the white girl, like in your blog. The black girls at our school were extremely angry that she had taken "one of the best black guys" off the market, and what made them even angrier was the fact that she was fair-skinned, blonde, and blue-eyed. Anyway, they are still dating, but they are also still facing discrimination. It shouldn't have to be this way, but it seems that there is so much hatred towards interracial relationships.
It's interesting that a Black/White interracial couple receives so much more attention and discrimination than an Asian/White interracial couple. I have never dated an Asian guy; all of my boyfriends have always been White and I have rarely/never received glares or experienced obvious discrimination. I suppose Asians are perceived as closer to being White than Blacks are; in other words, perhaps Blacks and seen as the total opposite of Whites.
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