The Politics of Love

I met my husband at the Jewish Community Center, which was no consolation to my Jewish grandmother, who broke my heart by disowning me for falling in love with a Black man. To their credit, my parents always fully supported my marriage, which they never regretted as their relationship with my husband grew deeper with the years. My grandmother went to her grave without speaking another word to me after she found out about my fiancé. I would like to think that had she lived, my grandmother would have re-owned me when my first child was born. Unfortunately she didn’t live to see my daughter. At the time that I married my husband (1982), some relatives in my parents’ generation (still living) cut off communication with me. One relative (still living) wrote me a letter telling me she did not approve of miscegenation. I had never heard this word before and had to look it up.

In 1954, when I was born, miscegenation was illegal in 16 of the (then) 48 states. Miscegenation means “the mixing of different racial groups, that is, marrying, cohabiting, having sexual relations, and having children with a partner from outside of one’s racially or ethnically defined group.” Historically, the term miscegenation has been used in the context of laws banning interracial marriage and sex, so-called “anti-miscegenation laws,” and is therefore a derogatory or offensive term for interracial relationships. Until 1948, 30 of the (then) 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. The U.S. Supreme Court finally declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in the case Loving v. Virginia in 1967.

Tevye, in A Fiddler on the Roof tells his daughter “A fish and a bird might fall in love, but where will they make a home?” A fish is a fish, a bird is a bird, and a person is a human being. An interracial couple can make a home quite effectively. Race is not our only difference, and yet my husband and I have managed to make a terrific family, thank you very much. My husband is Christian and I am a Jew; he grew up in poverty in inner city Chicago and I grew up in a middle class home in suburban upstate New York; he was raised by a single mom and I had both of my parents present in my home; he is one of the first in his family to obtain a college education and everyone in my family has a college degree. The list goes on. I can testify that 30 years, 3 children, 4 counties, about 10 career changes, 3 homes, 40 acres, 9 Hondas, 12 cats, 2 dogs, and scores of goldfish later, we can still find something to talk about at dinner. We have raised three beautiful, talented, intelligent, thoughtful, multicultural children. The oldest just graduated from college, the middle child will graduate from college next year, and the youngest is applying to colleges now (he graduates from high school in the spring). My oldest child goes to church occasionally, the middle one is an agnostic, the youngest had his Bar-Mitzvah in 2002.

I recently found myself talking about interracial marriage to my friend Ellen, a lesbian, who just this past summer legally married her partner of 12 years. Many years ago, Ellen’s mother cut off communication with her when she learned that Ellen was a lesbian. I can identify with the pain she felt as a result of her mother’s actions. After Ellen married her partner, she wrote an emotional letter to the California State Legislature explaining what it means to her to finally legalize her marriage and thanking our elected officials for voting to make this possible. In our recent conversation, I heard myself say to Ellen, “I still can’t believe that laws banning interracial marriage were not overturned until 1967.” In that moment, I recognized the implications of this fact as it extends to laws banning same-sex marriage.

Our family relationships have probably the most powerful impact on our lives. The family unit is the most basic, personal, individual, and sacred element of communal life. How then can government have the power to define a family? To legislate the parameters of love? What is the difference between a Muslim government legislating that all women must wear burkas and a predominantly Christian government legislating that marriage is defined as a relationship between a man and a woman? I guess many people view this legislation as a moral imperative. But we have to ask ourselves, by whose morals? Based on which sacred book? Theoretically, isn’t there supposed to be a separation of church and state? I see a direct connection between legislation granting rights for same-sex marriage and the banning of the miscegenation laws of the last century.

The dirty-word version of miscegenation is the root cause of countless lynchings across this nation. Hard core racists hate nothing so much as the idea of a Black man having sex with a white woman. A few weeks ago, my husband and I watched the movie The Great Debaters, which includes a horribly disturbing lynching scene. As the mysterious pattern of life would have it, the following night was the closing night of the Democratic Convention and we watched Obama accept the nomination for president. As his lovely Black wife and adorable Black little girls joined him on the stage at the end of the evening, my husband, from the South Side of Chicago, turned to me incredulously and said, “You have no idea how surreal this is to me to watch this. I never thought I would see anything like this in my lifetime. Last night we watched that lynching scene, and tonight this.” Two scenes just a blip apart in the line of history extending back thousands of years.

In these historic times, as the white wife of a Black man, I look at Barack Obama and I do not see a Black man. I see a biracial man. Many journalists and political analysts want to talk about race and the first Black man in the White House. I see more than that happening here. Obama is as Black as my children, which is to say half. The other half is white. Lines of distinction begin to blur. Fences collapse. The new race is multicultural. The new race is the human race. Every day more multicultural children are born in our country and in other countries around the world. Every day my marriage becomes more accepted, more ordinary. Every day I step closer to old age with the father of my multicultural children, my beautiful Black husband that no one and nothing could keep me from marrying.