As you embrace your loved one you are blinded by emotion, concentrating only upon your partner and the promise of your new life together. When you step back and take in all your new love brings to you, a rich and nuanced kaleidoscope of different traditions and cultures spins around you both. The diversity of your backgrounds is intriguing and exciting. It may pose some challenges as you begin to blend your families together. Here are some tips to help you take the first steps to create your happy multicultural blended family. But first and foremost, find that special someone to create your mixed family right here.

Commit To The New You

Now that you have pledged to build a multicultural family with your love realize that you are no longer two individuals. You need to become a united couple, committed to move forward as a loving unit. All couples create a united front. But to ensure the best beginning for your multicultural relationship you and your love must hold firmly to your vision of togetherness and affection. Each of you must support the other without reservation. This is because there may be some people even in your close and loving constellation of family and friends who may not approve initially of your decision to make a life together.

Make Room For All

If your new family includes children from previous relationships be very mindful of how hard it can be for them to adjust to change. Never speak badly of their other parent, whether you are the biological or the stepparent, and open you heart to your partner’s children even if they are wary or outright hostile or resentful. Remember to keep your own kids close but know that the human heart is able to hold love for an infinite number of special people. Give each child what he or she needs and don’t worry about everything being equal every single day — it all works out over time and love grows deeper.

Give It Time

Expect some resistance if you have friends or family who are stuck in a conventional rut when your love leads you to a soulmate who has a different background, cultural or racial. Know they love you, too, and give them the benefit of the doubt as they work through their own processes of accepting a future for your and your new family they may not have foreseen. If you meet their confusion or even anger with calm and an unwavering affection chance are good that the passage of time will turn them around. In case your partner’s family or circle of friends rebuff you and any children, wait it out. If you are kind and respectful, and love your partner and his or her children with all your heart, they will see this and unthaw, hopefully sooner than later.

Give It Space

Any new relationship takes you away from old friends, rituals and demands at least temporarily. Keep in touch with family and friends, but also make an effort to create your own cocoon with your new family. If there is any friction, from the outside or from children who are uncomfortable with this new reality, allow them to come to the two of you when they are ready. Meet in neutral places if a perceived class of cultures is contributing to the discomfort. Enjoy the process of crafting your own home and shared rituals and invite others to partake when you are all ready to allow the circle to widen.

Celebrate Both Backgrounds

If your sweetheart speaks another language, make an attempt to learn how to converse in it. Ask questions and learn about the culture that made her or him the person you love today. Be deliberate about maintaining and retaining the important traditions each of you treasure. Encourage your partner to partake of yours as you embrace his or hers. If you feel your background is bland be careful not to “give it up” completely, particularly if you have children. Even the most mundane of traditions can be a real comfort to you. They may be a source of new pleasure for you blended family.

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Since the Loving v. Virginia (1967) case, our attitudes towards interracial marriage have greatly improved. In 1958, only 4% of Americans accepted marriages between people of color and whites. Today, the percentage is higher. According to polls, 87% of Americans accept interracial marriage.

Question is: Are these polls a reflection of what Americans truly feel? And if so, why are there numerous incidents of hate crimes against interracial couples? Barely a month ago, a man stabbed an interracial couple for kissing in public. Landlords evict their tenants when they realize they are interracial. So are we lying when polling? Or is the subconscious still struggling with the acceptance of interracial couples?

To test this, Allison Skinner, Psychology Researcher at the University of Washington and her colleague Caitlin Hudac came up with a number of studies to determine how people really feel about interracial relationships and whether people have an underlying bias against interracial couples.

Investigating the insula

Much as our attitudes have supposedly changed, people’s stomachs still churn at the sight of interracial couples, both in real life and even on adverts. Skinner and Hudac asked a sample of white college students to gauge their disgust or acceptance for interracial couples. And as the polls, they claimed to be largely accepting.

When it comes to sensitive matters like race, gender, sexual orientation, self-reporting normally yields false results because people are either unaware of their biases or they just lie about how they truly feel. So the psychologists conducted a second study using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure electrical activity in the brain. They then showed the sample 100 pictures of black-white couples and 100 of same-race couples and observed activity in the part the brain called insula – the part activated when someone felt disgust.

Results of the studies.

For most participants, the insula lit up when they viewed pictures of interracial couples as opposed to the same race pictures. Which means the self-reported polls gave false impression of how people feel.

Ramifications of feeling disgusted by interracial couples.

The feeling of disgust normally leads to dehumanization. Since the polls don’t tell the whole story, much as we may not want to admit it, most people still harbor deep set biases against interracial marriage. So when someone is disgusted by interracial couples naturally they would dehumanize them. And this dehumanization could be the reason that even after reporting acceptance, we still find incidents of crimes against interracial couples.

Conclusion

Being disgusted by interracial couples isn’t natural. We are not born biased. As Skinner puts it, “the existence of these biases is evidence of deeply ingrained societal attitudes about race in our culture – and there is a new and growing field of research on methods to reduce these biases… And at its most extreme, dehumanization can lead to acts of violence and cruelty – like the stabbing from earlier this summer.”

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This Oscars season seems to be focusing on interracial marriage. From the film “A United Kingdom” to “Loving”, interracial marriage seems to be at the front and center of the film industry this year; so are the issues of racial injustices.

David Oyelowo is one of the actors in the limelight playing the role of Sir Seretse Khama, a Botswana president who married a white Briton in 1947, in the film “A United Kingdom”. Actress Rosamund Pike plays Ruth Williams, Seretse’s wife.

The marriage between Seretse and Ruth stirred a diplomatic crisis between Botswana and the United Kingdom. The film brings to light the attitudes of both black and white communities towards interracial marriage.

Jeff Nichol’s “Loving” is another interracial real-life drama starring Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton. The film narrates the story of Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, an interracial couple who got arrested, imprisoned and banished from their home town Virginia in 1967 for marrying interracially. At the time, interracial marriage was outlawed in the state of Virginia. The film also highlights the infamous Supreme Court lawsuit – Loving vs. Virginia – that the couple filed against the state.

After their debuts, the two films generated Oscar awards season’s talks as contenders for the nominations. Centered on interracial romance the two films delve into the grave reality of racism and the problems these interracial couples had to endure just by coming from different racial backgrounds.

Amid the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, Oscars critics are demanding for the nomination of more diverse actors and directors. The above films bring that to the plate. Directors Nichols and Amma Asante are under so much pressure than any other directors because they are expected to package these real life stories perfectly. These films might also be criticized for the fact that they fail to represent the scope of interracial marriages by featuring only black and white interracial couples – other interracial combos aren’t represented.

More interracial couples want to see more likes of them reflected on TV and see their challenges and history portrayed. But with the #OscarsSoWhite saga, people will be left wondering whether critics will approve films based on the public enjoying them or just a mere reaction to #OscarsSoWhite,

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Sheila and Tudor now live as husband and wife, but for a long time they wondered if they’d ever meet that special someone. Tudor had been a member of our site for more than three years when he found Sheila. “I was sick of being alone,” he says, and she seconds that thought.

Their loneliness evaporated when a simple instant message connected them. Sheila admired Tudor’s blue eyes and he was drawn in by her beautiful skin. But behind the profile (username: “PetPenny”) was a deeper beauty, Tudor sensed. “I could tell she was a great woman,” he says.

Tudor (aka “Robbie2”) wasn’t traditionally Sheila’s “type,” but this and their age difference didn’t bother her. “I can’t explain it,” she says. After lengthier conversations confirmed that yes, their interest went more than skin deep, this pair in the making decided to do something daring… “We met in Alabama at her home,” said Tudor.

That went well! “Love at first sight,” says Tudor. Sheila nods. “We knew it was love [when we met face to face]. We had lots in common.”

Tudor continued to court Sheila, feeling certain that this partnership would bring him happiness. “I knew she was what I needed in my life,” he says. He was surprised and touched by, as he puts it, “her concern for me.” Sheila puts forth “his kindness” as something she values greatly.

Today their main disagreement is over politics. This not-uncommon obstacle wasn’t enough to prevent a proposal, however! “He asked me to marry him on my patio,” says Sheila, radiant with joy. She says that finding love has changed her life “tremendously.”

So that’s their story. We asked Sheila and Tudor for words of advice to our single readers. “Take your time, and be patient,” say the couple.

It took them years of looking to find the right match, but today these newlyweds are sure glad they stuck it out.

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Whilst the thought of interracial marriage being an outright criminal act might seem alien to some of the younger generation, it will still be a vivid memory for many of their parents, grandparents, and other relatives. The fact of the matter is that this kind of institutionalized racism is not yet part of a murky history which we can brush off as being ‘way back in the past.’ It was not until 1967 that it became legal for interracial couples to wed in America.

It is clear to see that much has changed since then – interracial couples and interracial families are now not illegal or even unusual. Yet, there still exists a stubborn stigma around this kind of family makeup (not just in the US but in other countries too). Even though scores of studies have shown that children growing up in interracial households are not given any less love, support, attention, and care, they are still perceived as ‘unfortunate’ and less likely to achieve.

So, the question is, when will interracial families be the norm? It is an important question and one which is, perhaps, even more fundamental that it first appears. After all, it is a clear and immutable fact that, as more and more people kiss, romance, love, and start families with people of different races, the more the lines will start to be blurred between them.

Yes, anthropologists all agree that, at some point in the future, the human race will begin to take on a much more ‘universal’ skin tone. It will be harder to distinguish between races and the majority of people will be somewhere in the middle of the scale, as regards color. Once we reach this point, interracial families will not only not be unusual, they will be the norm.

What about now? What is life like for interracial families in western societies right now? How quickly are we progressing? Well, in 2010, a record 8.4% of all marriages in America were between two people of different races. Whilst this might sound like a tiny amount, the figure was a lowly 3.2% in 1980. In 1987, only 48% of Americans believed that it was okay for ‘blacks and whites to mix.’ In 2012, that figure reached 83%, which is a massive increase in a relatively short space of time, anthropologically speaking.

There are some interesting trends which appear within this kind of data too. For example, Hispanic and Asian people are the most likely to marry a person of another race. Plus, black people are, at this point in time, far more likely to wed white people than ever before – despite continuing fluctuations in their overall level of social segregation.

If we look at what really lies at the heart of the issue – children – it seems impossible to see interracial marriage as anything less valuable or magical than any other kind of union. As already outlined, there is no evidence (and never has been) to suggest that interracial families are fundamentally any different to others. They laugh, cry, play, bond, and grow in exactly the same way as any family does.

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