Interracial Relationships in the 21st Century is an edited book that features chapters by leading scholars who study race, ethnicity, sexuality, and relationships. This second edition of the book features a new chapter that analyzes the most recent data on interracial marriages and multi-racial identity gathered in the 2010 US Census. The new first chapter also explores the impact of the election of the first African American president, Barack Obama, on the racial climate in the United States. Specifically, we explore the degree to which his election signals or establishes a post-racial America, a site of contested terrain among scholars as well as public commentators and intellectuals. The second edition of the book retains all of the original chapters that explore such topics as the relationship between religious beliefs and interracial marriage, interracial relationships among same-sex couples, the experiences of multi-racial children, intimate partner violence and interracial relationships, racial identity, and the marriage climate. "Interracial Relationships in the 21st Century brings together key scholars addressing equally central questions. This volume remains critical and deeply insightful across a wide variety of issues regarding interracial relationships -- from domestic violence to sexualities. This powerful and timely book is a must for those who want to understand the continuing legacy of racism and the creative agency within such a legacy." -- Dr. David L. Brunsma, Professor in the Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech "Interracial Relationships in the 21st Century, by Earl Smith and Angela Hattery, embarks on a complicated and controversial subject often neglected in the sociological literature. The Smith and Hattery reader thoughtfully examines how individuals navigate interracial relationships and experiences in a variety of social environments. The book is broad in scope and goes beyond interracial relations; exploring inter-faith relationships, interracial relationships among homosexual couples, as well as intimate partner violence in relationships. The strengths of this edited volume are imbedded in its timeliness and relevance to contemporary conversations on the significance of race in the United States, its application of a variety of theoretical approaches, and its use of both qualitative and quantitative methodology to tell the subjects' stories. Interracial Relationships in the 21st Century encourages us to rethink some basic assumptions about interracial relationships within the context of racial, cultural, and religious oppression in the United States. The book is an ideal reader for courses on Social Problems, Women's Studies, and families in the U.S." -- Dr. Dorothy Smith-Ruiz, Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

The landmark story of how interracial love and marriage changed American history—and continues to alter the landscape of American politics When Mildred and Richard Loving wed in 1958, they were ripped from their shared bed and taken to court. Their crime: miscegenation, punished by exile from their home state of Virginia. The resulting landmark decision of Loving v. Virginia ended bans on interracial marriage and remains a signature case—the first to use the words “white supremacy” to describe such racism. Drawing from the earliest chapters in US history, legal scholar Sheryll Cashin reveals the enduring legacy of America’s original sin, tracing how we transformed from a country without an entrenched construction of race to a nation where one drop of nonwhite blood merited exclusion from full citizenship. In vivid detail, she illustrates how the idea of whiteness was created by the planter class of yesterday and is reinforced by today’s power-hungry dog-whistlers to divide struggling whites and people of color, ensuring plutocracy and undermining the common good. Not just a hopeful treatise on the future of race relations in America, Loving challenges the notion that trickle-down progressive politics is our only hope for a more inclusive society. Accessible and sharp, Cashin reanimates the possibility of a future where interracial understanding serves as a catalyst of a social revolution ending not in artificial color blindness but in a culture where acceptance and difference are celebrated.

Marriage between blacks and whites is a longstanding and deeply ingrained taboo in American culture. On the eve of World War II, mixed-race marriage was illegal in most states. Yet, sixty years later, black-white marriage is no longer illegal or a divisive political issue, and the number of such couples and their mixed-race children has risen dramatically. Renee Romano explains how and why such marriages have gained acceptance, and what this tells us about race relations in contemporary America. The history of interracial marriage helps us understand the extent to which America has overcome its racist past, and how much further we must go to achieve meaningful racial equality.

An interracial couple gives an honest glimpse into how they’ve dealt with the tension of race in their relationship and their lives. When Tineka Smith and Alex Court first fell in love, neither were prepared for the disconnect between them when it came to race. As a Black American woman, Tineka struggled with the oppression and microaggressions she faced on a daily basis, and it took Alex, a White British man, a lot of soul-searching to see that his life-long expectations were skewed by his privilege. The couple’s struggles were amplified when the Black Lives Matter movement swept across the United States and the world. Mixed Up is their confessional. In a series of alternating chapters, Tineka and Alex share their deepest feelings and the lessons they’ve learned about race and privilege—from their childhoods to their education and workplace experiences to thoughts about their future children. While Tineka finds herself in the role of racial equality advocate in her own relationship, Alex learns what it means to be a true ally as a person—and a husband. In all its raw heartache, humor, and honesty, their story brings hope that there is a future in which interracial relationships and families can find love and acceptance. “An illuminating book that will challenge what you think you know about relationships, cultural diversity and race.” —Olivette Otele, historian and author of African Europeans “A must read book that will change the way we see mixed race couples and make us question our own entrenched beliefs.” —Melissa Fleming, award-winning author of A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

It is the long, hot summer of 1963 and New York is filled with lovers, dreamers and protestors. Young African-American women grow out their hair and discover the taste of new freedoms. Young men, white and black, travel south to fight against segregation, praying for a society in which love is colour-free. Written in the late 1960s and early 1970s but overlooked in Kathleen Collins's lifetime, these stories mark the debut of a masterful writer whose electrifying voice was almost lost to history.

A distinguished Stanford law professor examines the steep decline in marriage rates among the African American middle class, and offers a paradoxical-nearly incendiary-solution. Black women are three times as likely as white women to never marry. That sobering statistic reflects a broader reality: African Americans are the most unmarried people in our nation, and contrary to public perception the racial gap in marriage is not confined to women or the poor. Black men, particularly the most successful and affluent, are less likely to marry than their white counterparts. College educated black women are twice as likely as their white peers never to marry. Is Marriage for White People? is the first book to illuminate the many facets of the African American marriage decline and its implications for American society. The book explains the social and economic forces that have undermined marriage for African Americans and that shape everyone's lives. It distills the best available research to trace the black marriage decline's far reaching consequences, including the disproportionate likelihood of abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, single parenthood, same sex relationships, polygamous relationships, and celibacy among black women. This book centers on the experiences not of men or of the poor but of those black women who have surged ahead, even as black men have fallen behind. Theirs is a story that has not been told. Empirical evidence documents its social significance, but its meaning emerges through stories drawn from the lives of women across the nation. Is Marriage for White People? frames the stark predicament that millions of black women now face: marry down or marry out. At the core of the inquiry is a paradox substantiated by evidence and experience alike: If more black women married white men, then more black men and women would marry each other. This book not only sits at the intersection of two large and well- established markets-race and marriage-it responds to yearnings that are widespread and deep in American society. The African American marriage decline is a secret in plain view about which people want to know more, intertwining as it does two of the most vexing issues in contemporary society. The fact that the most prominent family in our nation is now an African American couple only intensifies the interest, and the market. A book that entertains as it informs, Is Marriage for White People? will be the definitive guide to one of the most monumental social developments of the past half century.

The legal institutions of overt racism in the United States have been eliminated, but social surveys and investigations of social institutions confirm the continuing significance of race and the enduring presence of negative racial attitudes. This shift from codified and explicit racism to more subtle forms comes at a time when the very boundaries of race and ethnicity are being reshaped by immigration and a rising recognition that old systems of racial classification inadequately capture a diverse America. In The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity, editors Maria Krysan and Amanda Lewis bring together leading scholars of racial dynamics to study the evolution of America's racial problem and its consequences for race relations in the future. The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity opens by attempting to answer a puzzling question: how is it that so many whites think racism is no longer a problem but so many nonwhites disagree? Sociologist Lawrence Bobo contends that whites exhibit what he calls "laissez faire racism," which ignores historical and structural contributions to racial inequality and does nothing to remedy the injustices of the status quo. Tyrone Forman makes a similar case in his chapter, contending that an emphasis on "color blindness" allows whites to be comforted by the idea that all races are on a level playing field, while not recognizing the advantages they themselves have reaped from years of inequality. The book then moves to a discussion of the new ways that Americans view race. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Karen Glover argue that the United States is moving from a black-white divide to a tripartite system, where certain light-skinned, non-threatening minority groups are considered "honorary whites." The book's final section reexamines the theoretical underpinnings of scholarship on race and ethnicity. Joe Feagin argues that research on racism focuses too heavily on how racial boundaries are formed and needs to concentrate more on how those boundaries are used to maintain privileges for certain groups at the expense of others. Manning Marable contends that racism should be addressed at an institutional level to see the prevalence of "structural racism"—deeply entrenched patterns of inequality that are coded by race and justified by stereotypes. The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity provides an in-depth view of racism in modern America, which may be less conspicuous but not necessarily less destructive than its predecessor, Jim Crow. The book's rich analysis and theoretical insight shed light on how, despite many efforts to end America's historic racial problem, it has evolved and persisted into the 21st century.