Interracial marriage in Louisiana
So, I am posting after quite a lot of a bottle of wine, and a pitcher labelled "pink spritzer" which I am told had both pinot grigio and blackberry liqueur making up most of its volume. But. Some things you post about when you're drunk, too, and sometimes drunkenness is what lends you the eloquence.
The BBC reports: Anger at US mixed marriage "ban"; ThinkProgress had more. Basically, some justice of the peace in Louisiana is getting his place in the sun by talking publically about how he doesn't issue marriage licences to interracial couples, though he does like black people, and even lets them use his bathroom. I mean, he's not a racist, like. He does it for the sake of the children.
The funny thing is, it isn't actually a picnic growing up as a child of two cultures. If you're really unlucky, your mother will be Lowri Turner and she'll write in a national newspaper about how much of a racist she is and how sensitive, thoughtful and attentive she isn't going to be to your journey being a child of more than one world. White people are funny like that; they think they are the normal, and everyone else is "multicultural" and "ethnic" and strange; they think they are the only way to be. But we outnumber you, you know. Right now, we outnumber you in volume of numbers - I'm an Indian woman, one in twelve of living humans is Indian and female, and one in six is brown (and stands up straight, and is strong, intelligent and beautiful, despite not being pale like you). Right now, we outnumber you; mathematically, we are the normal, and it's only accidents of history that make you so proud of being white. (Even if we weren't, we sing, dance and tan better than you. Deal.)
And then, interracial relationships are quite close to my heart, as a topic, as a way of losing all sorts of privilege, but also as a truth it's very difficult to deny. I grew up as a brown person in a white culture; I'm whiter than lots of people who are white, establishment baby lawyer with PPE degree from Oxford, but I can look in the mirror and never be white, when the summmer comes I wear strappy tops and feel the sun beneath my skin, I'm brown, brown, brown again. (And I am strong, intelligent and beautiful too. Deal with that as well.) Right now that's strange, and odd; exploring being the child of two cultures is something we don't talk about - in America they have hyphenated identity, they don't have this odd British thing of being British but having come from somewhere else within the last generation, of having a place I came from and a place I'm going but not a place I am. And right now that is strange - but we outnumber you. I say it over and over again, but the nation-state is dying, slowly, slowly; a nation is a group of people who identify together, who are one culture, one people; and a state is a political entity of people who are governed together, and it has been another accident of history that the two have so often coincided, but it's just that, a coincidence. Why should people who are one people all live in the same place? Every people has people who wake up one morning and take long journeys in search of better things.
So Mr. Bardwell and his interracial marriages are all very nice, and think of the children: the children who will be all there is, who will all that is left after a world has understood that race is a thing and ethnicity is a thing and people and community are other things, and the world is marching on, on, towards better things. He can live in Louisiana and not issue marriage licences to interracial couples but he's an old man and he'll be dead soon, and I woke up this morning and I am still myself, still brown and strong, and my partner is white, and we are human beings, and tomorrow is the festival of light, and we celebrate it as part of a billion people, and no one can take it away from us, that endless beauty in the world.
The BBC reports: Anger at US mixed marriage "ban"; ThinkProgress had more. Basically, some justice of the peace in Louisiana is getting his place in the sun by talking publically about how he doesn't issue marriage licences to interracial couples, though he does like black people, and even lets them use his bathroom. I mean, he's not a racist, like. He does it for the sake of the children.
The funny thing is, it isn't actually a picnic growing up as a child of two cultures. If you're really unlucky, your mother will be Lowri Turner and she'll write in a national newspaper about how much of a racist she is and how sensitive, thoughtful and attentive she isn't going to be to your journey being a child of more than one world. White people are funny like that; they think they are the normal, and everyone else is "multicultural" and "ethnic" and strange; they think they are the only way to be. But we outnumber you, you know. Right now, we outnumber you in volume of numbers - I'm an Indian woman, one in twelve of living humans is Indian and female, and one in six is brown (and stands up straight, and is strong, intelligent and beautiful, despite not being pale like you). Right now, we outnumber you; mathematically, we are the normal, and it's only accidents of history that make you so proud of being white. (Even if we weren't, we sing, dance and tan better than you. Deal.)
And then, interracial relationships are quite close to my heart, as a topic, as a way of losing all sorts of privilege, but also as a truth it's very difficult to deny. I grew up as a brown person in a white culture; I'm whiter than lots of people who are white, establishment baby lawyer with PPE degree from Oxford, but I can look in the mirror and never be white, when the summmer comes I wear strappy tops and feel the sun beneath my skin, I'm brown, brown, brown again. (And I am strong, intelligent and beautiful too. Deal with that as well.) Right now that's strange, and odd; exploring being the child of two cultures is something we don't talk about - in America they have hyphenated identity, they don't have this odd British thing of being British but having come from somewhere else within the last generation, of having a place I came from and a place I'm going but not a place I am. And right now that is strange - but we outnumber you. I say it over and over again, but the nation-state is dying, slowly, slowly; a nation is a group of people who identify together, who are one culture, one people; and a state is a political entity of people who are governed together, and it has been another accident of history that the two have so often coincided, but it's just that, a coincidence. Why should people who are one people all live in the same place? Every people has people who wake up one morning and take long journeys in search of better things.
So Mr. Bardwell and his interracial marriages are all very nice, and think of the children: the children who will be all there is, who will all that is left after a world has understood that race is a thing and ethnicity is a thing and people and community are other things, and the world is marching on, on, towards better things. He can live in Louisiana and not issue marriage licences to interracial couples but he's an old man and he'll be dead soon, and I woke up this morning and I am still myself, still brown and strong, and my partner is white, and we are human beings, and tomorrow is the festival of light, and we celebrate it as part of a billion people, and no one can take it away from us, that endless beauty in the world.