Murdering Romance by Looking at Interracial Relationships
Does it matter that interracial romance is simply a product of pure and simple “love”, where racism or colonialism plays no part? I say No, with some qualifications.
The Big Sick tells a story about a man falling for a woman. Except that the man came from Pakistan and the woman is Caucasian. Like Romeo and Juliet, they come from very different background, but overcame their differences and fell in love, eventually. And nobody die at the end.
Interracial romance in general, however, has a more rocky history. The white supremacists think interracial romance corrupts the purity of the white race. Some black, brown, or yellow people see romance towards white people as a surrender to white colonialism. Interracial relationship between black, brown and yellow is frowned upon as well, using the white supremacists’ rationale to argue against interracial romance of any kind “to preserve the purity of the black/brown/yellow race”.
Even if we assume there is merit to aforementioned claims (a big if), they will come up with a wall that is liberalism. In other words, even if interracial romance corrupts the purity of a race (a big if), or that black/brown/yellow people marrying white amounts to colonial surrender (another big if), people should be free to choose whomever they love. As long as personal freedom is respected, interracial romance should be business of nobody else, and other people have no right to interfere with the romance of two people. In other words, it is logically consistent for a, e.g., black person to have a white partner AND be anti-racist/anti-colonialist. The idea that a coloured person is less “woke” just for having a white partner is not a logical necessity. Every case should be judged on its own merit, case by case.
On the other hand, some people approve of interracial romance not because of liberalism. Some white people fetishise other races as “exotic”. By the same token, black/brown/yellow people can see other races as “exotic” and therefore desirable. The coloured response towards white is complicated by the implicit white beauty standard that equates whiteness exclusively as beautiful. Or that whiteness signifies higher social class (e.g. pale because a person need not work outdoors as peasant) and hence desirable.
Now consider this: today you meet someone whom you fall in love deeply. Your romantic partner is of another race. Can you honestly say that you love your partner because of love, and nothing else? Can you say categorically that your interracial relationship is not a product of fetishism of the exotic? Similarly, if your romantic partner is of the same race as you, can you say categorically that your intra-racial relationship is not a product of racism?
I think in extreme cases there will be clear answer. Some people date exclusively people of the same or other race, by choice. So the answer in these cases seems obvious. However if your romantic history is checkered, or there isn’t enough history to establish a pattern, then there is no evidence outing you as a racist or fetishist, and therefore I don’t think it matters whether you love someone because of their race. Two people’s love for each other is affair of nobody else, plain and simple. It would be a problem only if inter/intra-racial romance is the beginning of a racist/fetishist life.
This is an eudaimonistic answer because rightness or wrongness of inter/intra-racial romance does not depend on the romance itself. It depends on whether the romance leads to a racist/fetishist life.
So, to answer the question I posed: love in an interracial romance is irrelevant. What matters is whether the romance partners are free to choose their relationship, and whether the choice is racist/colonialist/fetishist.
