Loving Day Recalls a Time When the Union of a Woman and Man Was Banned

Lest we forget that "traditional marriage" was once defined differently than it is today.

The word "miscegenation" is a linguistic artifact, a sort of postmodern joke, a term most often used with a sense of irony.

But at a backyard barbecue in the District on Sunday afternoon that was dedicated to the joys and intricacies of interracial love, sex and marriage, Lydia and Peter Mosher remembered when bans on interracial relationships were deadly serious. Such laws began in Maryland in 1661, multiplied across the country and did not end until a Virginia case in 1967. No one needs a reminder about the fate of black men who had sex with white women in the Jim Crow era.

Even for others, it wasn't easy: "We keep things as normalized as possible." This is Peter Mosher talking in a follow-up phone call, describing his marriage of 43 years. "But maybe we still carry some baggage from the 1950s, the 1960s. Maybe we watch our backs a little more." Peter is white; his wife is black.

Monday was, by city proclamation, Loving Day in the nation's capital, recognizing the 39th anniversary of L oving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court decision that overturned miscegenation laws in Virginia and 15 other states, all in the South. It was the end of the last piece of state-sanctioned segregation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061201716.html

-- Forbidden by Abraham
Genesis 24:3

-- Jacob
Genesis 28:1

-- Moses
Exodus 34:12-16; Deuteronomy 7:3,4

-- Joshua
Joshua 23:12

-- Reasons for prohibition
Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:4; Joshua 23:12,13

-- Results of
Judges 3:6,7

(BTW, I found this all too easily on a google search for 'miscegenation bible'. Based on the results I found, it appears that there are quite a few who STILL want to ban so-called 'miscegenation' for religious reasons...)

Indeed the word Adam means color of lentils which in turn means brown with a red tone.

But that hasn't ever stopped modern Christians from persecuting gays because of what's in Leviticus.

:shrug:

When are you going to learn to not pay attention?

not equal to a deadly sin.

And of the 613 laws, the fundi chooses about 610 to ignore and 3 to worry about.

And as to gays, Jesus said nothing beyond love your neighbor, while the old testament Sodom and G story refers to not being neighborly - at least according to some commentators.

Except it'll be diguised as a call to ban American Citizens from marrying
"Furignurs".

I'm sure the folks at CIS are already thinking of ways to disallow rights for heterosexuals who marry American citizens, since the homosexuals are already dealt with.

That interractial marriage was a sin because of the whole "oxen unequally yoked" verse. Yeah, I thought it referred to being yoked to unbelievers, but my dear pastor believed otherwise. This is the same guy who still preaches about the secular evil that is psychology. :eyes:

They really ought to read entire passages rather than just picking out a sentence here and there.

When the Queen of Sheba made the journey to Israel in order to test King Solomon as to whether or not he was as wise as they said he was, she went back pregnant to her land. This "seed" that was planted is to this day said be be from whom the Ethiopian royalty is descended. That queen was from what is now today the land of Ethiopia, in Africa ~ and Solomon was Jewish. Nobody condemned these two lovers as doing anything against their perspective religions in thousands of years of song, poetry and folk tales.

The very fact that there is not one shred of archaeological evidence that Solomon ever existed, much less his father King David of Israel, does not negate that this was an accepted union from both traditions.

If anything, perhaps it was because that queen was of a tradition that dates thousands of years before Solomon as being affiliated with Moses and his people. The Falasians, for thousands of years have said they came from the people who fled Egypt with Moses (or Mosha as he is called there) ~ and they also have some very dangerous traditions that also say Moses never crossed the Red Sea, but settled in Ethiopia ~ and their traditions are far older than even the Torah. Why I say this is dangerous is that these Falasia say Moses never crossed the Red Sea, but that he and most of his people came north to Ethiopia and some split off and settled in Canaan. In other words the Falasia's traditions indicate that Israel does not have some magic deed to the Holy Lands as we assume today.

But I digress. My point here is that perhaps the Queen was not seen as different because even though she was racially different, she was of the same spiritual tradition as Solomon. So it would have been fine to mingle because they were of the same traditional religion ~ and it did not matter if they were racially different. It is clear in the scriptures that it was not considered good when a Jew married outside of their religion. It was not their race, but the culture and religion that was the concern ~ especially if they did not worship one god but bowed down to many gods.

By displaying those quotes, these wingnuts merely display their ignorance of history is all...

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle <---an "ignorant" low income mom who learned about this tradition while hanging out with an ex-Jewish friend and some Ethiopians. And I found it was true as they said, there is no historic (archeology) proof of King David or Solomon and the history of the Falasians is facinating...

The sign does say it is his arm, taken from what was left of the Temple post 70AD and kept in Jerusalem until taken to Topkapi.

...you will find if you check around that there was no indication there was King David, that there is nothing that has been discovered in digs around and near Jerusalem in the supposed era that King David and Solomon existed. The closest name affiliated with the name David dug up in the layer of the so-called stables of Solomon about 30 miles from Jerusalem, is a Canaan king with a vaguely similar name, according to a friend of mine who spent 20 years there as an archaeologist and Jesuit priest. I would like to point out that it was a Canaan king to boot, which means that he was Palestinian by ancestry... These facts are not talked about. It is sad and true that true history is never served and what we hear is only mouthed by the ones who are victorious. So what we learn comes from some pompous gold-decked braggart, not the truth most of the time and does not mean that the history generally accepted as truth is absolutely true, unfortunately.

Cat In Seattle

Beyond there being the obvious connection to Ethiopian history that your Ethiopian friends appear to be discussing, the rest of their discussion may be more opinion that agreed fact or theory.

Below is the WIKI entry excerpt, which I follow with excerpts from a David Down essay. David is an archaeologist who excavates regularly in Israel.

=========================================================================================
... Despite debates about particular biblical episodes within the reigns of various Hebrew kings, most biblical scholars regard the list of Hebrew kings contained in the books of Samuel and Kings, and repeated in Chronicles, as well-established and reliable. The consecutive reigns of these Hebrew kings, each of whom is explicitly named in the Bible, form the historical "backbone" of biblical chronology from ca. 1000 BC to the end of the Hebrew monarchy in 586 BC. They are confirmed at several points by extrabiblical inscriptions.

Turning to sources outside of the Bible for the specific case of David, three inscriptions are either clearly or potentially relevant. The first is from an Aramean king, the second is from a Moabite king, and the third is from an Egyptian Pharaoh:

First, the famous Tel Dan Stele http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele provides the only clear non-Biblical evidence of King David's existence and status as the founder of a Hebrew dynasty. Dated to the period from the mid-9th to mid-8th centuries BC and erected by an Aramean king (probably the king of Damascus) to record a victory over Israel, the text says inter alia: "I killed yahu son of g of the House of David." (The words and letters within square brackets have been supplied using biblical content.) While the reading has been questioned, it is accepted by a majority of scholars as confirming the existence in the 9th/8th centuries BC of a line of kings claiming descent from a dynasty founder named David.

A second stele, the Moabite Stone or Mesha Stele http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_Stele , erected by a king of Moab in about 850 BC, has also been read as containing the phrase "house of David." Because the phrase that is read "house of avid" appears in a place where the stone is partly broken (the square brackets around the first D indicate that the letter is supplied) and for other reasons, this claim is accepted by some scholars but is ignored or rejected by others.

A third possible mention of King David is found in a standing monumental Egyptian inscription of Pharaoh Shoshenq I (called Shishak in the Bible) that is dated to 924 BC—only about forty years after David's death as calculated according to the books of Kings and Chronicles. David's name appears to be included within a place-name that appears among other place-names located in the territory later said to belong to the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. This particular place-name is Hadabiyat-Dawit, translated by Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen as "highland of David" or "heights of David," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kitchen and it is located in the Negev region, where the Bible says that David hid as a fugitive from Saul for lengthy periods of time. Kitchen proposed the identification of the biblical David in this inscriptional place-name in 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#_note-7

=========================================================================================
NOW FROM DAVID DOWN, an archaeologist who excavates regularly in Israel, working with the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has been involved in excavations at nine different sites, and is editor/publisher of the journal Diggings and the magazine Archaeological Diggings.
=========================================================================================

The criticism involves two main claims: First, that there is no archaeological record to support the stories of David and Solomon, and second, that the archaeological strata flatly contradict the Biblical records. The first claim, even if true, would be simply an argument from silence, and thus irrelevant. As has often been said in archaeology, ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’ Many aspects of Biblical history were discounted as fictional because there was ‘no archaeological evidence’—leaving much egg on face when evidence was later discovered. But actually there is inscriptional evidence to support the existence of King David—see box below.

The King David artifact

Avraham Biran is an experienced and recognized Israeli archaeologist who excavated for 27 years in ancient Dan in northern Israel. In his 1994 book Biblical Dan, he reported finding a broken stela on which was an Aramaic inscription. The stela had been used simply as filling in a wall which was dated to the third quarter of the 8th century BC, but the style of writing suggested that it had been originally written in the 9th century BC.

In this inscription was the expression ‘BTH DWD’ which would be read as ‘House of David’.1 This was convincing confirmation of the detailed Biblical historical records that David and his house (family) were known in the 9th century BC. The critics were disconcerted. At first they said that it was simply the name of a place like Bethshemesh (House of the Sun) or Bethlehem (House of Bread). The only catch to that suggestion was that Bethshemesh and Bethlehem are known sites but there is no known city called Bethdavid. So, in their desperation to discredit the Bible, some critics accused Biran of forging the stela. However, there is no evidence to support this claim.

Reference
Biran, A., Biblical Dan, Israel Exploration Society, Jerusalem, pp. 275–278, 1994. Return to text.


However, the second claim is more cogent. Let me explain how archaeology works.

In Biblical times people mostly preferred living on hills. Jesus Christ said, ‘A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden’ (Matthew 5:14). Little by little, the height of these hills rose due to the occupational debris that accumulated. Storms, earthquakes and invasions brought destruction to these cities, and subsequent occupants simply levelled off the area and built on top of it.

Archaeologists are now able to dig down into this occupational debris, which can be 30 m or more above the original height of the hill (called a ‘tel’). As they cut into this debris, it is possible to distinguish the layers of successive occupation that can be identified by the style of pottery they contain. These layers have been named Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Late Bronze and Iron Age. Although no-one disputes these identifications, the dates assigned to these successive layers are another matter altogether.

Ignoring the Biblical information, archaeologists in their wisdom have assigned the approximate dates to these eras as shown in the diagram on p. 19. According to this, David and Solomon would have lived at the beginning of Iron Age II—and that is where the problem lies, as we shall see.

Facts against the Bible?
Concerning Solomon’s building activities, 1 Kings 9:17–19 says, ‘And Solomon built Gezer, and Beth-horon the lower, and Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land. And he built all the store-cities which Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.’ Also, the Bible describes Solomon’s economy as being on an enviable scale. ‘And the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem like stones, and he made cedar trees as plentiful as the sycamore trees in the valley’ (2 Chronicles 1:15). But the architectural remains from Iron Age I and early Iron Age II reveal that this was a period of pitiful poverty, few people and scant building activity. This is why the critic Lazare could write, ‘Not one goblet, not one brick, has ever been found to indicate that such a reign existed.’2

So let’s face it—if the usual archaeological chronology is correct, we have to abandon confidence in the historical records of the Bible. Incidentally, all these dates also have a bearing on the date of the Flood and consequently the creation of the world about 6,000 years ago.3 The Biblical date for the Flood is about 2300 BC but the beginning of the Early Bronze Period is usually dated to about 3100 BC.

Take another look
Fortunately, there is light through this darkness, though it is going to require some radical thinking. Actually, when the archaeological ages are correctly dated, the evidence for Biblical history is quite stunning, but we are talking about lopping anything up to six centuries off the traditional dates.

Bible history of Israel is divided into four neat eras for which we should expect solid archaeological evidence. First, the Exodus and military occupation of Palestine followed by the period of the Judges. There should be evidence of destruction and fire (of the Canaanite civilization), and above that, the appearance of a new people (the Israelites) with new pottery styles, different burial practices and manufacturing skills (Exodus 35:30–35).

This is exactly what we find at the end of the Early Bronze Age and the beginning of the Middle Bronze I Period. Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated Jericho, wrote in her book, ‘The final end of the early Bronze Age civilization came with catastrophic completeness. The last of the Early Bronze Age walls of Jericho was built in a great hurry, using old and broken bricks, and was probably not completed when it was destroyed by fire. Little or none of the town inside the walls has survived subsequent denudation, but it was probably completely destroyed, for all the finds show that there was an absolute break, and that a new people took the place of the earlier inhabitants. Every town in Palestine that has so far been investigated shows the same break. The newcomers were nomads, not interested in town life, and they so completely drove out or absorbed the old population, perhaps already weakened and decadent, that all traces of the Early Bronze Age civilization disappeared.’4

‘An absolute break … a new people … every town in Palestine … newcomers were nomads … completely drove out or absorbed the old population …’.4 Could we expect to find a more apt description of the Israelite invasion, nomads from the desert who initially were not interested in living in the cities?

Still more correlation
Next came the period of affluence and power during the centuries of the Israelite monarchy. Concerning the Middle Bronze IIB Period, prominent Israeli archaeologist Dr Amihai Mazar wrote, ‘The Middle Bronze Age architecture was to a large extent innovative and original. Together with the massive fortifications of this period, it evidences a thriving, prosperous urban culture. The magnitude of the palaces and temples manifests the wealth and power concentrated in the hands of the autocracy and theocracy of the period.’5

Then came the exile into Assyria and Babylon when large portions of the population were despatched into captivity. Soon after the Assyrian conquest of Israel, the prophet Isaiah wrote, ‘Your land is wasted, your cities burned with fire. Strangers devour your land right before your eyes, and it is wasted, as overthrown by strangers’ (Isaiah 1:7). We should find in the next layer, the Late Bronze Age, evidence of a depleted population, and we do.

Israeli archaeologist Israel Finklestein wrote, ‘The entire country flourished in MB IIB … fortified cities, villages, and individual farms—were founded throughout the region … . In contrast to the extraordinary prosperity of MB II, the Late Bronze period was characterized by a severe crisis in settlement … . Moreover, those sites where occupation did continue, frequently shrank in size.’6

Fourth came the return from exile, when many of the Israelites migrated back to their original lands. ‘The whole congregation together was forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty’ (Ezra 2:64). Finklestein says, ‘The Iron I period again witnessed a dramatic swing in the population of the hill country, this time in the opposite direction.’7 And then he voices the dilemma that faces archaeologists because of their wrong dates: ‘… MB II, Late Bronze and Iron I periods … leave two critical questions for which satisfactory answers must be found: Why and to where did over half of the MB II population, i.e., virtually all the inhabitants of the hill country, “vanish”? From where did the people who settled the hundreds of sites in Iron I “materialize”?’7 If Israel Finklestein changed his dates, he would soon have the answers.

It was a period of danger and hardship. Building activity was slow. ‘The ones who built on the wall, and the ones who carried burdens; with those who were lifting, one a worker in the work, and one held a weapon’ (Nehemiah 4:17). This then is the early Iron Age, which Mr Lazare so loudly trumpets to be a period of poverty, which cannot fit the reign of Solomon. You are right, Mr Lazare. It does not fit the reign of Solomon, but if you get your dates right, it perfectly fits the return from exile.

Getting it right - The way it works
The Bible is a historical document containing detailed chronologies. When such a document is ‘out of synch’ with another source of chronological information in, say, four separate areas, then if making one adjustment to the other chronology causes all four of these areas to be reconciled simultaneously, this is powerful evidence in favour of the validity of the adjustment.



To match Event 1 to Circumstance 1, Chronology 2 needs to be brought forward by ‘x’ years (see below)

Since there are now three additional match-ups, and no remaining contradictions, this is powerful independent evidence confirming the need for the revision.


It is of course appropriate to modify the fallible opinions of man to fit the infallible Word of God. But this revision of dates can be independently justified, and an answer given to the challenge that it is some arbitrary ‘fiddle’. Consider these three points:

The revised chronology gives a remarkable consistency with the Bible record in a number of separate areas, which further confirms the appropriateness of the revision. See The way it works, box at right.

The ‘standard’ dates for the archaeological strata have been assigned, not on information that comes from the strata themselves, but simply by their correlation with the dynasties of Egypt.

Some scholars are now challenging these dates.

In the introduction to Peter James’ book Centuries of Darkness, the highly regarded Cambridge Professor Colin Renfrew wrote, ‘The revolutionary suggestion is made here that the existing chronologies for that crucial phase in human history are in error by several centuries, and that, in consequence, history will have to be rewritten … . I feel that their critical analysis is right, and that a chronological revolution is on its way.’8

Let the archaeological history be rewritten, then, and it will be found to give remarkable support to the Biblical records. David and Solomon did exist and were the triumphant builders of a great nation that dominated Palestine and the surrounding areas.


References
Lazare, D., The Financial Review, 28 March–1 April 2002, pp. 1–2, 8. Return to text.
Ref. 1, p. 8. Return to text.
Pierce, L., The forgotten Archbishop, Creation 20(2):42–43, 1998; In the days of Peleg, Creation 22(1):46–49, 1999. Return to text.
Kenyon, K., Archaeology in the Holy Land, Ernest Benn Limited, London, p. 134, 1965. Return to text.
Mazar, A., Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Double Day, New York, p. 213, 1990. Return to text.
Finklestein, I., The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement, Israel Exploration Society, Jerusalem, pp. 339–341, 1988. Return to text.
Ref. 6, p. 341. Return to text.
James, P., Centuries of Darkness, Pimlico, London, pp. XIV, XVI, 1992. Return to text.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...and I agree that it is a mess all right.

All my life the stories of David were considered a given. When I first began to chat about these things with people who were of the culture, scholars who had been there studying the evidence, and the Ethiopians, it stunned me. I had just assumed it was a fact these two men existed and like all the evidence in Egypt,there would be lots of it in Israel. Wrong!

So when I did my own investigation and I found that there was little evidence of David and Solomon's existence, I began to rethink the whole Jewish claim to that area. Even the quotes you supply have to admit there is little evidence that supports their existence without doing a lot of pretty fancy back bending in order to prove biblical accounts(though perhaps he is accurate, I do not know I am not an archaeologist). I might also suggest that the Ethiopians have some interesting and perhaps more accurate history to tell if they were indeed respected, which they are not by European and Arabic scholars. And the Ethiopians themselves have also been prejudiced when it pertains to their Falasian sects (the Falatians were so hated and being slaughtered, the Israeli government flew many of those Falatians out and settled them in Israel in the 1970s). They were some of the oldest religious sects in the world and have had subtle influence on religion to this day. Perhaps one of the most noted influence was that of the dred-locked Rastafarian's, brought to the New World as slaves, stubbornly refusing to be completely crushed as so many other African religions were.

It would behoove Jewish and Christians to openly recognize that there is little evidence of David and his son Solomon for several reasons that impact today, IMO. We might take a different look at the (mostly European) hold on the land they claim as theirs. It could assist in the problems that exist today between the European Jews and the Palestinian if we would only admit that the whole claim to this land is of dubious value. It might tone down over zealous wingnut Christian rhetorical claims as well. What I often find the most ironic is that the Palestinians had some of the oldest sects of Christians and Jews around, yet that side of their culture has been utterly destroyed and decimated to the point that, whomever is left, has turned to Islam. It is also true in Iraq as these places had prolific and strong, as well as ancient, Christian and Jewish traditions that have now been polarized into nations of Islam. To me turning to Islam is not bad, it is just sad that these people's old traditions have been destroyed by so-called "God's people" for something thought of as "better" when it was actually what is supposedly what wingnut Christian as well as European Judaism refsuing to admit their traditions are colored by European values they are trying to create ~ while in reality they are destroying and rebuilding something that was what they supposedly wanted in the first place.

It only says to me that the Palestinians are like our Native Americans, and the prevalence of history through stubbornly persistent Euro centric eyes causes nothing but needless bloodshed and poverty. Worse, this attitude refuses to listen to anything but *their* view and totally distorts what other "truths" are out there. Therefore especially wingnut Christians are supporting some of the bloodiest, prejudiced and utterly superfluous crap when the land everyone is fighting over could be shared in peace if they could truly respect other traditions than their own.

My 2 cents...
Cat In Seattle

population in Mass who tell me that they, and the arab christians in Lebanon, are an expanding population in the mid-east. Perhaps there is not that big a problem of arab Christian conversions to Islam? :-)

In any case, the only areas I found in my travels where religious intolerance was causing out migration that were very large were in the mid-east, but I visited only a few countries.

In Turkey the "exchange of populations" of the 1920's has left only a small percentage of the population as Christian. In Baghdad, the murders/massacres/get out of town orders of the 1960's had changed Baghdad from a town that in 1948 was well over 40% Jewish to a town with few Jews. In Cairo the Coptic Christians are periodically killed, but the community goes on, albeit more or less in hiding - and I saw no Jews while I was there.

Respect for the others culture seems a long time coming. In the Arab world Turkey seems to have come the farthest, with fewer hassles of Christians - but even here the government policy of not offending an Islamic population with the sight of non-Islam houses of worship has caused most of the churches in Istanbul to be surrounded by other buildings so that you do not easily see them from the road.

I agree we need more tolerance - everywhere. I don't think denying Jewish history will help all that much. The Ethiopian story has some problems at various points in time, such that at least the part about Moses going southeast and not to Israel is rejected, But much of the rest in not rejected and either accepted or perhaps best described as not proven,

But the bottom line is - - We need more tolerance

I looked up every one of these citations and not one has anything to do with interracial marriage.

On the contrary, I've read a few OT scholars who believed that the wife of Moses, Zipporah, was from what is now Ethiopia (the land of Midian, in that time).

Moses = Semitic (possibly even Egyptian)

Zipporah = African

Sounds like miscegenation to me......;)

Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the site you got this from was some fundie-mentalist, independent-southern-baptist-variant using Judaic and Christian scripture to further it's hateful doctrines and evil intentions.

I just read a quote (from someone who now escapes me) that said "Religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people".

Fundamentalism is destructive, no matter who practices it.

It isn't much of a leap from Falwell or Dobson to al-Zaqawri. :(

"wouldn't be surprised if the site you got this from was some fundie-mentalist, independent-southern-baptist-variant using Judaic and Christian scripture to further it's hateful doctrines and evil intentions."

Point being, the logic that used to be behind banning inter-racial marriage is precisely the same as the logic behind banning gay marriage. Both involve picking and choosing Bible quotes out of context, both involve interpreting these quotes to serve your own purposes, and both involve ignoring more scholarly interpretations of the same quotes.

But that didn't and doesn't stop people from doing precisely that, then AND now.

:yourock:

when arranged marriage held more legitimacy than love and money determined this form of slavery. REAL married persons often had to be "extra-marital" within the social shams. As with all social ills and superstitions, it still continues in this pattern even in liberal western societies. harems are under the table in the form of mistresses and the mother of one's children.

As with intelligent design the rational and logic and contradictions are glossed over with a vengeance.
Romantic love added to Christian love can grant undeniable legitimacy to any bond. it is the narrowness that continues to be raised up against this power. It is the power of the same worldly dictation of denial that those who would control society again desire. Namely to reduce marriage and devalue its meaning in order to exploit its form and necessity for the powerful(usually, the men the norm gatekeepers and the rich). The fact that all these abuses in their forms of prejudices and restrictions against chosen undesirables are still with us underground does not argue for creating more hypocrisy and hatred along modern lines now. It does expose them.

I notice how they choke on the theological arguments that have some thoughtful legitimacy and immediately come to the naked power issue. In their greasy slick public pablum presentation is not about procreation or the Bible or anything except imposing a norm on people they marginalize so that marriage itself can be kept in a narrow confine where the old convenient loveless abuses can bitterly revive. They use utilitarian and material reasons, demeaning their own religious faith. Even if they were unquestioned, these are the pallid mainstays of their social grounding. Norms and punishment, shrunken defensive drones of empty living. Christianity, which created romantic love as a sacrament of God, not contractual nuclear families, is simply not part of the RW radicals' social ideal. or they would be showing the unmistakable social signs of that love- and they are not.

... of what happens/ed when a black guy and a white girl hook up.

Not that it's totally our fault - it wasn't of direct importance to us - there's no real reason for us to keep it near the fronts of our minds.

That's actually one measuring stick I use to judge the "racism-quotient" of a community - how kosher is it for a black guy and a white girl to get together in community X?

On a personal racism level, I also like "how would you feel about your daughter dating a black guy?". It's hilarious to listen to all the excuses people come up with - which are NEVER racist. :rofl:

I will never forget how upset my grandfather was that I was marrying (in his words) a "Mexican girl." It was totally unexpected. Intellectually my grandfather knew he was wrong, but it was obvious to everyone he was struggling mightily to accept my wife into his family.

It is astonishing to me how the racism of a culture will seep into people. There are good progressive people here on DU who will refuse to recognize their own racism.

..."There are good progressive people here on DU who will refuse to recognize their own racism."

But there are even more who will fall to claiming racism when their own factoids turn out to be bullshit.

But please explain yourself.

Thanks.

... I would think my comment to be self-explanatory. There are tons of "more liberal than thou" fuckups here who claim that anyone who thinks the current immigration situation is untenable is a racist.

It's offensive, stupid, and smacks of a right wing tactic.

That's the fundamental question.

... the fundamental question is whether you should care about the US economy any more than you do Mexico's.

If you don't, fuck you.

In any case, the U.S. and Mexico are like two drunks, propping one another up as they stagger down the street.

One falls down, they both do.

... absurd.

We need some immigrant labor, we don't need all we are getting. It should be up to us to decide how much we need. And then enact a mechanism to allow it to happen legally, then fine and jail the assholes who hire outside that framework.

But that's not going to happen. The right is going to ram another wedge issue right up our asses, and morons are going to help them.

What Mexico needs is some tough love. They've had 100 years to develop their own economy but they aren't because they just use ours.

The "right" uses undocumented workers to bust unions. Undocumented workers are a tool they use to keep U.S. citizen workers fearful.

This ploy by the right wing would be entirely ineffective if not for this very real component of racism in predominantly white communities.

I live in a community that is mostly Hispanic. At the elementary school just down the street my house, the school my children attended, maybe 5% of the kids are what you might call "white."

My children have never lived in a community where whites are a majority. I haven't lived in a neighborhood with a white majority for about twenty years now.

Outside of communities such as ours, for example the 95% white community I grew up in, the racism is palpable.

Of course you'll say there is racism in Mexico too, and even within my own community, and this is true, but it is not the racism the right wing kleptocrats are trying to tap into to form their "wedge issue." But if they think they are going to make a win of this "wedge issue" then they are sadly mistaken simply by the fact that in many places they are outnumbered, and these places are critical to the continued functioning of the U.S. economy.

In my own community the idea that white U.S. racism could be utilized as a "wedge issue" is so far out that it is delusional. The leadership of the Republican Party has become entirely disconnected from economic reality, and this disconnect will bite them in the ass.

Not coincidentally, 30% of Americans approve of George W. Bush.