A conversation from when I was a teenager, probably about age 16, with my friend and her father has stuck with me a long time. The argument that was made against mixed race couples having children struck me as wrong then, and has bubbled up in my thoughts occasionally over the many intervening years. I finally figured out why.
The argument was that mixed race couples shouldn't have kids because we should think of "how the children would be treated."
It dawned on me this morning just how wrong that argument was, and in so many ways. Maybe the memory bubbled up due to the sociopolitical upheaval we find ourselves in currently; namely the horrendous resurgence of hegemony of white, cis-gendered, straight maleness.
By stating that people shouldn't have the freedom to marry those they love and shouldn't have children because of how they will treated infuriates me, for many reasons:
1) It puts the responsibility for any abuse on the victim
2) It basically states the status quo is always right
3) It absolves the one holding that position from needing to change
That (now former) friend recently accused me of being hateful because I was not willing to just roll over and let her walk all over me. I wasn't all-accepting of her intolerance, and really hadn't even responded to her much. When I'd gone to respond, she had apparently blocked me. Then she inblocked me and lobbed a hate bomb at me... I blocked her in response at that point; there was no real reason to respond or argue with her.
I have unfriended a lot of people in the last year. If they have been silent/equivocal, I have quietly unfriended them. If they have exhibited support for the other side, I have not tolerated it. I don't care. I cannot and will not have that energy in my life.
