I have been assigned in my college class to write a blog. I believe it has to be a blog about marriage and perhaps divorce. I have never before written a blog and honestly don’t know where to begin. My only learning on blogs was in my computer class. The one thing that I do remember about that class that is pertinent to this assignment is that a blog should be unique that you have to offer. Is there a niche that I can provide? After much thought I ironically came up with something that really shouldn’t have taken any thought – interracial marriage. Many can blog on marriage, even eternal marriage. But how many can blog about their experience on interracial marriage? I am a straight-out-of-the-‘hood black man married to an Irish fireball. Our grandchildren are half Hispanic, our young daughters have the hots for Asians. Pretty soon we’ll have a United Nations within our home. I’ve had some interesting experiences, though. One of them was my son’s wedding reception. It was a sight to see watching white and Hispanic people line-dancing to the ‘Electric Slide’ shouting ‘Arriva!’.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it has been a hard and lonely road for blacks in the Church, socially, at least for myself and the scattered few I had occasion to speak with. Of course, the priesthood issue helped to complicate things more for us blacks, not just about participation in ordinances, but also in our association with our peers – especially dating. From personal experience, back in the day, I have found that ‘the priesthood issue’ was a great scapegoat for fathers and bishops to use to discourage their daughters from dating interracially, at least in the area I was from. I found that a lot of whites don’t like their bloodline ‘tainted’ with other races. Yes, there was lots of quotes from various General Authorities and key figures that gave their opinion on interracial marriage (which now the Church disavows many of those statements as opinions and not doctrine.) which many would use for doctrinal reasons, I just knew that wasn’t the only reasons.
But besides that, it’s not like we black men with a testimony had a bevy of black women to choose from in the Church. So, what does one do who has a testimony of the Church and has to choose a mate of your culture and color or someone of your faith? The one thing that I want you to learn today is this – don’t listen to the Saints! Before I am called an apostate, let me finish the statement. But, always listen to the Spirit. (But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things… John 14: 26) If I would have done this in the first place, I would have avoided a marriage that led to a divorce, or dodged a black inactive member’s boyfriend who was jealous, or sparing the feelings of a black whose friend thought I should teach her the Gospel. Instead, I listened to well-intentioned saints who gave me their counsel and I obeyed. Doing so caused bad results in the which that when I looked back, (like the men on the road to Emmaus) the Holy Ghost was telling me to beware.
Don’t get me wrong, inspired counsel is good, especially in the order of the priesthood. Just pray for confirmation of other counsel and opinions of anyone else, learn to ‘hear’ the Holy Ghost if you don’t already know how, and you should be fine. Through inspiration, I’ve learned that faith is far more important than culture when choosing a potential companion.
Allow me to share this point with you. Under Paul R. Amato’s article: The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-being of the Next Generation, he stated under the subheading ‘Variations by Race of Child’ that: “Compared with whites, African Americans (I can’t stand that term, just on the basis that it is grammatically wrong) have a higher rate of marital disruption and a substantially higher rate of nonmarital births…” It goes on to explain that there is not much research in this area, but I can tell you from my own experience the reason why. Have you heard of the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray? Well, he should have added, “and Black Women Are From Jupiter”. Black women, in general, for years (my mother being one of them) have been teaching their daughters to ‘never depend upon a man’. That is why you see an upsurge of black women professionals or on the opposite spectrum letting Uncle Sam be the provider. But in both cases, because of well-intentioned training from mothers, the black mom has become the head of the household. You can even see it emerging in Hollywood. This philosophy has severely hampered the black family, in my opinion, and played a huge role in my divorce with my first wife. I don’t want to get too personal out of respect to my first wife, but let’s just say that marriage is about companionship and cooperation, not control.
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