So What's The Big Deal About Interracial Relationships

Keepin' It Tight

It’s 2008, so what’s the big deal about interracial relationships?

As we sit upon the 20th day of black history month in 2008, I’d like to toss two things at you. Many blacks talk about the importance of the black family and keeping the black family together. They say the black woman should marry a black man and ride off in the sunset and live happily ever after...well something like that. I know you’ve heard the initiatives to super glue the black family. On the other side of the spectrum is the crowd that believes that people are at liberty to marry whomever they want, outside of their race or not. I often have to reexamine my thoughts on each because a part of me tells me that it is impossible to believe in both, but a greater part of me tells me that both statements are true. Keeping the black family cohesive is important for the well being and longevity of the black community. If we want to envision young, black children fifty years from know with heritage and culture of African Descent, then of course keeping the black family intact would be the only way to guarantee this. However, in this day and age it is difficult to make the argument that people should "stick to their own." It sounds dirty, racist and so 1960’s. At a time when finding someone compatible, ready, willing and waiting to give you what you need out of a love relationship - plus, take your hand in marriage is nearly impossible, who is going to turn this person away because of the color of their skin? I don’t know any.

I think the complexity of both issues is beyond measure for those on the outside looking in. I can only imagine that if I were in love with someone outside of my race that his skin color wouldn’t matter to me. I’d leave those worries for the rest of the world. In comes Keepin’ It Tight, a romance that sheds a different light on interracial relationships at a time when the south both secretly and openly shuns this union.

Keepin’ It Tight shows the emotions that Lela Johnston goes through when her successful black husband is in close quarters with Amanda, a white woman that will stop at nothing to have him for herself. Lilke many of us, Lela didn’t realize that she had issues with race until she was in the middle of a brawl with "the other woman" screaming racial slurs. Having lost her first fiance to a white woman, Lela has a chip on her shoulder and her husband’s new white coworker will get the brunt of this wrath because she believes the woman wants her husband. Throughout this racy tale, various issues are brought up that are relevant to the world we live in. The most glaring one, by design of the book cover, is diversity, or lack thereof, in our communities.

This new generation of children today have hope, and even promise and this is even evident by our current presidential election where a mixed candidate is sweeping the nation with his brilliance. Whether Barack wins or loses, and I hope he wins, it can be written in the history books that for one small era in American history race didn’t matter. With the growing number of mixed children and children just seeing each other as human beings, the sins of the fathers may one day, in large part, be forgiven and true togetherness allowed to take place.

Order the book, and let me take you on a journey of race, relationships, and love.