piles and piles of black friends

[intertribal]

Heard about this from Kissing Suzy Kolber, of all places:

A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."

If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.

"I try to treat everyone equally," he said.

You heard the man!  You let one interracial marriage go through soon they're all gonna want an interracial marriage!  He's just tryin' to protect the little halfbreeds from being born!

Comments

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

basically I hate the term "race"; it's a spurious leftover 19th century term from when people believed there were such things as races

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.

What's funny is that both my maternal and paternal grandparents probably would have preferred to have a son/daughter-in-law of the same race. But by the time my parents got married they were 40 and the grandparents were just glad they were getting married at all - and when I was born, any and all negativity lifted. It did not matter one iota that I was mixed-race to either family, because all they could think about was BABY BABY BABY. I'm sure there are some psycho grandparents out there that wouldn't react this way - I bet they're a small minority however.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You are so, so right. In EVERY case I've ever heard of, families that started out opposed to a marriage on the basis of race or nationality or religion, after time, and often it was the birth of children that did it, the grandparents' generation came round to accepting the union. I know it doesn't always work out that way, but I'm glad it often does.