Straight Talk on TV's New Love Affair with Interracial Relationships

You know you've been around a while when other critics start calling you for quotes.

The topic most recently was the new uptick in interracial relationships on prime time network TV shows. Given that I covered TV for eight years, have written about the issue before and are currently involved in an interracial marriage, I guess that made me the perfect expert for my friend Chuck Barney of the Contra Costa Times.

Chuck -- along with a TV critic pal in an interracial relationship, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Melanie McFarland -- noted a surge in such pairings on some high profile shows. Dean and Cassie from the WB's Supernatural. Joy and Darnell from NBC's My Name is Earl. Christina Yang and Preston Burke on ABC's Grey's Anatomy. Rose and Bernard on Lost (or Shanon and Sayid). Neela Rasgotra and Michael Gallant on ER. The list, these days, is long.

It's a wonderful turn, and an improvement from the days when the only interracial couples on TV were Lucy and Desi and The Jefferson's Tom and Helen Willis. I was disappointed, however, to see that Chuck only quoted part of my problem with the way current interracial relationships are portrayed on TV -- which is that race or culture is rarely a factor.

It's been my experience that race and culture differences come out in unexpected, subtle ways in modern-day interracial relationships. Rarely will you have racists say something to your face -- though two of my wife's brothers-in-law refused to sit in the same room with me when I attended my first Thanksgiving dinner at her mother's home a dozen years ago.

Instead, it's less obvious frictions: my wife encountering a woman at the grocery who refused to believe our caramel-skinned daughter could be her child by blood; the waiter who seemed to dote on the white couples around us but ignore our table for long periods; the black people in my life who would get a certain look on their face once they realized my wife is white (once had someone insist in an email discussion among black journalists that I couldn't possibly love my wife).

It's a truism that TV doesn't do subtle well. And TV especially doesn't do subtle and controversial too well. And so, most every interracial relationship on network TV unfolds as if the race and culture differences don't matter (on Lost, where producers paired a white, priviledged blonde American with a former member of the Iraqi Army, the dissonance was so great they wound up killing off her character).

There are some who see this as an advance -- a sign that we've gotten beyond the race politics which kept Star Trek from actually showing Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura's lips touching. Perhaps. But, as an ever-cynical observer of the media industry, I think it is more a sign of capitulation from television; an unwillingness by mostly-white TV writers to try navigating the tricky waters of America's race differences on such a visible platform.

(To see an interesting take on the black male/Asian woman coupling trend, check here. For Wikipedia's list of notable interracial couples, look here.)

The real edges of our frictions over these issues appear on some of the romantic/dating reality shows, which rarely feature interracial couples -- except on the trading spouses programs, where the ultimate message seems to be that stepping outside your culture only brings conflict. (ABC's creaky franchise The Bachelor has had one: Tampa's Mary Delgado with whatever blockhead was the bachelor that year).

Which is too bad. Because, even as many in the real world are testing the boundaries of convention while following their hearts, TV remains a step or two behind -- unwilling to walk in the deep water, for fear of getting too real for prime time.

Pundit Alert #1:

Looks like the good folks at CBS' Public Eye blog are really desperate for material: They actually published my take on their new Assignment America series and what it might mean for the new world of digital-influenced news coverage. Feel free to check it out, if only to snicker at the lousy head shot they used (not their fault; unfortunately, I only have lousy head shots available these days). Sigh.

Pundit Alert #2:

I'll also be inflicting my opinion on the notables at Rob Lorei's public affairs show for WEDU-Ch. 3, Florida This Week. So far, the issues at hand seem to be the United Arab Emirates connection to a deal at the Tampa Port Authority, polls showing Crist and Davis ahead in the Governor's race and legislation making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant. Check it out at 8:30 p.m. tonight, 12:30 p.m. Thursday or here.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I too have seen many interracial couples on the "house makeover" shows.......which tells me two things:1. It's the left agenda coming through loud and clear from the "artsy" home decorating types.2. Interracial couples must have really bad taste!

[Khan of the Wastelands]

Eric,My wife and I regularly visit Salem's on the south side.It's probably not the best for us, but the food is damn tasty and the service is very friendly and fast.As far as the other restaraunt, ya'll did a story on the owner selling stolen items out of the back end.Perhaps that would explain why his staff wasn't concerned with selling some ribs to a white dude from the north side.

[Eric Deggans]

I don't really worry in the Old Northeast. In that neighborhood, I'm more worried about white people being afraid of me.I am more nervous in places such as Pinellas Park and Oldmar, where working class white folks live -- probably because they were the kinds of folks who gave me such a hard time when I was growing up.Have to say I'm surprised at the rib joint incident; usually, restaurants there seem happy to take anybody's money. And my wife and I have had no problems at any establishment on the South Side, for whatever that is worth...

[Khan of the Wastelands]

Growing up in Gary, Ind., if you were a black person and went into the wrong restarant or bar, you could find yourself in trouble.Growing up in Dallas, TX, if you were a white person and went into the wrong restaurant or bar, you could find yourself in trouble.I'm sure the same is/was true for blacks as well as whites though.As far as racism goes I'd love to try a little experiment sometime.Which of us do you think would have a harder time walking across a particular neighborhood, me as a white man walking along the south side, or you as a black man walking around Old Northeast?And I share your distrust of certain types of restaurants. There are places on the south side I would love to try, but wont because I don't particularly feel like wondering if my food was spit in, or recieving dirty glares because I walked into the place.I actually made the mistake of going to a barbeque place on 34th St. South about a year ago (I'll let ya'll guess which one) and waited for my order of ribs for about a half an hour with my wife while many black folks ordered their food, ate, and left in the time I was waiting.When I inquired as to why our food was taking so long, the lady behind the counter actually put on a 'Black mammy' type of voice and replied that "Your's a food's a commin' sir, yessah'I told my wife that weren't going to eat whatever it was that they gave us. So we left and got some ribs at a Fred Fleming's closer to our house.I know it's not exactly "Roots" or anything, but it was still irritating at the time.When I was a teenager, I've made the mistake of cutting through the wrong neighborhood and having to run my butt off to avoid a beating or two. So racism towards whites was nothing new to me, but my wife sure was shocked.

[formerly mr anonymous]

of course, it's really impossible to generalize about this because every situation is different. when interracial couples are portrayed in the entertainment media, that's where a lot of people will gain their perceptions, valid or not. as to differences, well, some couples prefer to be as much alike as possible while others, or course, say they enjoy being different. i guess as a guy, i can say ive seen certain traits in just about every woman, white or the black one i once went out with, that are pretty similar. but then i risk being labeled sexist for thinking so.

[Eric Deggans]

Well, here's an example of subtle differences.My wife has always wondered why I don't like to eat at mom and pop-type restaurants. We wound up talking about it a few weeks ago, and I told her I learned not to go into such restaurants when I was younger. Growing up in Gary, Ind., if you were a black person and went into the wrong restarant or bar, you could find yourself in trouble. As a high schooler, I was chased out of a street carnival by a group of white kids who wanted to hurt me, and in college we always had to be careful where we stopped to eat while driving to school. If a black person stops at the wrong restaurant in southern Indiana, they're going to wind up in a fight or worse.My wife remarked that, other than a few times when she was in bad neighborhoods, she never felt uncomfortable or worried about where she might sit down to eat. But small time restaurants, especially predominantly white ones, make me nervous.A subtle difference based on our backgrounds.I've never understood why so many people act as if cultural differences are a negative thing. One reason i'm attracted to my wife is that she is so different from the type of people I grew up with. I find our differences interesting, exciting and compelling. I would never try to pretend they didn't exist...

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

I'm white. My wife is black. Here are some of our cultural differences:1) I like NFL football. She doesn't.2) She likes icky pop-syrup music. I don't.3) I'm a computer junkie. My wife is not.4) She reads home decorating magazines. I don't.5) I enjoy sailing. She doesn't (and can't swim).6) She likes shopping malls. I avoid them.5) She has a new(ish) Hyundai. I drive a 12-year-old, battered Jeep.Yep. Lots of cultural differences here. We're in our 50s, got together when we were both 39.

[Khan of the Wastelands]

This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

[Anonymous]

Homes,I love Lucy. I forget was Ricky Cuban?

[Khan of the Wastelands]

Oh and I recall a NY Times article from a year or two ago that highlighted the problems many black women are having dating without doing so interracially.According to the article, there are many more college educated women in the african-american community than there are men. Which basically leaves the options slim for AA women to date AA men.

[Khan of the Wastelands]

Interracial couples between whites and minorities other than blacks I think are fairly common.I personally have dated hispanic women as well as asian, and even women of indian descent, but never a black women.My own preferences, I don't really see too many black women that I would label as attractive.Certainly Tyra Banks is out of this world gorgeous, but she's made herself to look more like a white woman than a black woman and she has pretty light skin.Other than her, I can't think of too many african-american women that I am attracted to.Angela Bassett perhaps, there was a newsanchor in Minneapolis named Robin Roberts who I always found attractive, but she was pretty light skinned as well.

[formerly mr anonymous]

i have noticed quite a few interracial couples on the house makeover shows of hgtv, my favorite channel. which means there must be quite a few real life couples out there, at least in so cal where most of those shows are shot.as a white male who once dated a black linguistics prof from trinidad, my take on the issue is that only those who've been there can begin to understand the dynamic, which in my case, was that there is really no dynamic. it's kind of a non-issue for those in the relationship. my main lesson was that black women, at least well educated ones, are pretty much the same as white women. but maybe that's only true in liberal northeastern environs. i dont know if id try it in the south where i really dont see very many such couples, at least around tampa.