A recent Associated Press article appeared on CNN.com entitled, “Could Mr. Right Be White? – More Black Women Consider Dating Out.” It deals with the fact that Black women around the country are reconsidering interracial relationships. Of course I had to reflect back on the 1967 Academy Award-winning classic entitled, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?” In that film a young White American woman has a whirlwind romance with an African-American (played by Sidney Poitier) and they plan to marry. The plot is centered around the young woman’s return to her home in San Francisco, California, bringing her new fiancé to dinner to meet her parents. That film dealt with the sensitive subject of interracial marriage which had been historically illegal in most of the United States.

Forty (40) years later, even after the Supreme Court decision in Loving vs. Virginia (that legalized interracial marriage throughout the United States), we are still grappling with the same sensitive issue of marriage between races. The AP article focuses its attention that some black women are frustrated as the field of ‘marriageable’ black men narrows. (It states they’re nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men and more than twice as likely to be unemployed.) It also discusses that campuses are often a place where women of all races meet their spouses, but there is a low rate of black men in college.

It is stated that Sundays are the most segregated time of the week, which reflects that races tend not to worship together. Blacks attend black churches, and whites attend white churches. So does not this same ‘spirit’ spillover to the choices one makes for their marriage partners? There are yet a significant number of Christians who still claim that interracial marriages violate God’s principles in the scriptures. Of course, that suggestion is ridiculous, but yet for the most part we see very little interracial marriages even in the church. The fear of races inter-marrying was a contributing factor that brought about the split of many great religious organizations. Some regard that the history of the Apostolic-Pentecostal movement was affected by this notion.

With two beautiful daughters in college, I often ponder how I would react if they started dating seriously a white young man. Even though I’m saved (and filled full of  the Holy Ghost), I grew up in an era of the 1960’s and 1970’s when there was a bitter fight to gain civil rights, and often the villain was the image of the white man who raped are sisters, lynched our brothers, and berated our parents. That era also changed many blacks’ self image with the likes of “I’m Black and I’m Proud!” Does this mean I have an ingrain hatred for white people – of course not. I have some wonderful friends and neighbors that are white, close church associates that are interracially married, and many in the white community who I admire & respect. But… how would I react if I had a white son-in-law? I can’t help but think of the comedy bigotry of George Jefferson (remember ‘Movin On Up To The East Side’ ?). While blacks often point the finger of prejudice and bigotry to those in the white community, the issue becomes are we in the black community (and even the church) also guilty of “pre-judging” a person? I can only hope we practice, as famously quoted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “…not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…”

When it boils down, we all come from one blood. Guess who’s coming to dinner? Don’t surprise me… give me time to adjust and prepare myself!