Race and dating

See, you're nearly 40 (born in '72) and don't even realize how segregated Italians were in your parents's generation. Why Blacks were one step lower than Italians, Irish, Polish and Jews etc...back then. Women were about the same as all of them and in some regards, still looked upon as property in some states. I can joke about Southern men screaming to their wives, girlfriends, sisters etc, Shut Up and Git in the truck Bitch.
My parents were considered an inter-racial marriage in the 50s. Edit: should probably add...religious too...Roman Catholic Marries a Methodist...does that make it more pronounced?
We really have come a long way since then. Or have we?

surely you mean inter-cultural marriage not inter-racial? If you use your definition of inter-racial, every single woman I have dated, including my ex-wife, except for one has been a different race. My parents would be classed as inter-racial by your definition too (they were also RC and methodist).

eh? When were Italians ever 'segregated'? Certainly weren't in Britain as far as I know. Several friends of mine had either ma or pa italian (a large nuber of italians came to edinburgh in the early 20th century) and I do not remember that ever being an issue at all. What was an issue, probably more even that interracial marriages was the sectarian divide.

Wow, you guys never heard of Little Italy? My Mother was not Italian...and this was pre-civil rights era. Everyone that I've talked to (from that generation) considered their marriage inter-racial. Her jewish ex mother-in-law called my father a Dago and you should have heard what I was called!

so errrr which races do the Irish and Italians belong to, then?

I have no "pride" in my homeland. I am proud of things I have achieved, not things like the country in which I was born, my shoe size, the color of my skin or anything else that I had no control over.

Moc, I've heard what you're talking about. But realize you're not just talking to Americans. Not everyone going to know what you're talking about.

There are plenty of similar examples elsewhere in the world for us to understand the situation even if some of us haven't experienced it first hand. The fact remains that the people concerned belong to different ethnic/religious groups but, as OG mentioned above, their race is the same.

did I say this happens only in black america? no. did I live in india, japan, korea or vietnam? no. I can't talk about the realities they face in their home countries so why would I speak on it? I kept my numerous stories about the hundreds of vietnamese and cambodian kids I went to school with, who cruelly belittled their darker-skinned countrymen, to myself, for the sake of brevity.

feel free to ask me about it some time.

True, I know of the cultural differences/discriminations but certainly not racial. Maybe she can explain what she meant better...

it seems to me that in matters of race and culture, there is one prevailing view; "us" vs. "them". "us" and "them" vary over time, sometimes they expand sometimes they shrink.

Well I have not heard the phrase "Mayflower material" since a child but then again I left Texas a long time ago.

what does "mayflower material" mean?

And what I was trying to get across is that it is not only Blacks in America who had these things happen to them. I know first hand about race and being belittled by my fellow countrymen also. I am biracial too. I never thought of myself that way to the point of even just looking at my parents as my parents and not caring about the fact that my dad was darker and my mom not even being any darker than milk. I have also been in schools where I was treated badly by classmates for my race. I attended a school where the majority of the students were dark skinned and I was belittled there for the years I attended. I also have brothers and sisters who are different skin colored than I am all with the same set of parents. Each who have their own stories. When growing up we saw the prejudices in our country given to our family when we were out together even from our own extended family. In fact our family as a whole never let it get to us. We did not think of ourselves as biracial, just that our dad was darker than our mom if that at all.

@ keepingtime - your profile says you're american.