By Teairah Tate
Some may say “society has indeed accepted mixed cultural relationships,” but really have they come to grips that maybe a African American can marry a Jew or a Chinese can marry a Indonesian. My answer is no. Media has deceived people into thinking that mixed cultural relationships can get into a intimate relationship and live happily ever after, when if you actually read between the lines all its saying, is that this is America and we can co-exist but not intertwine. Take two similar cultures or what a person could consider similar, African Americans and Africans. Some background, African Americans is anyone of an African decent or origin meaning derived form African. Africans are people that weren’t born in America, Yet many has a citizenship here. In a different culture one would ask “well whats the difference?” And they will get a slim answers comparisons and a large number of differences, one being the way we go about dating and marriage.
Some may say “society has indeed accepted mixed cultural relationships,” but really have they come to grips that maybe a African American can marry a Jew or a Chinese can marry a Indonesian. My answer is no. Media has deceived people into thinking that mixed cultural relationships can get into a intimate relationship and live happily ever after, when if you actually read between the lines all its saying, is that this is America and we can co-exist but not intertwine. Take two similar cultures or what a person could consider similar, African Americans and Africans. Some background, African Americans is anyone of an African decent or origin meaning derived form African. Africans are people that weren’t born in America, Yet many has a citizenship here. In a different culture one would ask “well whats the difference?” And they will get a slim answers comparisons and a large number of differences, one being the way we go about dating and marriage.
The question is when families of different cultures leave there native land, why cant they leave there cultural beliefs behind to adapt to the American society”fully”? We have this thing called becoming Americanized and when you become Americanized you are deemed acceptable to are culture. Yet in the case of being with an African man of the igbo tribe, is highly frowned upon if they were to even be brought up in the same sentence as an American woman. My thoughts is that its extremely unfair to come to a new country and not accept the norms of being in a honest relationship of whoever you want to be with. But the problem really lies into what African American cultures display to to world. Especially the women. A lot of what is put into the media is stereotypes and biases about young black woman and it should be a crime to exploit us in that way, because not all black woman are not products of there environment. In closing, I was in a relationship where as though my culture was unaccepted to theirs, and I winded up with a broken heart, hurt feeling and bad memories, my perception of Africans will never be the same.
