Challenges Facing Interracial Marriages Essay

Introduction

Interracial marriage is a marriage between two people from different racial backgrounds, for example; black people and white people. Often these couples are generally faced with difficulties on a daily basis because the society, family, and friends always find ways to show them that they are different. Furthermore, these couples undergo too much scrutiny to the extent where they start receiving hate from the community. The following essay thus discusses the national and local resources that currently exist regarding challenges facing interracial marriages

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There are several resources that exist that address the problems that are facing interracial marriages, and they include; media, books, journals, counseling services, religious centers, online communities, courses, and databases. These resources help address or explain the challenges that face interracial couples on a daily basis regardless of the type of interracial mixing. Not all these resources are helpful or work because some of them contain misleading information (Berglund, 45).

Most of the times people like to hear what they want to hear; therefore there are authors of books and journals who write about interracial marriages like a fictional story. Writing about the happily ever after and the sweet life that interracial couples live. These authors, however, provide misleading information, because they fail to address the issues and challenges that interracial couples face on a daily basis. For example; discrimination, mimicking and sometimes rejection and isolation from their families.

Nonetheless, some of these resources help couples of different racial backgrounds, for example, counseling services and religious centers. More often couples who seek guidance and assistance from these two places are often directed on the challenges that face interracial couples, and they get to understand these marriages before they get involved really. One is advised on the best ways to handle outside pressures, how to balance the two races once they are married so that one does not feel sidelined (Lewis, 16).

Improvement on Current Resources

There is, however, an improvement that can help better the resources available in adding people to understand the challenges facing interracial marriages. First of all, people who are planning to get involved from different backgrounds should know that an interracial should not be treated as a healthy marriage, because at the of the day it is different. Books and journals that write fictional stories about interracial marriages should warn the readers that what they are reading is pure fiction.

Authors should treat these issues seriously and not just like another good story because a person's life could be made or broken by what they read. Hence authors writing about interracial marriages should strive to write the truth in their books. They should talk about the challenges that they are faced with, how they overcome it and who to go to when they are facing conflicts due to their races. For example, couples may wonder how they should raise their kids, with what cultural background and how to balance these cultures into one (Crudup, 66).

Counselors should also undergo training on matters of dealing with interracial couples because the advice they give them should be different from the information they provide people who don't have differing backgrounds. They should ensure that they are vastly aware of how delicate the matter is and what best way to advise the couple on all issues concerning their relationship. They should explain the good and the bad clearly and help the couples decide on a way of living in harmony and avoiding all bias.

Suggestions for New Resources

The resources currently available are not enough to help people understand the challenges facing interracial couples. Hence there should be some new additions to these resources. One of the resources that could be added is a center for interracial couples. Instead of thee pairs going to counselors who have not specified with interracial marriage counseling, they should go to people who thoroughly understand the magnitude of the matter and who have read widely on the matter, and they know how to navigate on all issues concerning interracial couples (Bratter, 163).

These centers should ensure that they offer guidance on how the couple should behave write from when to meet to when they decide to get married. The couples should be made aware of the discrimination that can come from interracial marriage. For example, in a case where one of the families is not comfortable with the person from the different race, they should be advised on how well to handle that matter. More often couples break up because their families do not approve of the marriage and this is a sad thing to happen. Empowering someone with the knowledge of how interracial relationships work will help them face their families and defend their loved ones.

In addition to family acceptance, the center should also ensure that they advise the couple wisely of how their different cultures may affect their future or current children. They should be able to explain to their children how both their religion and avoid any bias. They should also be ready to teach to their children that even though they come from very different backgrounds, that they are still one integrated unit. A center like these one could go a long way in solving the problems that many interracial couples face. These centers should also ensure that they create an online community where people can interact from around the world and share their experiences.

Works Cited

Berglund, Nonhlanhla, and Simon Hedin. "Transnational Couples: Looking at cultural differences from within a relationship." (2014).

Bratter, Jenifer L., and Rosalind B. King. "But will it last?": Marital instability among interracial and samerace couples." Family Relations 57.2 (2008): 160-171.

Crudup, Chandra. A Multi-Decade Look at Black Female/White Male Interracial Marriages. Diss. Arizona State University, 2014.

Lewis, Richard. "Status of interracial marriage in the united states: A qualitative analysis of interracial spouse perceptions." Intel J. Soc. Sci. Stud. 2 (2014): 16.