COLUMN: Stop noticing interracial dating, please

From Melissa Wong's, "Days Like This," Fall '99 From Melissa Wong's, "Days Like This," Fall '99I was wholly unprepared for the flyer two old ladies handed me on Locust Walk last week. "International love and harmony," it read, and it went on to discuss the merits of dating and marrying outside your race. "Spread this love among the different races and make America an even more diverse society of multiculturalism." It is rare indeed to find people who not only approve of interracial dating but advocate on its behalf. We are all familiar with the pressures that push us toward finding a significant other of the same race. While the situation has improved for interracial couples in this increasingly multicultural society, there still remains incredible pressure for young people to pick from their own ethnic or religious group. Still, perhaps that pressure is not unwarranted. In many cases, men and women from similar backgrounds and cultures find that they have more in common and are therefore more compatible. Natural tendency or not, those who share the same race and culture sometimes find they share implicit understandings and similar views. In addition, couples often find that approval of a relationship with a partner of the same race is much easier to take than the disapproving glances or remarks an interracial couple may receive from family, friends or even perfect strangers. There are many who believe that it is better to date within your own kind and are vocal in expressing their convictions. The same kind of pressure can easily come from your friends as well. Those who find that the majority of their friends are of the same race are much less accepting of the boyfriend who is not. At many of the functions and events at Penn especially, activities are targeted for a specific racial community, which makes bringing your other half along more than a bit awkward when they don't belong to that group. But does it still make sense to only date members of your own race? We have now reached a stage in American society in which races and classes mix more than ever, whether it is in the workplace, the theater or the home. People today simply have more contact with those of diverse backgrounds, and this facilitates greater interaction between groups. Where people of different races once almost always had different backgrounds, today race is a less defining or isolating factor. People who grow up in diverse communities will share backgrounds with people of diverse races. Penn especially is a relatively diverse environment. The University has one of the highest percentages of minority students among American universities and there are hundreds of international students on campus who contribute to the multicultural atmosphere. It is not at all uncommon to see interracial couples strolling down the Walk hand in hand. Still, Penn, like the rest of America, is far from being a place where dating outside your race is completely accepted. Many of the organizations on campus which are based on racial or cultural backgrounds serve the purpose of bringing together those who are alike -- as a result, they keep apart those who are different. It would be ideal to not consider race as a factor in choosing a date or mate, to make that judgement based on the person or relationship rather than the appearance of similarity. Yet it is this all-too-important appearance which made others coo over how cute my Asian date and I looked together this weekend because we outwardly seemed to match a little better than a guy and girl of different races who were going out for dinner. Even when the dating couple can manage to disregard racial differences, others often cannot. Peer pressure remains a problem in interracial relationships, even when differences in a couple's backgrounds no longer play a significant role in their choices. Relationships are hard enough to maintain without the added outside pressure of those who still have their reservations. The women promoting interracial dating on Locust Walk and those who cooed over my Saturday night date are both missing the point -- race shouldn't have anything to do with whom you date.