Most people in the United States still harbor implicit and explicit bias against interracial marriages.

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Critical Analysis IV: Loving v. Virginia

April 15, 2020

Most people in the United States still harbor implicit and explicit bias against interracial marriages. People who have close contact with interracial couples or those who have been in interracial relationships harbor this bias. There is evidence that only multiracial people do not have these types of bias regarding interracial marriages. Anna Blazer’s interview puts the situation on interracial couples into perspective. It appears what has changed are the laws legalizing interracial marriages but not the attitude of people towards it. In modern times where people are supposed to be more liberal, multiracial couples are facing discrimination to the extent that Brian, Anna’s husband gets beat up for being with her. Famous actor Tamera Mowry in a heartfelt interview with her sister Tia Mowry discussed how she has endured slurs and discrimination for being married to a white despite her being multiracial. Almost half a century after the Loving V. Virginia and Americans still view interracial marriages with contempt.

There was a huge possibility that the civil rights movement and the political tone around the time when the Loving v. Virginia case was brought to appeal influenced the court’s decision. The case was about issues beyond love. These laws were created by the failed attempt of Eugenics, which was a political attempt to use science and intellectual cover to promote stigmatization and uncultured racism. When these laws were made, there was a significant bias against foreigners and politics controlled reproduction as a way of preserving power for a certain group of White America. The Loving v. Virginia decision was an assentation that marriage was a civil right and the court asserted that laws against anti-miscegenation laws were just means created to maintain the delusion of White Supremacy. The court’s opinion was not a celebration of love but a statement against the Eugenic ideology that was fronted in the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century.

Although Mildred did not acknowledge herself as an active member of the Civil Rights movement, the civil rights movement inspired her fight against their second arrest. When she contacted John F. Kennedy the then Attorney General, he referred her and her husband to the American Civil Liberties Union. This alone was an indication that Kennedy understood that this was a fight for civil liberties. Although Mildred did not acknowledge her contribution to the Civil Rights movement, the effect of her case struck down the Virginia Marriage Ban and the ruling reverberated across the nation invalidating anti-miscegenation in all other states that held them.

Judge Leon M. Bazile in his 1965 decision that found the marriage of Mildred and Richard Loving void and held the two in violation of Section 20-57 relied on the idea that God created different races and had the intention to keep them separate. Although this was per the tone of the nation at the time where segregation was a law that kept black people physically apart from white people, the same attitudes can still be found today. The idea that God did not intend for races to mix is the same argument that most people against same-sex relationships use today. They talk about same-sex marriages as a violation of nature’s intention where men and women are supposed to get intimate because of the sole idea of reproduction.

The Supreme Court cited Loving v. Virginia case directly in the two landmark decisions that legalized same-sex marriage. The 2013 United States v. Windsor just like the Loving v. Virginia case struck down a key part of the defense of marriage act. The Obergefell v. Hodges case in 2015 was a landmark case that granted same-sex couples across America the right to marry. These cases just like Loving v. Virginia redefined marriage in America.

Bibliography

History. “How Loving v. Virginia Led to Legalized Interracial Marriage | History.” YouTube. History.org. February 27, 2018. Accessed April 15, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-qlS_J4Mho.

NPR. “Loving Decision: 40 Years of Legal Interracial Unions.” NPR.org. Last modified June 11, 2007. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/10889047?storyId=10889047&storyId=10889047?storyId=10889047&storyId=10889047.

Oprah Winfrey Show. “Tamera Mowry On Critics of Her Interracial Marriage | Where Are They Now.” YouTube. Oprah Winfrey Show. January 10, 2014. Accessed April 16, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngwvHYqYGS0.

Wiggins, L., and M. D. Bonis. “Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Case Sparked An Unlikely Friendship.” WOSU Radio | 89.7 NPR News and Classical 101. Last modified December 5, 2019. https://radio.wosu.org/post/landmark-same-sex-marriage-case-sparked-unlikely-friendship.