The questions are: How do Black men/Asian women couples manage the pressure of conservative family views or racist stereotypes, and was it worth it?
Black men in the PNW who have dated Asian women: What is your experience with navigating cultural differences and family opposition?
Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
So yeah I am not black, but you said elsewhere that that kind of opinion is still fine.
And also, if you want, you do not have to bring ethnicity into it at all, in my opinion. This can just be handled like any kind of “family disapproval”. Of course some people are sensitive to racism based issues, but I think it’s not actually that relevant in this question/situation.
In my personal opinion, people value family, and “approval of other humans” in general entirely too much. I understand that family is an important survival mechanism of our species and thus ingrained in our psyche to care about, but in some situations, family bonds are just a straight detriment to one’s life.
For example, if your family causes(/d) huge emotional pain and trauma, which prevents you from properly functioning in society, even if there is the potential safety net of “my family takes care of me while I’m in trouble” (i.e. idk, losing your home and needing a place to sleep) severely loses its value if the result is more pain and dysfunction accompanying it.
This is just to illustrate my general thinking.
Now with regards to situations you mentioned, I would just say “fuck em”. In my opinion, there’s no need to associate with a family that’s not even yours. If your partner insists on it, I would find another partner. With my current partner (who is also Asian), neither she nor I have contact to our families, so it’s not an issue anyway, but in general, there should ideally never be any “requirements” to be fulfilled. If I say no to my partner on something, that’s it, same as when she does it, that’s it for me.
Maybe I’m just extremely lucky or I’m very tolerant, but I think you should have a partner that you like as a human in general, whose whole set of worldviews align with your own. If a partner were to try to force me to interact with their racist family, I fundamentally disagree with that and I would dislike that person so much as to not be able to be with them.
I generally don’t think you can change humans very much, so all of this kind of “attempting to conform to a set of expectations” is moot and shouldn’t be done.
So to summarize this, I think family ties are not that important, and having to confront annoying situations is not necessary, as a loving partner that cares about you would not force that on you. This kind of attitude might leave you without a partner, but it also leaves you free to get a partner who you’re actually compatible with and don’t need to care about stupid family views.
NeverHomeSick7@thelemmy.club 5 days ago
You have a semi-unique situation and circumstances. Ideally, you and your spouse are starting a new family from scratch. I love my family. I come from a family that invests into one another. When one steps, most of us steps in that direction as well. We have a touch of the American individual–Independence scattered throughout but it’s helpful with questions like the one I have presented. I was once married to a Mexican, whom I met and loved her in America. Her roots are in Mexico and her mother “hated” Black people. Her father was a man of honor and decent judgements. I was not his first son-in-law. When I stood my ground and stopped paying my then mother-in-law attention, she desired more of my attention for good and laughed a good laugh when I came around. Sooner than later the in laws had Black friends of their own.
I’m not on a mission to save or change the world, nothing like that. I am just happy my family is understanding and not racist. We’re loving and compassionate towards our community and neighbors. However, we or some of us do occasionally use the spooky myth of being the black boogeyman to scare crazy people off. 😜
Take care. Best of luck to your family.