It used to be that you saw white women or white men with prominent black celebrities such as Quincy Jones, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson or O. J. Simpson (don't get me started on the peculiarities of that case).

Now the occurrence has "trickled down" to the less stellar masses of African-Americans.

It is common to see young black teenaged males with white females, and to a lesser extent, white teenaged males with black females.

As is true in many cases, younger people are more open to experimentation unlike the older generation. Most of these kids genuinely find each other attractive and fun to be with in social settings, etc.

Nevertheless, there are some who cannot resist the fact that they are shocking their elders with that person of another color and do it as another aspect of rebellion.

Some are curious about the sexual myths they have heard about, i.e. black men have bigger penises or white women are wetter, etc.

In 1967, in Loving Et. Ux. vs. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law was unconstitutional because "…under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state."

After that monumental court ruling other Southern states and most of the other US states had such clauses taken out of their state constitutions.

Moreover, as recently as 1998, South Carolina became one of the last states to remove its ban on interracial marriage from the state constitution.

Interracial love, romance, sex, whatever you want to call it, is just another area of the black and white equation.

Like every other area from politics to culture, black and white people must begin to find a common ground among each other, rather than constantly looking for ways to dislike one another.

It is difficult enough to find a decent relationship between individuals within each race. So it is best not to make matters worse by stoking fires that cannot be easily controlled.

If some people should have a problem with seeing black and white couples together, I suggest that they take an aspirin and call Dr. Ruth in the morning.

That is, if she makes house calls.

Mark A. Rawls is the Asst. Vice-Pres./Dir. of Insurance Services of Golden Circle Life Insurance Co., the 8th largest black-owned insurance company in America (Black Enterprise Magazine, June 2000 issue)

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