My Response to: Does interracial relationship affect our women the same way as men?

A Fellow blogger wrote the following article and posed this question: I was compeled to answer.

ARTICLE

Does interracial relationship affect our women the same way as men?Posted by Prince Kennedy Iyoha on September 2, 2008 at 9:36am

have often listened to friends say, it is impossible for an interracial marriage to succeed. Many argue, that most of the children, fruits of such marriage, will never go to Africa with you, while others believe, that when you intend to retire after all your years in oversees, your family will desert you and then the irony of being alone will fall on you. I have on many occasion argue that though some brothers that came here before us may have suffered such terrible pains, some also have had a happy and successful interracial marriage and are happy to do so. This friends, never accepted my arguments, rather they argued that less than 10% have succeeded to return home with their family. My question is, do our women also suffer the same faith with our men? Does interracial relationship affect our women the same way as men?





MY RESPONSE

Permalink Reply by Ezichi 1 minute ago
Delete I think it all depends on how you handle your interracial marriage. Anyone can lose touch of certain friends and family members after they get married. It is up to them though to make it a point to keep family and friends that are important to them. Now, I am not saying that everything is a walk in the park. I do realize that it could be harder to keep those cultural and family connections together in a multi cultural relationship but if it is something that is important to you then you must work at it.

I think that the concern and the statistic you pose is not deniable but we need to consider all things. We need to consider what those men are doing to maintain their family relationships after they get married. You cannot get married, forget your family and friends (people @ home) for years and expect to just come back with open arms. How many of these men have tried to maintain their culture after they got married?

Another question. How many of these men even want to come back home? Are we just assuming that they want to come home and it has been impossible? Maybe, these men don't have it in their retirment plan to settle at home. I can't be that hard to try to settle in Nigeria especially with American income or British income and it being impossible! If there trully is a genuine will I feel like there definitely is a way.

Whether you are in an inter cultural relationship of even in a relationship with a fellow Naija you must make sure you express your intent to come home before marriage so that everybody has a clear expectation for their future. It might take a little more work to bridge cultural gaps in a multi cultural relationship but it is not impossible!

There are many responses to your final question. On one hand, it is easier for women to communicate and therefore it makes it easier for us to keep the connections that will eventually keep the relationships and enable a smoother trnsition back home. On another hand, men are to be "head" of their households and whn men marry, even across cultural line they will never lose the position they have in their fathers house. I mean, men get to keep their last names for Christ sakes. If they wanted to go back hime, back to their lands, back to their villages, no one can take that right away from them. They might need to be a little more aggressive if they have robbed some feathers but ultimately (culturally) they can still go back home. For women, it is a little harder.

So, to me the answer is a yes and a no. I really hope people consider these individuals that they assume have "closed their books on going back home." Ask the question, do these people even want to be back home? What have these people actually done to maintain their family and culture? In other words, analyse all the factors before jumping to the stated conclusion. I think that if they really do their research they will find that the seemingly obvious may not always be the case.