Interracial Hate Crime in Elkhart, Indiana
I’ve finished up with dreadful exams just in time to hear about a dreadful incident in northwest Indiana. According to the AP report:
An interracial couple who awoke to find a burning cross in their front yard in Elkhart are praying for peace and asking for privacy.
Maggie Williams says the cross burning took her and her husband, Adam, by surprise.
The FBI is investigating the cross burning, which police are calling a hate crime. Elkhart police say the 5 1/2 by 3 1/2 foot wooden cross was left burning against a tree about 15 feet from the couple’s front door about 2:30 a.m. May 2.
The Williamses have met with Mayor Dick Moore and representatives from the police department, the FBI and the NAACP. Bradley Vite, a family friend, says they also expect to meet with a Department of Justice official.
I haven’t been able to find any more detailed information, which is probably a good thing for the couple’s privacy. I’m incredibly dismayed by this news story, but not completely surprised - sadly, there are still places in the US where interracial relationships are not accepted.
Aditya and I actually attended college fairly close to Elkhart, which makes this story all the more scary for me. We personally didn’t experience too much prejudice or racism due to our interracial relationship during our time in the Midwest, but the few times it did occur - angry stares, shouts from passing cars - were pretty upsetting for me (and Aditya, although his skin tone always marked him as different). I have no idea what I would do if we woke up one morning to a burning cross on our front yard, although my reactions would probably include a lot of cussing and righteous crusading in the local community. This type of bullshit just shouldn’t be happening anywhere. What would your reactions be? Have any of you had any similar or lower-level racist reactions to your intercultural relationship?
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On a slightly more cheerful note, the 11th (today, technically) is my birthday. We’ll be celebrating by having a day of light adventures with friends - hiking in the morning, Indian buffet for lunch, and then hanging out at home, eating cake and playing video games. Our group will be a bunch of white & Indian folk, including a couple of guys from Indiana, so I’ll see what they think about this incident. I’ll also take a bunch of pictures while at the Indian buffet food, so that I can get on with the next installment of “How to Eat Indian Food.”
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Happy Birthday!
This is my grandmother’s birthday, also. She’s a strong, feisty, gregarious, loving, determined and independent woman - and so I know it’s an illustrious day on which to be born =)!
Happy Birthday 
K and I have gotten some ugly stares too. It’s interesting because there are so many black/white & hispanic/white couples here.
I don’t really have the fear of waking up with a cross on fire in our yard, but I was REALLY scared for K after the WTC incident. That day I really didn’t even want him leaving the house. Even though he is Indian and Hindu, not many people take the time to find those things out before making snap judgements. He’s always pulled out of line at the airport too…argh…it’s so annoying.
Happy birthday, Gori!
We actually haven’t gotten too many stares. I think people around here tend to be ok with/used to interracial couples.
Wurdygirl - G was working in Manhattan on 9/11. It was terrifying, not only because of the whole event and not knowing for a painfully long time if he was ok, but because after they started to figure out what happened, I was worried that people would start attacking any brown person they saw. However, he was fine that day and thereafter. Also, I guess he was looking especially Hispanic that day, because he had a whole group of Spanish-speaking people come up to him and ask him directions to get to the ferry off the island.
Happy birthday!
My partner (Primerosol) and I used to get a small but steady amount of unpleasant stares in Britain, but almost exclusively from South Asian men (he is Mexican but he is constantly taken for something else, and in Britain people often assumed he was South Asian). We used to go to this one curry place where one of the (Muslim) owners was unbelievably gruff and rude to us every time, until one day I went in, by chance, wearing a baseball cap and a hooded sweatshirt, and he was almost obsequiously nice to me. I may be reading too much into it, but I assume he thought I was being a proper Muslim woman finally and covering my hair. (?)
I had a British friend whose family were from Bangladesh, and she wasn’t surprised by this - she was dating our white flatmate and she made him wait outside whenever she went into an Asian-run shop (most of them in our city), because the shopowners would openly harangue her about being with a white boy whenever they went in together.
Primerosol was also a bit anxious about anti-Asian stuff being directed at him by white hooligans/drunks (the only obviously Muslim family on our street had a brick through their window once), but nothing like that ever happened to him.
My husband and I have not dealt with anything obviously discriminatory (yet). However, we deal with the Subtle all the time (waitress in rural New Hampshire? I am talking ’bout YOU!)
My friends and co-workers probably do not think I know, but I KNOW - I know EXACTLY who is not impressed with my mixed marriage. The odd, probing questions. The odd little statements. I KNOW what they are getting at.
However, for the most part, our experience here in Kansas City and all the places we have traveled through out the US has been positive. I think it has some to do with the fact that my husband is Catholic and as such, our surname is a VERY common Anglo name (i.e. my married name is vastly more boring than my maiden name was)
Wow, that’s terrible.
My husband and I haven’t really noticed anything in the two-plus years we’ve been together. Sometimes we get some stares in the Indian grocery stories/restaurants, but it’s not really hostile — its more what I like to call the “Wow-at-least-my-son-hasn’t-pulled-that-stunt!”-look.
I have noticed that often when we’re together, people assume we aren’t. For example, if a white woman and white man both are standing in line to check in at the airport, or at a restaurant, the person at the counter generally assumes they are together. But if it’s the two of us, we get a “are you two together?” question or they’ll just ignore one of us and ask the other “how many bags?”
Interesting, but not annoying.
Happy Belated B-day, Gori!
That picture is so powerful - I can’t stop staring at it. I’m so sad to hear the news about this and surprised to hear that it’s taken place so close to wear I live. I think I’ve taken for granted how easy my relationship has been with M. We haven’t gotten any negative reactions and that goes for both the reactions of Indians and non-Indians. If people do have a problem with the two of us being together, they’ve done a great job keeping it to themselves.
Sad that things like that are still going on.
Ive sometimes felt uncomfortable stopping(while traveling) through tiny country towns. But I dont recall anything very hateful ever happening, though there have been some weird instances.
Anyway, happy birthday GG!!!
Yes…with intercultural relationships the demarcation between private and social life can be pretty prominent. When R and I are alone and in our city (a diverse place) we just bop around carelessly. It is only though the skeptical or questioning gaze of others that we feel cautious at times.
It’s so weird because the very nature of society implies an ignorance to the private connections and intimacies those of us make in intercultural relationships experience. I suppose this has to do with the different assumptions various cultural patterns hold, too. And that can be perceived as alienating. Sometimes you do feel like you are forging something entirely different and foreign in uncharted territory even though you know your partner so deeply.. it’s sort of a strange feeling.
Fanatics can be found in every race and religion.
As an Indian living in India I come across various incidents of killing and attacking for the sake of religion and caste everyday (attacking people of their own color but different caste just because the girl was dating a boy from a lower caste from the same community!).
The people involved are mostly less educated and belong to the backward and rural areas.These small but sad news stories form a part of my daily newspaper reading.
When I read something like this happening in the US it goes to prove that there are some equally foolish,less enlightened souls in the US too who give more credence to the color of the skin than the sincerity of feelings of the mixed couples who have had the courage to overcome all (seeming) differences and dived into probably the most important relationship of their lives.
I had a very close Indian friend, when I was at a university in PA, who was dating an American girl of German descent. When her parents heard about this, they told her she is making a “big mistake” and actively discouraged her from pursuing the relationship further. They both broke up and that was the end of it. As many of you may have heard in the news lately, in US states like Pennsylvania, skin color continues to be a big deal (Remember the PA governor recently said he knows many people in his state would not vote for an African-American presidential candidate).
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Happy Birthday Gori!!!