By Faith Smith

Growing up, my parents always taught my siblings and me to never talk about politics with our friends. This was the way it was until we got older, then they told us it was time to begin standing up for our beliefs. A good rule of thumb, when faced with difficult or stubborn debaters, is not to fight, but to educate. Here is my lesson for you.

The term “miscegenation” originates from the Latin words “miscere,” which translates to mix, and “genus,” which means family, type or descent. It has been used to refer to cohabitation or intermarriage between racial groups. Regulated by law, miscegenation was illegal in many states throughout the United States for decades.

At a time when rape and sexual abuse of enslaved women and men at the hands of white people occurred with no punitive repercussion during and after the time of slavery in the United States, relationships between the two races were considered greatly taboo. There were even laws enforced to keep them from happening. 

In the late 1600s, miscegenation laws, which banned black people, among other races from marrying or cohabitating with white people, were put into effect in slave-holding states like Maryland and Virginia. The law specifically addressed white women in these states who “forgetful of their free condition and to the disgrace of our Nation do intermarry with Negro slaves.” Rules like this eventually spread to Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in the north, and a “one drop” rule, which literally meant that if a single trace of a race other than white were to be found in your lineage, you could not marry or cohabitate with a white person.

Miscegenation laws, which had previously been struck out in some Southern states, had been reinstated and many other states conformed to the idea that black and white people could not possibly be together. By the end of Reconstruction in the late 1800s, those caught breaking these rules faced fines, imprisonment or death at the hands of vigilante mobs. 

To understand these laws, it is critical to understand the ways in which people of color in the United States have been tortured, dehumanized and exploited for centuries. Jim Crow laws were established in the late 19th century, and miscegenation laws were expected to maintain the misleading sanctity of whiteness while simultaneously disenfranchising an entire group of people. Although slavery had been abolished, the belief that black people are inherently inferior to whites was still deeply embedded into American society and it is difficult to say it still is not today. 

It was not until 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled that state miscegenation laws were unconstitutional in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia. “The freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual,” Chief Justice Earl Warren said. “And cannot be infringed by the State.”

When asked if he would be okay with the Supreme Court leaving interracial marriage to the states, Mike Braun, a senator from Indiana said, “Yes” in a statement for NBC News in March 2022.

“If you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it, too,” Braun said. After realizing what he had said, he tried to walk it back, “Earlier during a virtual press conference, I misunderstood a line of questioning that ended up being about interracial marriage.” In conclusion, believing that interracial marriage is a state’s rights issue would mean that you think Loving v. Virginia, which ruled interracial marriage is in fact constitutional, should have never taken place, which is racist.

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