Specifically speaking, American society has only been “accepting” of interracial relationships for the past, what, forty or fifty decades or so. And even in its early days, when a man of color married a white woman, or vice versa, many thought that it’d be a “fad” which would never catch on. However, early thinkers were wrong, and it’s proven time and time again — everywhere you look, you see interracial couples. Heidi Klum and Seal; Amy Winehouse and her newest beau; Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom; and these are only counting couples in the media, couples whom everyone knows. Personally, I know many people in interracial relationships: my father-in-law, for one, who turns 60 this year, is dating another 60 year-old woman — and she’s black. One of my best friends — a male Hispanic — is married to an Asian woman. The world is becoming the “melting pot” that it always should have been, and people worldwide are accepting the fact that whites will not always stay with whites, blacks will not always stay with blacks, and Asians will not always marry within their race or ethnicity, either.

So, being that we are becoming such a forward-thinking society, and shunning the days of old where a black man holding a woman’s hand in public would result in a stoning — or worse — why does the media still sensationalize interracial couples?

I came across an article on NPR that featured a new segment, Newly Wed in America, which chronicles the voyage that some modern-day couples have embarked upon in order to marry their true love in 2010.

The main article features its latest couple, Rochelle Wawracz, and her husband, Varnesh Sritharan. Rochelle is a native Minnesotean and Sritharan, a native Sri Lankan. I perused the article, got the warm fuzzies inside because they have a cute story, looked at their photographs (both are very attractive people) and subsequently wondered, “Who the fuck cares? Really!”

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