Jehovah's Witnesses and interracial marriage

by what_Truth? 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  GentlyFeral

  All my jaydub experience is in the San Francisco Bay Area of the US. Interracial marriages barely raised a ripple - in fact there were at least a couple in every congregation I was in.
  

  One white brother who grew up in the South - Texas I think - told me, when he was considering marrying a black sister, that his father had trouble accepting it. He was proud that his father finally overcame his prejudice, especially since Dad had been a Ku Klux Klansman before he came into "the truth."

  OTOH, I remember my husband telling me some racist remarks he overheard some (non-white) friends of ours making, when their marriage fell on troubled times. Nobody's perfect -

  But on the whole, as a white person living in a fairly liberal part of the world, I got the impression that casual un-racism was something the jaydubs did fairly well.

  gently feral
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  Dragonlady76

  I have never seen or heard JW's look down on interracial couples.

  Dragonlady76
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  lilbit

  It was never a problem in my old cong and that was in Ga .
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  Purza

  I am from California and I have seen quite a few interracial marriages over the years. My mother was upset when I had a crush (I was 18 at the time) on a black witness brother. She really pushed me hard to make a different decision. I did -- I married out of the truth. LOL

  Purza
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  Wild_Thing

  I think it is part of the JW culture now to be accepting of interracial couples.

  My sister and brother-in-law are an interracial couple. They wed 15 years ago when we were living in the South! It was the talk of the town, so to speak, but it was still pretty much accepted. I think they must have been the first interracial marriage that JWs down there had ever seen! We had people come to the wedding that we had never even seen before, and there were three people who videotaped it ... and none of us ever received a copy!!!!!!!!!
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  Thirdson

  I grew up in an inner city/multi-ethnic JW cong' in the UK. There were several mixed raced couples with kids of my generation. There were many, many interracial marriages in my generation and later. Nothing unusual and I think one of the better things about the JW religion...at least in the area where I lived.

  My son, looks white and regards himself as white, has one black grandparent and thus an Anglo/AfroCaribbean heritage. I married someone of mixed race, (now divorced), nothing unusual in my area.

  3rd
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  Tatiana

  I grew up in Andrews, South Carolina. We only had about twenty publishers when I was a little girl. We had meetings in a white, old, tiny house off of Georgetown Hiway. It was cold most of the time, and you had to go out the back door to get to the little bathroom. I never knew there were Black JWS in Georgetown until we intergrated the congregations in the late 60's. Damn, was I happy!!!!!! Their KH was a big, brick building with heat and AC, and a huge bathroom!!! And cute, young brothers!!!
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  peacefulpete

  The WT has generally folowed the overall trend toward racial equality. They did not blaze the way by any means. They today are still not completely aware of the marginalization that some minoritites (who are actually the majority in the org now) feel in the org. Yet they are progressing like the rest of white society.
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  undercover

  Being from the South and being around during the sixites I do remember some mention about being careful of pursuing a inter-racial relationship. Not that it was wrong but because of civil unrest and that it was frowned on in general in our part of the country, young couples would not want to do anything to bring anymore hardship upon them than necessary.

  As the seventies rolled around though several inter-racial relationships blossomed in our area. Today inter-racial marriage is fairly common among JWs in the area and no one bats an eyelid.
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  wanderlustguy

  This was a big deal where I was from. I used to have a best friend that was black, I was told by my dad that I would not be able to "progress" as long as I was hanging out with him.