Unbelievably, some people are still shocked by the idea that people with different skin colours might want to date each other.
On Reddit, interracial couples have been sharing the problems they encounter because of their relationship.
From ignorant comments from family to abuse from strangers on the street, here are their heartbreaking, infuriating and downright ridiculous stories.
“I’m a white man who is marrying a biracial man (his father was black, his mother is white) this summer. It’s actually interesting sometimes trying to decide if people are looking at us funny because we’re a same sex couple, because we’re an interracial couple, or because of both.”
- ndcj12
“I’m white and my fiance is Filipina. When we first started dating my dad, although not in a derogatory or malevolent way, kept referring to her as ‘oriental’. I finally had to take him aside and politely ask him to stop, which thankfully he did without question. He loves her nearly as much as I do!”
- Glom_gazinga
“My husband is half-Asian and I am an Italian/Irish girl. My dad, a slightly racist 60something, just thinks our kids are going to be really good at math.”
- jethrohull
“My husband is half Indo-Trinidadian and I’m white. Not had any racism from the family but I’ve had a British dude harass me for ‘fucking a p**i’ and, since we live in Texas and my husband is brown, everyone assumes he is Mexican and tries speaking to him in Spanish.”
- rebel_nature
“My girlfriend in high school was black. I’m white and we were in a small, white community. The only time we ever heard anything blatantly racist was when we were on a date in the ‘big city’ and a crusty old black guy told us what he thought of our relationship. He shook his head at us and said: ‘You shouldn’t be together’ as he walked past. It was strange.”
- peteisneat
“My wife is white, I am Asian. My dad gives everybody chopsticks and her a fork whenever we eat.”
“I’m blonde hair blue-eyed and my boyfriend is indigenous Peruvian, my brother is dating a black woman and my sister is dating an Indian man. We are from the south. My cousin said that we are destroying the white race. Unfortunately, we are not the masterminds of any such plan.”
- so_viet_cong
“My boyfriend is white/Syrian and I am black. All of the obvious comments we get are from black men. Either they praise my boyfriend for being able to pick up a black woman or they try and intimidate us somehow. After five years, we have gotten good at avoiding these situations.”
- PinkRobotDog
“When I dated a Muslim guy of Iranian heritage, the only trouble I had was from my fellow white people. Friends, family, even strangers all had something to say.
“They all said: ‘He will make you convert to Islam. He will make you wear a hijab/burqa’. If you have kids with him, he’ll take them away to the Middle East. He will take YOU to the Middle East. He will beat/abuse you.’
“We dealt with it by laughing at it. At first it really hurt us both, especially him (nicest gentleman ever), but we eventually just laughed at people’s offensive comments and repeated them back like a joke. It usually made people realise how stupid they sounded.”
- currentstand
“I’m a white male and my SO of a year is black...We are concerned about race relations in the US as well as mass incarceration. We’ve talked a lot about how any sons we may have would be subjected to a higher level of police scrutiny than either of us.”
- evilinspace
“I’m white and my ex was black. Never really had much of an issue apart from me being called a ‘N....r lover’ by a drunken ‘friend’.
“She was once called a race traitor by a black guy she knew. Honestly we didn’t give a fuck. I loved her and she loved me and that’s all we needed at the time.|