Race Marriage
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The history of sex between black men and white women is part romance novel, part Greek tragedy and part horror story. In slavery, interracial sex was plainly forbidden, even though such unions took place more often then revealed. Even after emancipation, erotic ties between black men and white women were still forged in secrecy. The assault on interracial sex in the name of white supremacy made such discretion necessary. Black men could be lynched just for looking at a white woman, or like Emmett Till, they could be savagely beaten and tossed into the river and left for dead. White women sometimes cried rape to escape the stigma or alienation that dogged those who slept with black men. And even when black men and white women were brave enough to defy social convention and expose their love, they still faced ugly comments, hateful stares and certain ostracism.
Politics and history are never far away in the interracial bed. Renee C. Romano, a white professor of African American studies who is married to a black man, examines the deeply embedded taboo of interracial marriage...