ABSTRACT
While, by necessity, African American children and teenagers are taught from an early age about the potentially lethal risks appertaining to their condition as Othered citizens when confronted with law enforcement authorities (this is known as “the Talk”) they are not necessarily warned so systematically about emotional or physical dangers of dating “out of their race.” The gendered framing of the messages and responses is evidently embedded in each group’s understanding of its own history of racial and sexual oppression, as is shown in each combination of race, gender and nationality. Consequently, interracial couples may suffer more than others of limits of White-virtuousness subframe of colorblindness, especially if they have internalized it as ideal and even as they are regularly celebrated as testimonies to its triumph. Within White-virtuousness subframe of “colorblindness,” they are routinely told both in the private and public spheres that “the sky is the limit” and that they can choose to be whoever they want to be.
