I posed the question to a group of my girlfriends one evening not long ago, as we sat on the rooftop of Latitude Bar and Grill, among a mixed crowd of 20-something professionals, sipping margaritas and enjoying the last days of a New York summer. The collective response was a nonchalant who cares, with all agreeing that the topic has been overly probed in the media. “Maybe it’s because we live here,” one friend said, “but it’s not a big deal.”



We are a group of women of color who have all participated in interracial dating. It is inevitable, especially being single and living in New York City. All in our mid-20s, we live a reality that is a melting pot of mixing and mingling, people open to making connections with anyone who can hold down a good conversation. This can lead to multiple dates and that can lead to marriage. According to the Pew Research Center, interracial marriage rates are at an all-time high in the United States, with the percentage of couples exchanging vows across the color line more than doubling over the last 30 years.



But for my 52-year-old mother, an interracial relationship was not something she was open to when she was dating and in her 20s. Raised on Chicago’s South Side, in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, my mom was 9 when riots broke out after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a senior in high school when “Roots” was shown on television; and as a young adult had to deal with Chicago’s housing and school segregation policies throughout the 1980s.



As far as she was concerned, only a black man could appreciate her foxy Afro and Southern-homebred cooking. Only a black man would be accepted by my Southern grandmother, who paradoxically married my grandfather — a biracial man from the Virgin Islands — but would always say that she hoped her own children would never marry outside their race. “I don’t have anything against anyone, I just prefer my kids to marry black,” she would say to my mom. All five children stayed within the color lines.



For much of her adult life, my mom says she has shared the same sentiments on dating as my grandmother when it came to me, her only child. That is, until the time came when she had to accept that I was open to crossing racial boundaries.



The first time I dated a guy who was not black, I was in my second year at DePaul University in Chicago. Tall, blue eyes, short buzz-cut — Mike was the favorite eye-candy for all the girls on campus, especially among the small percentage of black girls who attended the private Roman Catholic institution. He had the “swag factor”— confidence, charisma, a stylish appearance — that I and most of my girlfriends are attracted to. And Mike was attracted to us as well. The majority of his previous girlfriends had been black or Hispanic. But, most important, Mike was an all-around, down-to-earth person: easy to talk to, would speak to anyone who passed by (even if he didn’t know them) and was always offering to help someone in need. Naturally, we hit it off instantly.



My mom and I had rarely talked in depth about guys I dated. (At that point, I had never liked anyone enough to mention to her.) But Mike and I began hanging out a lot. And when she would call to check in with me at school, she would always ask, “What are you up to?” My frequent response: “Hanging with Mike.” I don’t recall when or how I mentioned he was white, but when my mom found out, word quickly spread throughout the family.



I imagine the initial call was to my Auntie, and probably went something like this:



Mom, in her sassy girl-let-me-tell-you tone: “You know your niece is dating a white guy, right?”



My Auntie would respond: “Ha! Oh, really?”



They would both say, in unison, “Hmmm.”



That “hmmm” meant a lot without having to say much at all.



I didn’t know what to expect when I brought Mike home for the first time to meet my mom. It wasn’t a planned event, just a quick hi and bye; he was bringing me back from school for the weekend. (He didn’t even step all the way into the house.) My mom wasn’t rude to him, but she definitely kept the conversation short. Mike wasn’t bothered, however. He was used to being in these types of situations, which helped to ease my mind when I finally met his parents, who were more comfortable with their kids’ race relations than my mom was. (At the time, Mike’s sister was dating an Indian man. She’s now married to a Mexican-American.)



As time passed, the conversations between my mom and Mike grew longer, and eventually he was sitting at the kitchen table talking to her about her days at work. He and I would date for three years, until, eventually, our lives took us in different directions: he became a community organizer for low-income residents in Chicago; I moved to New York for graduate school to pursue journalism. We remain good friends. And my mom still asks how he’s doing.



It wasn’t until years later that I would finally ask my mom how she felt about my dating Mike and my generation’s openness to interracial dating.



“At first, I didn’t like you dating a white guy at all,” she recently told me. “But once I got to know him and his family, and you started telling me more about his background, it wasn’t a problem.”



We talked for a while about the phases of acceptance that she and her baby boomer peers have had to go through. Because of their children’s openness to interracial relationships, they’ve not only had to come to terms with us dating outside our race, but also the likely possibility that we may not marry someone of the same color. “I’ve gotten to the point where I can fully expect both possibilities, but there’s still a slight preference for you to marry a black man,” she said.



For African-Americans, the shift also comes with a sense of disappointment toward what I and my friends view as the troubling state of black men in this country. A Stanford law professor, Ralph Richard Banks, even suggested in his popular book “Is Marriage for White People?” that we expand our dating options because too many black men are incarcerated, gay or just not interested in dating us.



More than anything, my mom just wants me to find someone who makes me happy, as do most parents. I am the oldest grandchild and was the first to expose my family to interracial dating. Over the years, as my cousins have started to do the same, there is no longer the awkwardness that I had experienced, though my mom does remind us that if my grandmother were still alive, she would not be as tolerant. It is understandable. After all, my parents and grandparents grew up in a time when racism was more pronounced. I would never discredit that. Their experiences and efforts have made it easier for my generation to live a lifestyle that allows us to date whomever we want without worrying — or even noticing — if anyone cares.



This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:


Correction: October 9, 2012



An earlier version of this essay gave an incorrect middle initial for the author. It is N not H.