What’s Up? with Merlene

It has been a while since I last heard anyone use the future welfare of the progeny of mixed-race couples as an excuse to prohibit or block those couples’ marriages.
In fact, I thought having parents from different cultures or races had been proven to be no more an indicator of a child’s success or failure than if those parents were Democrats or Republicans.
But apparently, Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, La., knows something I don’t know.
Bardwell refused to marry Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay because she is white and he is black. And Bardwell hasn’t changed his mind despite an avalanche of protests or having a federal discrimination lawsuit filed against him.
Bardwell told a reporter for the Daily Star in Hammond, La., that “99 percent of the time,” the interracial couple consists of a black man and white woman. “I find that rather confusing,” he said.
After discussions with black and white people, he concluded that biracial children are not accepted by blacks or whites and that the marriages fail, leaving the rearing of the biracial children to grandparents.
“I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” he told the newspaper.
Bardwell, 56, said that if he married one interracial couple, he’d have to do it for all. “I try to treat everyone equally,” he said.
Good grief.
Bardwell and I are close in age. We came from the same era, a time in which blatant racism was backed by the force of law.
But I watched those laws fall and fade, one by one, until it became widely understood that public entities could not discriminate, and it became illegal for them to try to.
According to the newspaper, Bardwell said he was told by the state attorney general years ago that he would get in trouble if he didn’t perform the marriage ceremony for interracial couples.
“I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell said. “I have rights, too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”
He must have felt the same way about having the child of an interracial couple representing Democrats in the last presidential election. Bardwell had been a Democrat until last year, when he switched to the Republican Party, the newspaper said.
For the sake of argument, let’s look at some of the children of interracial couples whose names are recognizable, and who, according to Bardwell’s research, must have suffered dearly.
Professional baseball has David Justice and Derek Jeter; professional basketball has Jason Kidd and Joakim Noah; professional football has Hines Ward; and golf has Tiger Woods.
Some famous names in history who were born to interracial couples include William Wells Brown, for whom an elementary school in Lexington is named; W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington. The music arena has been blessed with Jimi Hendrix, Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys; on TV there’s Ann Curry and Geraldo Rivera.
If those people had a hard time growing up, it didn’t stop them.
Humphrey and McKay found another justice of the peace to marry them.
Fortunately, most of the folks in Hammond have distanced themselves from Bardwell and his beliefs. They know, as do we, that the battle to marry any member of the opposite sex has been fought and won. More pressing issues deserve our attention now.
Finding love can be very difficult and definitely should not be limited to men or women of one’s own race.
Bardwell needs to understand that regardless of race, when love is in the home, the children will prosper.