Is Austin a good place for interracial couples? (Howe, Vega: credit, homes)

[imbpanama]

Ditto on what everyone has said. my husband is caucasian and i am a spanish-speaking black. my daughter is biracial. we have not had problems. people hardly stare. i've noticed a big difference between now and 1990.

[scongress1234]

I don't think its an issue in many places period anymore.......even in the south, from Atlanta on, no one bats an eye.....times have changed....though I think some couples actually want that attention, and look for it........and seem saddened when they are seen as just another couple.

[borikwa69]

Watson, I just wrote something on WHY a move to Austin is good. I had the same question that you are asking about 3 weeks ago. Although I can pass for African American I am from Puerto Rico while my fiance is the typical "brown" latina. We had our research trip to Austin last week and to be honest there was not one bat of the lash from anyone regardless of the idiotic comment from scongress on how he THINKS some couples desire that negative attention.

From every restaurant to apartment complex to the movies or anything did anyone take a 2nd look in a disrespectful way at us. Let alone the SEVERAL multi racial black/white couples that we saw. I truly do not think you will have any problems in Austin. Hell, we plan on moving by years end regardless of previously wanting to move by summer 09. Thats how impressive Austin was to us.

[theaustinegalitarian]

I've had no trouble socializing interracially in Austin. I did run into Jim Crow stuff in a small town not far from here, and I think you might have to be careful about being out on rural roads. I feel much more secure with tinted windows if riding interracially. Profiling on the highway is a big problem with Austin and other police departments, especially in the "white" towns. Whites who are with Blacks are often assumed to be in a drug-related situation.

[MJinAustin]

Originally Posted by theaustinegalitarian

Unaccompanied females are often assumed to be prostitutes, no matter how conservatively dressed.

WTF are you talking about. You're kidding, right?

[theaustinegalitarian]

MJinAustin:

WTF are you talking about. You're kidding, right?

I've had to straighten cops out on this when walking to work early in the morning. I also had a painful experience with some Lutherans I will never forget.

I was in a training program for a visitation ministry, and one day when I went to class I arrived to find a few of the other students, all older adults like myself, huddled with the pastor who was doing the training. They fell silent anda couple of them gave me a funny look as I arrived, and the pastor then said to the one closest to her, "Well, here she is, why don't you just ask her?"

Talk about weird, and awkward! It was very clear "something" was up. Finally the old &^%$#@ got her courage up, cleared her throat, and said she had seen me "walking the street"!

I said "Do you drive down such & such street around 9?" She said "yes". I said "Well, I happen to live around the corner from there, and just about 9 is when I put on my coffee pot and walk down to the donut shop and then return to work with a fresh donut and have my coffee break. And yes, I do work at home."

MJinAustin, you must've seen the post just before I editted it out because it is off-topic and I know that it is not acceptable to point out that women are often not treated with respect, even by other women (or especially by other women), but that is the way it is. This was not an isolated incident, just one of the most graphic.

And my explanation should have caused laughter and acceptance, but it did not. In Texas decent women drive cars that are maintained by their menfolk, and any woman walking is assumed to be advertising herself.

Austin is different because it is a city, but a woman will still run into it if walking in some neigborhoods, especially the "yuppie" ones where you are only supposed to be walking if you are wearing athletic clothes and doing that aerobic thing with your arms. Walking as a form of transportation by choice is not acceptable to the yuppie world.

[MJinAustin]

Originally Posted by theaustinegalitarian

MJinAustin:
I've had to straighten cops out on this when walking to work early in the morning. I also had a painful experience with some Lutherans I will never forget.

I was in a training program for a visitation ministry, and one day when I went to class I arrived to find a few of the other students, all older adults like myself, huddled with the pastor who was doing the training. They fell silent anda couple of them gave me a funny look as I arrived, and the pastor then said to the one closest to her, "Well, here she is, why don't you just ask her?"

Talk about weird, and awkward! It was very clear "something" was up. Finally the old &^%$#@ got her courage up, cleared her throat, and said she had seen me "walking the street"!

I said "Do you drive down such & such street around 9?" She said "yes". I said "Well, I happen to live around the corner from there, and just about 9 is when I put on my coffee pot and walk down to the donut shop and then return to work with a fresh donut and have my coffee break. And yes, I do work at home."

MJinAustin, you must've seen the post just before I editted it out because it is off-topic and I know that it is not acceptable to point out that women are often not treated with respect, even by other women (or especially by other women), but that is the way it is. This was not an isolated incident, just one of the most graphic.

And my explanation should have caused laughter and acceptance, but it did not. In Texas decent women drive cars that are maintained by their menfolk, and any woman walking is assumed to be advertising herself.

Austin is different because it is a city, but a woman will still run into it if walking in some neigborhoods, especially the "yuppie" ones where you are only supposed to be walking if you are wearing athletic clothes and doing that aerobic thing with your arms. Walking as a form of transportation by choice is not acceptable to the yuppie world.

I've lived in Texas more than half my life and I would expect this sort of thing in a crazy movie set in the 1950's in the South. I don't even know what to say. Walking...as in walking down a street? NOT dressed like a hussy...looking like you're going somewhere? And for that you're a street walker? What town was this exactly? This is so bizarre I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. I'm still in WTF mode.

[love roses]

I'm wondering that too? I walk alot in normal street clothes because everywhere I go doesn't always require driving. I've never heard this from anyone anywhere at any time unless someone is out dressed like a hussy. Just because one crazy lady somewhere who has entirely too much time on her hands didn't have anything better to do than accuse you of being a streetwalker has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what the rest of the average joe out here really is thinking

[theaustinegalitarian]

I don't want to argue about this. That is why i deleted the reference in the first place. It is an emotional issue and the replies of "incredulity" are coming from an emotional direction, and I felt this would happen as soon as I commented on it because I am describing an experience that runs counter to the official propaganda about life as an American woman in the 21st century.

For one thing, anyone who reads the single anecdote I gave can see that I did not describe "one" solitary "crazy lady". I described a group of people who were not too "crazy" to be accepted as a class for training as visitation volunteers in a mainstream, in fact liberal, church. I described that the whole group was concerned, not just the one lady. I also said that I expected my simple correction of the misunderstanding to result in laughter and relaxation, but it did not.

I also said this was not the only incident, but it was only the most graphic.

Repeated postings of disbelief are already leading to insistence that I identify in which town this happened. I won't engage in that kind of discussion. I don't particularly care whether anyone believes this or not. I know it is true and accurate and I also know one person cannot "prove" personal experience to another. I did, after all, remove the original comment because it was off-topic, anyway. MJinAustin must have been reading just about simultaneously with my posting to have seen it at all.

[MJinAustin]

Originally Posted by theaustinegalitarian

I don't want to argue about this. That is why i deleted the reference in the first place. It is an emotional issue and the replies of "incredulity" are coming from an emotional direction, and I felt this would happen as soon as I commented on it because I am describing an experience that runs counter to the official propaganda about life as an American woman in the 21st century.

For one thing, anyone who reads the single anecdote I gave can see that I did not describe "one" solitary "crazy lady". I described a group of people who were not too "crazy" to be accepted as a class for training as visitation volunteers in a mainstream, in fact liberal, church. I described that the whole group was concerned, not just the one lady. I also said that I expected my simple correction of the misunderstanding to result in laughter and relaxation, but it did not.

I also said this was not the only incident, but it was only the most graphic.

Repeated postings of disbelief are already leading to insistence that I identify in which town this happened. I won't engage in that kind of discussion. I don't particularly care whether anyone believes this or not. I know it is true and accurate and I also know one person cannot "prove" personal experience to another. I did, after all, remove the original comment because it was off-topic, anyway. MJinAustin must have been reading just about simultaneously with my posting to have seen it at all.

Hey...I DO believe you that this happened to you. I'm not trying to discount your experience. I just don't think it's the norm. I mean...I personally haven't experienced it and neither have my friends, so that's where my opinion is coming from. If I were there with you and that group, I would have said something to them about how ridiculous their reaction was.

Now...if someone were dressed like a hussy with various provocative body parts hanging out and wearing stillettos and pacing a city block...then I'd wonder... But if a person was wearing jeans/tshirt or sweats and walking with purpose down the street, I would not think that a person was a -figurative- street-walker.