Colour-blind racism (1970- ), also known as aversive racism, is racism that acts as if skin colour does not matter – even when it does. It is the most common form of racism among white Americans who grew up after the fall of Jim Crow in the 1960s. It takes the place of Jim Crow racism, the meaner, more naked white racism common in the 1950s and before.
Political correctness and the idea of hate speech grew out of colour-blind racism. So did the welfare queen and model minority stereotypes. It helped to spread the word “African American”.
Colour-blind racists say things like this:
- It’s not race, it’s economics …
- It’s not race, it’s culture …
- It’s not race, it depends on a person’s background …
- I’m not prejudiced, but …
- I’m not black, but …
- One of my best friends is black.
- My cousin married a black man.
- I voted for Barack Obama.
- I don’t see you as black.
And believe things like this:
- I am not racist.
- Blacks are not willing to work hard.
- Blacks want everything handed to them.
- Blacks hold themselves back, not racism.
- Blacks are unfairly favoured, whites are not.
- Blacks do not want to live with us (or eat at our table).
- Blacks live in the past. They need to get over it and move on.
- Blacks need to pull themselves up from the bottom like everyone else.
- Blacks cry racism for everything even though they are the racist ones.
Notice how white people never seem to do anything bad.
While they would agree with most of those statements, they would have a hard time saying them straight out like that. Race makes them uncomfortable. Their statements would be more long-winded and watered down, throwing in phrases like those from the first list, even the one about the cousin.
They seem to think that if they do not say the words then racism will somehow go away by magic. As if racism is just a matter of words.
They rarely think of themselves as “white” and avoid saying the word “black” in public, even when they are thinking it. Their supposed colour-blindness is a front.
For example, I have heard white people talk about someone who I knew had to be black just by the way they bent over backwards to avoid saying the word “black”. Yet when they left the room and thought I could not hear, they said “black” just as plain as day, as if they were talking about their dress.
They avoid the word “race” too. Instead they use words like “culture”, “background”, “ethnicity”. That is why they like the word “African American” so much: it seems colour-blind.
They are not as mean or violent as Jim Crow racists, nor do they wear their racism well. Unlike Jim Crow racists, they are willing to vote for a black man for president. But they still look down on blacks and still believe the stereotypes, adding some of their own.
They are not as colour-blind as they think. The only colour they are truly blind to is white.
See also:
- How white people think
- Whites are still racist
- All whites are racist
- what this racism defends: white privilege
- what grew out of this sort of racism:
- How whites misunderstand blackness
- Jim Crow
- Lorene Cary: Black Ice
Sun 8 Jun 2008 at 01:57:10
This is so true! The hypocrisy of mainstream America is unbelievable. For example, when Eric Lasalle complain about the lack of Black love on TV and movies, mainstream Americans were hopping mad at him. They said that he was against IRs(which isn’t true at all). All he wanted is a balance portrayal of Black romance. He wasn’t asking for the end of IRs like many hypocritical color-blind Apple Pie Americans, the same ones who would treat an IR couple horribly in a nanosecond and would look down on such relationships. The hypocrisy is unbelievable.
Steph
Sun 8 Jun 2008 at 23:27:28
Good example. The hypocrisy is such a clear feature of this sort of racism – say one thing but do another – that some call it hypocritical racism.
Sun 6 Jul 2008 at 21:51:48
Listen! people who are angered when the truth is told regarding racism are people who would prefer that things stay the same or even get worse. I have many white associates, who have told me to wake up and realize that white people are very intelligent they know that if this is brought out Black people will try to change things and they don’t want that. White people do not want blacks to have self pride they do not want black women to be respected and 99% of white homes has someone in it that calls black people niggers, but if blacks become angry enough that they unite as a people things will change too much for whites. I had one White women tell me to just think about it “why doesn’t your race see that when other races such as asians, indians or other cultures speak about the pride they have and how they maintain their heritage by marrying within their race and keeping up their culture (statistically) this is something looked upon as honorable, but if black people talk about staying together and uplifting their race, white people convince other blacks that this is wrong you should love whomever you want too” white people do this so that black people will not collectively gain knowledge of what culture and heritage is all about. Black people please wake up these are white people telling me that their race has figured out how to have a modern day form of conquer and divide and they know how to make us go along with it and they still keep in goodstanding in the eyes of the world …. WAKE UP!!! find documentries on “Eyes on the Prize” and this will tell you what white people feel about People of African legacy living in America, and remember white people instill this way of thinking on each generation of their people, so yes all whites are racist.
Thu 17 Jul 2008 at 00:29:28
I agree with you Ms Kay. Your comment is “right on the money.” White people have always beliefed Blacks don’t think for themselves and that Blacks believe everything they hear from Whites. It’s called “The Miseducation of the Negro.” Everytime I hear or see how Black men treat and disrepect the Black women and honor the White women it brings tears to my eyes. Why can’t we (Blacks) see what is really going on in America? Shame on us (Blacks)!!!! I will never disrepect Black men or women in order to justify why I date outside of my race. I love my people and I do and will continue to respect all people who deserve to be respected.
Thu 17 Jul 2008 at 14:37:39
Kay Love,
You are so right.
Sat 19 Jul 2008 at 03:48:18
Kay Love: good point about the double standard. Whites stick together far more than blacks do and have far more pride in their whiteness (though they never call it that), but no one seems to see this as threatening or wrong.
Mon 21 Jul 2008 at 19:10:17
Abagond,
That’s what I’m talking about. The hypocrisy of the mainstream is disgusting!
Sun 10 Aug 2008 at 22:50:43
My question to nonblacks is:
Why do you all disparage Blacks for sticking together when you all do the same thing?
Why do you tell Blacks to date/marry outside of the culture while you tell your sons and daughters not to date/marry one and move out of schools/neighborhoods when Blacks make over 5% of the population?
I want to know why because y’all espousing the double standard when it comes to us Blacks.
That’s the essence of color-blind racism to me.
La Reyna
Fri 29 Aug 2008 at 04:42:13
Is there a reason why you reject the stereotypes of some but then proclaim stereotypes regarding whites? Or deride the hypocrisy of others while engendering the same? Shameful.
Wed 17 Sep 2008 at 00:44:53
The “Bring Me Home a Black Girl” debate between Ms. Walsh and Ms. Edwards at Salon.com.
Ms. Audrey Edwards:
Ms. Walsh:
I read with great interest your critique of my article “Bring Me Home a Black Girl,” in the November issue of Essence. To begin with, the article never stated, nor have I ever told my son not to “date” white girls. He has always had a number of white friends, male and female alike; he has escorted white girls to proms, and continues to have friendships with whites now that he is in college. I have also dated white men, but married a black man, and want my son to marry a black girl. This to me is normal, natural and what people of all races, tribes, ethnic groups and nationalities have done for eons. To say that “no mainstream magazine today would publish a comparable piece by a Caucasian mom exhorting her son to ‘Bring me home a white girl!’” is a bit disingenuous, don’t you think? White moms don’t have to give such messages to their kids. It’s implicit in everything they do — from the neighborhoods they live in, to the schools and churches they attend, to the social organizations they belong to. Whites still live, for the most part, in a segregated white world, so it’s natural that their children will marry other whites. But just watch what happens when they don’t! You yourself admitted that most of the hostility to your interracial dating came from other whites, not blacks.
And this gets us to what I think is the real problem in how others have reacted to my piece. First, I don’t tell my son to marry a black girl because I think there is something inherently inferior or negative about white girls. I don’t tell him to marry black because I think black is superior to white. Yet these are the very arguments whites have historically had against marrying black, which is what makes those arguments racist. Laws against miscegenation were based on the premise that blacks are less than human, so no self-respecting white should marry one. I don’t teach my kid such racist crap. I simply want him to affirm his racial identity, which to me includes marrying someone of his race. Since when does affirming who you are mean denying someone else’s humanity? Just because that’s how Europeans have historically interacted doesn’t mean that’s where I’m coming from. And, frankly, I resent whites imposing that particular mind-set on me.
As I said in my article, if we were all playing on an equal field, people could be free to love and marry any and everyone, and probably would. But we all know the field remains quite tilted. Young black women complain that too many black men are marrying white girls (I won’t even go into how many of them called and wrote to thank me for speaking so straight about an issue they discuss constantly); too many black men are blinded by the light of white just because it’s white; and too many whites think that an article talking about affirming blackness means rejecting them. It doesn’t. It ain’t even about you at all!
Finally, how convenient that Randall Kennedy has my piece as a launching point to push his tome on “interracial intimacies.” I must say, though, “intimacies” is another one of those disingenuous terms that denies the real sexual history of blacks and whites in America. There was never much that was “intimate” about the rape and sexual violence that was perpetuated against black women by white men in this country for over three centuries. It is the major reason more black women do not seek the company of white men. (How many Jewish women do you know who seek the company of former Nazis?) Even the portrait Salon used to illustrate your piece — Ma and Pa Kettle updated for social relevance? — conveyed a stereotypical sexual image to me. I can’t imagine that the black woman pictured would willingly have chosen to be with that old geezer. But, hey, what do I know? I suppose this is someone’s idea of what interracial intimacy should look like these days.
The struggle continues.
This is a reply by Ms. Joan Walsh:
Ms. Edwards:
Please call me Joan.
I’m sorry if I misread your piece to include a prohibition against dating whites, when it only applied to marrying them. But the clarification disturbs me more. Telling your stepson he can “date” somebody white — I can only assume that’s a euphemism for “intimacy,” to return to Kennedy’s words, which is of course a euphemism for “sex,” but maybe you have a way of monitoring his dates to make sure they don’t go there — but not marry her is degrading. I guess that’s OK if both people know about it, but there’s a smell of sexual exploitation that gives me the creeps. Speaking as the mother of a white girl, I’d say please tell your stepson to lay off the white girls entirely if he can’t marry them. Again, if I told my son he could “date” black girls but not marry them, I’d be called out as a bigot, and I’d deserve it.
Just a few observations: Your assumption that white moms don’t need to indoctrinate their kids to date white because they live in alabaster suburbs, go to ivory schools and worship in ecru churches makes me wonder where you live. San Francisco, Ms. Edwards, is less than half white, and the city’s public schools — my daughter is in seventh grade — are only 28 percent white. We don’t go to a church — her dad’s Jewish — but the Catholic parish in my neighborhood, which I go to on the anniversaries of my parents’ deaths, is mostly Filipino and Latino. The monochromatic world you assume I live in doesn’t exist anymore, at least not for me, and not for most Californians — or city dwellers in most urban areas. We have to seek out sameness if we want it. If we do, we’re loathsome racists. And if we don’t — and I don’t — well, sometimes we’re chumps. Boys can date our daughters, but not marry them?
(continue)
Wed 17 Sep 2008 at 00:49:37
(continued)
And while I accept your claim that your prohibition against marrying someone white isn’t meant to communicate anything “inferior or negative” about whites, I’ve also gotta say that the reminder of white rape during slavery times would seem to stigmatize a generation of men who are at least 140 years removed from that crime, and link them to something awful, if not “inferior.” And comparing black women who date whites to Jews dating Nazis seems a little “negative.” But I’m done second-guessing your motives.
I know all this angst mystifies you. Why would white people care about this, when white people have so much? Well, I can only speak for myself, and my problem is, I took the message of the civil rights movement literally. I truly don’t believe, in a pluralistic society, that we can have rules that apply to one racial group and not others. I know that race and racism in America are complicated, and simple answers won’t always get us where we want to go. But the simple civil rights message – equality and justice, Dr. King’s beloved community — took us miles. The crabbed, angry, separatist message of the post-civil rights movement has set us back. If it’s wrong to allow one group to generalize and stereotype on the basis of race and to preach exclusion — as it was wrong for whites in the bad old days, and it remains wrong for whites today — it’s got to be wrong for all groups.
But I thank you for writing. Indeed, the struggle continues.
– Joan Walsh
_____________________________
More answers from Audrey Edwards, answering Ms. Walsh’s naivety and blindness to racism in IRs:
Ms. Edwards:
Hey Joan,
My letter to you was more of a rant than the kind of edited piece I would have submitted for publication. I spent some time in Los Angeles with my friend Bebe Moore Campbell, the novelist, and she said exactly what you did: “Audrey, telling your son it’s OK to date white girls, but not marry them, is worse than saying don’t date them.” I truly didn’t think about it like that, but now upon reflection, I understand how such a statement could sound.
As for whites living mostly white lives, I stand by that position. Most whites don’t live in major metropolitan areas such as San Francisco or New York. They inhabit that vast area in between, and even those in the cities still interact mainly with their own. I know that’s the case here in New York where most whites have never been to Harlem and most blacks have never been to the predominantly Italian area of Bensonhurst or the predominantly Russian area of Brighton in Brooklyn. I debated Randall Kennedy on NPR when my piece came out, and even he agreed that the expectations whites have of their children marrying other whites is an implied one based on where they live and with whom they have the most interactions. And while I can’t speak for San Francisco’s public schools, the public schools here are predominantly black and Hispanic. There are only two white children in the predominately white, middle-class building I live in Brooklyn who go to public school — the rest are in private, predominantly white schools.
But again, I stress that my position on black men marrying black women is strictly based on the dwindling numbers of “suitable” black men now available to black women and how black men choosing white women affects black women’s self-esteem. We still live in a society that exalts the white woman as the female to be desired. If we saw as many advertisements projecting the beauty of black, Asian and Hispanic women as we do white women, then this discussion would be moot, since men would be “programmed” to see that women of all races possess beauty. I can’t do anything about how other men and boys are programmed, but I can and will have a say in what my stepson learns to perceive as beautiful and desirable.
A final point, which I made on NPR: In the last episode of the season of “Sex and the City,” the character Charlotte had fallen in love with her Jewish lawyer. And he loved her back. However, he told her point-blank: “Charlotte, I have to marry a Jew.” She looked confused, so he repeated it. “Charlotte, I have to marry a Jew.” End of discussion. As far as I know, there was no outcry or charges of racism sent to HBO over this comment. Charlotte, the nice little WASP girl, was OK to sleep with, but not marry. It’s evidently OK for Jews to expect their sons to marry Jewish girls, but not OK for a black mother to expect her son to marry a black girl. Sounds suspiciously like one of those double standards to me.
You’re right. This debate could go on forever, but I’ve got to put a pin in it here, because I have two magazine pieces to get to. But I do thank you for taking the time to listen.
– Audrey
Ms. Walsh’s reply:
Audrey,
And I appreciate your grappling with my point of view. Since I think “Sex and the City” depicts the mating behavior of scary, self-destructive neurotics, I didn’t see that episode as an endorsement of Jews doing what Charlotte’s hairy-backed beau did — but I agree, Jews tend to get a pass on this. I’m an incorrigible mixer, so I don’t think anybody should be preaching against intermarriage — especially if they’re dating outside their race or religion. But I respect your right to think about this and raise your children differently — and I appreciate your openness to my critique. The struggle continues, but let’s put this one behind us.
– Joan
___________________________________
For further reading, please read Salon’s article:
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/02/05/mixed/index.html
What say you?
Stephanie B.
Thu 18 Sep 2008 at 11:40:06
Wow. Thanks.
I agree that telling your son that it is fine to date white women but not to marry them is wrong. It is called using women.
On the other hand, I think wanting your son to marry within in your race is pretty natural, especially if you live in a country where your race is outnumbered. It is hard for me to call that racist, even though strictly speaking maybe it is.
In terms of white people, I see nothing wrong with them marrying each other in so far as they have more in common and feel more comfortable with each other. That is natural.
Where it becomes racist is where they do not want to marry black because they think being black is something shameful or terrible, like missing an arm, something they do not want their children to be.
Thu 25 Sep 2008 at 22:40:42
Interesting article. Most articles you write are interesting but I think you simplify a lot of issues. Still, I commend you for talking about such sensitive issues.
I think most of what you say here is true, but I don’t think it applies to everyone. I think you’ve mentioned this before, but the older generation has much more “color blind racism” than generation Y. I’m white, and I see my mother and people around me use “African-American” pretty often and I just want to laugh inside. But I’m starting to hear this less and less among the younger crowd.
I don’t think it’s only because younger people are less racist than older people. I think it’s because white people in general are born with the inherant guilt of their past mistakes. Even before white people are taught about their history, slavery, colonialism, and imperialism, they are born with an inherant sense of white guilt. It’s a collective feeling and it’s very difficult to escape. But I think the more time goes back, the less white people feel any connection to “those white people who organize the slave trade” and therefore don’t feel the white guilt as strongly. This is why you see more and more white people say “black” instead of “African-American.”
I think that people who use terms like that are more racist than those who just say “black.” I think it’s because they learned to pair the idea of “blackness” with negative stereotypes. So in their minds it’s “bad” to be “black.” But hey, that person’s not black, he’s “African-American.” It suddenly allows them to close their eyes on the skin color and all of the priviledges that come with their own skin color. Notice most white people don’t call themselves white but “Caucasian.” It’s another form of color-blindness.
People tell me I’m very politically incorrect. I often make generalizations about all kinds of races and cultures, yet none of it is done from a place of hostility. Other people may not know this, but I do, because I know my heart. I may be a person who upholds certain stereotypes (”asians play chess well” “black people talk louder than white people” “white people are usually blind to their own racism”) but I’m not afraid to talk about it because I’m not scared to face the issue. White people hate it when Black people “take out the race card” but it’s only because they don’t want to admit to their own priviledge.
So hell on those who call me racist, because the truth is, it’s those politically correct white folk that are. The truth is, they don’t know squat about Black history, modern Black issues, African geography and politics, and I can go on. They don’t want to know, because as soon as they are forced to think about it, it conjures negative and uncomfortable emotions. They don’t want to admit racism is still a problem in the USA and they don’t want to let go of their white priviledge. It makes me sick to the stomach when I hear white people say, “black people should date ouside of their race.” Why, so they could lose their identity, lose their culture? You want them to assimilate in your stupid white american culture so well that you no longer have to deal with interracial issues?
Maybe it’s because I’m Jewish that I feel slightly differnet about this issue than most white people do. My people and Black people have gone through hell since the beginning of time. I know that a shitload of people are still anti-semitic and yet they’d never say it to my face. I can crack a stereotypical jewish joke and they’d be too afraid to laugh along, for fear of offending me. Yet when I turn my back they can say something about Jewish people being money obsessed or what-not. That’s North America for you. “Tolerant.” Bull.
Anyway, thanks for the awesome site. Keep it up.
Fri 26 Sep 2008 at 16:10:34
Thanks. I do hope Generation Y is less racist, or at least more open and less blind about it. That alone would be a start.
Tue 6 Jan 2009 at 09:27:50
I just discovered abagond’s blogs w/ commentary, and have spent several hours of good reading. Thanks, everyone.
One response to Roxy’s comments on the term “African-American”. The comments were ahistorical and therefore unnecessarily caustic. In the late 1980s it was an African-American academic who suggested the shift from “black” to “African-American”.
The idea was that “black” was inherently potentially a source of racism, since it suggests an entire category of people is “essentially” qualitatively different from “whites”, and therefore in some ways permanently alien. Roxy might be familiar with tht — plenty of times I’ve had to sit while listening to Jewish Americans go on at length about the “Schwartzers” (Yiddish for “Black”). And it was not with any gentle or generous intent that people were referred to as “blacks”.
In contrast, at least as it was introduced and adopted, “African-American” emphasized the historical trajectory of a group. Both that there was a distinctive, non-North American ancestry, AND that “African-Americans” are as American as anybody else. It makes a claim to be included as a citizen of the nation.
White racism continues to operate because claims to whiteness still generate real privilege when compared to people who are categorized as “black”.
Whites assume they have the right to have access to whatever goods and services they want before any blacks should have access to them.
Making this assumption is part of what it means to “be” white. For immigrants, part of becoming an “American” is to become “white,” and a key part of that is to accept and enact this sort of racism.
The vast majority of white people harbor these sentiments, even though they are most often unconscioues. The attitudes only come to consciousness when a challenge to them arouses fury.
While the expression of this arrogation of hierarchy has softened in the years since WWII, the underlying assumption of preference is still strong.
For that reason I use the metaphor of a virus. Every white person in America has been exposed to the virus. Only very few fail to become infected. Some carry it only in a latent form, where it is not expressed except in moments of weakness or stress. Some are aware they are sick, and actively seek treatments to prevent an outbreak. Some show a few light symptoms all the time, and and are uncomfortable with them, but try to ignore them. Others have a bad case of it, but are so used to it they don’t even recognize the symptoms of the disease. Finally, a few are so sick they are very contagious and an immediate danger to others.
This viral racism is transmitted as easily through use of the word “black” as through “the n word”. The goal of “African-American” was to break that up. It may or may not have been as successful as was intended, but that was the goal. To blithely establish a hierarchy of “who’s more racist than whom” on the basis of a single phrase is uninformed and misguided.
Wed 7 Jan 2009 at 02:56:20
That is an interesting idea – viral racism.
Wed 14 Jan 2009 at 20:35:31
you sir are an idiot. good to see you know exactly what white folk think. not saying were all perfect and yea there are racists but u just come across as judging the majority of white people to be the same.
Thu 15 Jan 2009 at 00:02:58
I am no mind reader, true, but I have lived in America long enough to know that most white people there (though not all) are a certain way about race.
Some of my posts on racism are based more on my personal experience, but this one, as it turns out, is backed up by research. See the work of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.
Tue 31 Mar 2009 at 16:38:15
I was watching yesterday a Stevie Wonder Video and I thought to myself…. how could a blind person see racism…. how could one explain it to him? It is all just superficial things. Maybe we need to be blind on somethings to see what’s underlaying and importing….
Sun 3 May 2009 at 20:23:39
??? — “All white Americans are racist. The truth is you cannot grow up in America without becoming racist – no matter what colour your skin is. Blacks are racist too.”
get over your self’s ya its harder to get a job and some people are aspholes but the USA is more fair today then it has ever been if you get off your asp and try you would know this but no you’d rather prove this right
* Blacks are not willing to work hard.
* Blacks want everything handed to them.
* Blacks hold themselves back, not racism.
* Blacks live in the past. They need to get over it and move on.
* Blacks need to pull themselves up from the bottom like everyone else.
* Blacks cry racism for everything even though they are the racist ones.
life is not fair for anyone get over it!
make it better- complaining about it dos not help any one !
although a lot of white people are pricks (race should not matter -i have met a even number of black pricks-) what would you have them do hand you stuff? treat you like kings ? hand the world to you ?–get real
the USA is trying to get away from racism -one way people do it is pretend it dos not exist – and try to treat all people fairly -then you hear “im black and my family if you go back far anof was beaten by your family – you should hand me stuff”
by this logic everyone is racist – whites for not giving a @@@ – and us blacks for expecting them to!
Mon 4 May 2009 at 06:09:06
Huge progress has been made and trying not to see race is good, but with many whites it becomes a blindness to what racism they still have. It gets in the way of further progress.
Mon 25 May 2009 at 23:10:13
I am against the racist. I think everyone should be treated the same. We are all God’s children and if you read the Bible it says nothing about race. Why can’t everyone else be like that?
What happened in the past is in the past. Don’t ruin today by worrying about yesterday’s problems and yea I know that somethings need to be recovered and need to be controled. Honestly there is nothing that we can do and the whole world is not going to listen to just one person.
I’m in a situation with my family right now because of racist. I’m A Romanian girl who will be 19 that was adoped by a Family of Italians. I’m dating a black guy who will be 20 and my family is against it 100% and I truly don’t like it.
I was adopted when I was 7 months old so this family is basically my real family because they’re all I know just not by blood because they have been there for me no matter what and treated me like there own. My parents are so racist and ol’ school it’s not even funny! I don’t know what to do.
I love my boyfriend and we’ve been together for 9 months and been through alot in such little time. My boyfriend treats me right and doesn’t go asking me for sex and is not with me for only one thing. My boyfriend and I are always together or we’re on the phone together. I’ve known him in high school and I know his ex-girlfriend and I’m second girl he has been with in his life.
Because he is black doesn’t mean he is bad in every way shape or form or goes and sleeps around or does illegal things. My parents didn’t care so much when we we’re friends then when our feelings got stronger and he asked me out. Now my parents hate him and trys to find every little thing and fill my head up with lies.
I’m in school and I’m looking for a part-time job. My boyfriend is a Navy man that is in the reserve. He’s in school and is workin part-time. Both of us has a good head on our shoulders and wants what is best for ourselves. We’re going into medicial school and becoming doctors in the near futur.
I need to make my own choices but my parents are making them for me and I hate it! All I’m worryin about is my education and my future and my parents say that my boyfriend is going to bring me down.
Has anyone been through anything like this or similar to this? Does anyone have any suggestions what to do or something? All I do is sit down and talk to my parents but it ends up in an argument.
Tue 26 May 2009 at 05:36:34
If you live under your parents’ roof then they will probably continue to give you hell about it. I cannot see them changing their minds about such things at their age.
I do not know how it is in Italy, but in America at 18 you start living your own life and make your own mistakes. Your parents can offer advice but they cannot make you do anything, especially if you live on your own.
The sad thing is your parents love you and have the wisdom of their years and yet all that is clouded by their racism. You have to somehow separate what is racist from what is not. Your parents may hate him because he is black but he could still be completely wrong for you.
Your life is yours not theirs. In the end you have to follow your own road, with or without their help.