Interesting article ..
by Dina
Source
Too many South Asian men come to America to work or study with misconceptions about “white women.” They seem to think that “white women” have no morals, are only interested in men with money, don’t want to be married, and have no religious or family values.
Some South Asian men seem to think that because they are not at home, they can abide by a different set of rules. “White women” do not have to be taken seriously. We can be used for sex, comfort and maybe even love. But when it is time to go home, or when the relationship becomes too emotionally charged, you brutally end the relationship or quickly marry someone of the same nationality and religion. The “white woman” is left devastated.
I know, because I was one of them.
I dated a Pakistani Muslim for four years while I was an undergrad at an Ivy League school and he was as well. We loved each other very much, but he told me that he couldn’t marry me. His mother was expecting him to marry a Pakistani Muslim and if he didn’t, he would break her heart.
As an American Christian woman of an interracial background, I did not understand why. We were compatible on every level, except for my ethnic and religious background. To me, his arguments and his family’s expectations seemed racist. My parents had taught me to look beyond race and to love someone for his or her character, spirit and integrity.
After going back and forth about the relationship, we broke up. Within two months, he went back to Pakistan for a summer field project and got engaged to a Muslim woman from Pakistan. He wrote to me from Pakistan about the engagement and added, “Perhaps you’ll say to yourself that I am more in love with — than I was with you. It’s not true. I can’t lie to myself.”
I was devastated. Four years with this person whom I loved so much and whom I knew loved me—only to have him offer up his lifetime commitment to someone else whom he hardly knew, in such a short time. But then I realized that he did not have the character, spirit and integrity that my parents had told me to look for. If he had, he would have realized that I am a woman before I am white, with feelings, dreams and hopes of my own. I’m “white” because I was born that way. I didn’t choose my race as much as he didn’t choose his birth land, family or religion. He did not enjoy being discriminated against because of who he was and what he believed in. He should not have done the same to me.
If you too are a South Asian man considering coming to my country—or are already here, you need to realize that us “white women” are to be treated with the same respect that you give your mothers, daughters, sisters or wives. The difference in values and upbringing between the women of your country and the women of mine does not make one better than the other.
And if you are afraid of falling in love with a “white woman,” your religion does allow the marriage. Your culture and your family, however, may react differently. But that is something that you need to resolve for yourself. Don’t drag the “white woman” through your emotional turmoil.
So when you get off the plane, and see me on the street, at a party, in class, at work, and think I am alluring, do not approach me unless you are willing to find out my values, my interests, my personality, regardless of my race or religion. Do not approach me unless you are willing to stand up for me and marry me if we fall in love. Do not date me for the “experience” of being with a “white woman.” I am not an exhibit, carnival ride or trip to the city.
If you can’t do any of these things, then leave me alone, and go back home and get married. Do not hurt me by loving me then not having the courage to deal with the consequences of that love. Kindness, respect and compassion are virtues also taught by Islam.
