Equality, Marriage, Love and Loving

Wednesday 12th June was #LovingDay – when we remember the incredible contribution of Richard and Mildred Loving and the anniversary of the 1967 Loving v W Virginia US Supreme Court case brought by the ACLU which struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the remaining 13 US states in which they were still lawful.

Anti-miscegenation laws are laws that ban marriages between people of different races.

The personal, and the political

Four years ago, in June 2020, I was working from home, at my kitchen table, whilst “home schooling” my two daughters through the first Covid lockdown. In a rare attempt to deliver some form of education to my 11-year-old, I spoke to her about the unimaginable bravery of Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to integrate into an all-white school.

I then went on to tell her that segregationist laws had had an impact on our family, too. For example, anti-miscegenation laws were only outlawed a couple of years before her grandma and grandpa were married – and whilst now, most of the relationships and marriages in our family are interracial, this would have prohibited – potentially a criminal offence – without the Loving case.

Even when her (white) father and I married in the State of Virginia in 1999, we were still legally required to declare our race on the marriage certificate. This requirement was only banned by a court, following a successful legal challenge brought by three couples in 2019.

“But,” my daughter said, “I don’t understand. How do those laws affect us? We’re white.”

Now, my daughter is my biological daughter, which is to say – although her father is white, she looks (at least in a Western cultural context) like me: Asian (or East Asian, depending on where you are reading this).

“But sweetie,” I replied, “That’s nice that you feel white, but that is not how other people see you.”

This was an interesting moment, as a parent.

Does it matter if she doesn’t notice? Should we prepare our children for the world as we know it, or the future world that they will build with others?

Law and the categorisation of people ⚖️

There is something about law (again, at least in the Western tradition) that proceeds from the categorisation of people. Our diverse and layered identities are carefully peeled back for inspection and regulation.

For example, I will identify myself as: female, between 40-59, neurotypical, Scottish Chinese. If I have to, I will use other categories too: employed, divorced, migrant, homeowner.

Our legal personas are a pale reflection of our true selves. If I ever get to design my own Govt ID card, I would want it to look like this:

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Thinking critically: whose data, and why? 📝

Many people feel quite alienated from the legal categories used to describe them, and suspicious of giving information about themselves when asked.

That is for good and sensible reasons – for example, my reluctance to give my race on my marriage certificate was (rightly) linked to the ambivalence that I felt about complying with a system of statistical control that had been invented by a white supremacist.

But I am not wholly against legal categorisation. The problem is not the collection of data itself – the key questions are: whose data are you collecting, and why – for what purpose?

In many cases, I think governments should be doing more to collect data about our intersecting identities, for example, in order to better understand the impact of their policies and to fund services that specifically target groups of people who are furthest from justice, and equality.

For example, the National Advisory Council for Women and Girls in Scotland have repeatedly called for more intersectional data to be collected on women and girls’ lives to understand the everyday impact of Scottish Government policies for women and girls.

When important parts of our identity are not accounted for, they are not seen – and gaps in being seen for people with marginalised identities also mean gaps in access to services and support.

That’s why we should keep thinking critically about whose data we collect, and why. And we should welcome positive steps like the decision in the 2022 Scottish Census to include optional questions on sexual orientation and trans status for the first time.

Love is love 🌈

Anti-miscegenation laws are not the only example of efforts to control and prohibit relationships between people, solely on the basis that they do not conform to a desired mainstream norm.

And equality has come late for some people – the right for same-sex couples to marry in the United States was not secured until only a decade ago, in the US Supreme Court case of Obergefell v Hodges in 2015. There are good reasons to fear this right could be overturned in the next decade.

Solidarity means making space to ensure our diverse identities are recognised (and celebrated), whilst resisting the control of people through categorisation, where such control is unnecessary or actively harmful.

In short, we should have a say in whose data, and for what purposes.

The last word: Mildred Loving

In June 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving, Mildred Loving issued the following statement:

“My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry….

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.” ❤️

First published on LinkedIn on 14 June 2024:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/equality-marriage-love-loving-jen-ang-z90ge/