The debate about interracial dating began more than one hundred years ago, although most such dating took place unseen. In fact, the earliest interracial girl-boy relationships were so controversial that the two partners in the mixed-race couple usually held their meetings quietly and in secret. The first important effort to change this secretive aspect of interracial dating took place in the year 1912.
During that year the United States welcomed a visitor from Persia, a man who was a prophet and a philosopher. That turbaned gentleman, who had taken the name Abdu'l-Baha, encouraged everyone to strive towards unity. He longed to see the races of the world unite. He therefore agreed to preside over one of America's first interracial weddings. The introduction of interracial marriage launched the slow growth of interracial dating.
Now interracial dating really differs little from any other type of dating. All dating is an opportunity for two people to share their time with one another. Interracial dating, however, caught peoples' attention, and its appearance forced society to study the dating couple's unusual behavior.
In some regions of the world, society feared the possibility of an interracial marriage, and so certain authorities acted to put a halt to the practice. In the middle of the 20th Century some people remained staunchly opposed to any marriage between two different races. These same people justified their intolerance for interracial dating by pointing to the feared consequences from either a spontaneous or a planned interracial meeting: The dating interracial couple could become man and wife.
Slowly, very slowly, that intolerance began to fade away. As the people of the United States prepared to celebrate the 200th birthday of that country, an interracial couple received tolerance, if not complete acceptance, in most public places. The world seemed ready to agree to the logic of interracial dating.
After all, the characteristics of a good relationship do not include a sameness of skin color. Those characteristics are: trust, togetherness, expressiveness, staying power, security, laughter, support, physical affection, personal growth and respect. The development of no one of those characteristics can be aided by inheritance of the "proper" skin color.
If both members of an interracial relationship trust and respect each other, if they can make each other laugh and help each other grow, and if each is willing to commit to staying with the relationship, then those two people have good reason to pursue interracial dating. If two people truly love one another, then they will care little about the degree to which they share (or differ) in the pigmentation in their skin.
Perhaps some day interracial dating will represent the norm, and the dating of similar races will run counter to the prevailing course of events. Perhaps in the not too distant future adults will share with little children the ability to pay no mind to the color of a person's skin.