{"id":369,"date":"2008-10-15T09:19:16","date_gmt":"2008-10-15T09:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html"},"modified":"2008-10-15T09:19:16","modified_gmt":"2008-10-15T09:19:16","slug":"god-taught-the-children-of-isr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html","title":{"rendered":"“God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Obama_parents.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\nToday’s New York Times package on race and the election<\/a> included some horrifying anti-black quotes such as, “He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch.” But more fascinating is that miscegenation – the fear of interracial marriage – was mentioned even more. And at least two of the interviewees offered Biblical justification for their views.<\/p>\n

“He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”
\n–Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, Al.
\n“I would think of him as I would of another of mixed race. God taught the children of Israel not to intermarry. You should be proud of what you are, and not intermarry.”
\n–Glenn Reynolds, 74, a retired textile worker in Martinsdale, Va.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Obama first ran, my father, who’s in his 80s, predicted that Obama having a white mother might be comforting for some but would freak out others. He’s old enough to remember what I’d forgotten, that anti-black sentiment in the 1950s and 1960s was often just as much about purity and race mixing – and the threat to white women – as it was about anti-black stereotypes.
\nI admit to being surprised that people would still use Biblical justification for these things. It’s easy to forget that religion was used as a justification for slavery for more than a century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s New York Times package on race and the election included some horrifying anti-black quotes such as, “He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch.” But more fascinating is that miscegenation – the fear of interracial marriage – was mentioned even more. And at least two of the interviewees offered…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n"God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry" - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry" - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today’s New York Times package on race and the election included some horrifying anti-black quotes such as, “He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch.” But more fascinating is that miscegenation – the fear of interracial marriage – was mentioned even more. And at least two of the interviewees offered…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-15T09:19:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama_parents-thumb-500x350.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry\" - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry\" - Steven Waldman","og_description":"Today’s New York Times package on race and the election included some horrifying anti-black quotes such as, “He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch.” But more fascinating is that miscegenation – the fear of interracial marriage – was mentioned even more. And at least two of the interviewees offered…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-10-15T09:19:16+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama_parents-thumb-500x350.jpg"}],"author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html","name":"\"God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry\" - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama_parents-thumb-500x350.jpg","datePublished":"2008-10-15T09:19:16+00:00","dateModified":"2008-10-15T09:19:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama_parents-thumb-500x350.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama_parents-thumb-500x350.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/10\/god-taught-the-children-of-isr.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“God Taught the Children of Israel Not to Intermarry”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}