And If You Saw My Love, You'd Love Her Too

Just the other day, P and I, and some friends decided to play a game similar to Charades. We each had to come up with six different words, which we will have to guess later. One of the words that came up was "yellow fever". For those who are unfamiliar with the phrase, it's a variation to "Asian fetish" or to put simply, a person (typically of a different race) who is attracted to Asians. This phrase is often matched with the "white supremacy theory", where Caucasians or Europeans are regarded to be of a superior race when compared to the rest.

To put it into context, think John Lennon, one of the founding members of the famous Beatles, and Yoko Ono, Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist. Their marriage in the 1960s was met with scrutiny and disgust because people could not fathom Lennon's love for Ono, an Asian. Lennon documented this episode of their relationship in his book, The Ballad of John and Yoko. Whilst others discussed the impossibility of an English man loving an Asian woman, Lennon wrote of the passion he had for Ono.

"I finally met Yoko and the dream became a reality.
The only woman I'd ever met who was my equal in every imaginable. My better, actually. Although I'd had numerous interesting "affairs" in my previous incarnation, I'd never met anyone worth breaking up a happily-married state of boredom for.
Escape, at last! Someone to leave home for! Somewhere to go. I'd waited an eternity."

Honestly some of the most beautiful, romantic words I've read, albeit being written at the expense of breaking up his marriage to Cynthia Lennon. He wrote the words for true love and passion for a woman.

Despite society becoming more open-minded and accepting of the idea of biracial couples, stereotypes like "yellow fever" and "white supremacy" are still thrown around like loose change. Being in a biracial relationship myself (and I'm sure Jazza, being a product of a biracial couple, can kind of relate too), I'm acutely aware of the comments thrown at biracial couples and the stares P and I get when we walk down the streets (it could just be that we are strikingly different in height and build), even though we are only one of the 50 other inter-raced couples in the room. Hence I feel my role here is to educate people, that biracial couples can be in a relationship because of a true mutual attraction that extends beyond racial characteristics; that maybe the next time we see a biracial couple walking down the streets, we'll hold our tongues before shooting the "yellow fever" and "white supremacy" comments, and that we may think of us as a regular couple.

Hope this has been a bit of an insight into how biracial couples may feel about the comments that are thrown around. If you are interested in reading more about John Lennon and Yoko Ono's love affair, check out the synopsis of his book on this link: The Ballad of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

"It's only love",
Chezza