Equality. Something that people fight, sacrifice and die for. Barriers like that of race can affect the lives of those with those traits drastically. One important tradition that has been outlawed at one point in time because of race was the capability to marry someone who is caucasian if you are African American and vice-versa. Laws are created to keep the citizens of a country safe. How is outlawing love protecting anyone from anything?
Laws banning interracial marriage were not removed until 1967 . To many, this itself, is too long to gain acceptance for your fellow man and the rights they were born with. In this day and age, many more people have grown in understanding of equality for all. There are still those who see biracial couples as something not entirely normal. A fantastic example would be a Cheerios commercial that debuted during the Superbowl this year. In the commercial, there was a biracial couple and their adorable little daughter. The commercial was sweet and made me smile to myself the first time I saw it, not even noticing the races of the parents. There was a negative uprise from anonymous commenters all over the internet, using words of hate against an innocent commercial. The Marketing Director for Cheerios responded saying “There are many kinds of families, and Cheerios just wants to celebrate them all.”
Acceptance is something that is inconsistent. I find myself to be an incredibly accepting and open-minded person, loving people of all lifestyles, appearances, races and religions. I was advised to take an Implicit Association Test created by people from Harvard University. One part of the test was to match “good and bad” words and “European American and African American” pictures to their appropriate sides, with no relevance to whether either race was good or bad. This part was based on the speed of your answers. Upon my first try at the test, I stumbled on this part and was a bit confused and slow with my answers, making a few mistakes. My results told me I, “Naturally favored European Americans over African Americans.” I was genuinely angry at my test results because they were utterly incorrect. My second try at the test, feeling much more confident during the section I originally struggled with and keeping more consistent, gave me results saying “I had no natural preference to either race.” Although I didn’t feel my second results were totally valid, I was more satisfied.

Tamera Mowry, a famous celebrity (who is half black) recently married her husband, Adam Housley who is caucasian. When Housley was asked about their marriage, he defended it saying
“The fact that in this day and age, we get attacked for our interracial relationship is beyond sad...it is pathetic." When Tamera appeared on Oprah, speaking of her marriage, she said It's hurtful, because my husband and I are so openly and fine with showing love, but people choose to look past love and spew hate," an emotional Tamera said. "That's what hurts me because I've never experienced so much hate ever in my life." "I get called ‘white man's whore,'" she continued, with tears rolling down her face.
Forty Seven years after Biracial marriage became legal, It is still not completely accepted. That is disgraceful.

The way I, and many others see it, we were all born human and all deserve equality. Appearance shouldn’t determine what rights we have. Love is love. The saying “Love is blind” has scientific truth to it. “A research study in 2004 by University College London found that feelings of love suppressed the activity of the areas of the brain that control critical thought.” The sooner love and acceptance of love becomes widespread, the sooner the goal of equality will be met.

“Hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love.”
-Buddha