Interracial Dating Increases At Schools -- But Some Teens Still Are Subject To Resentment

TUKWILA - School is out for the summer, but Foster High sweethearts Aliscia Solberg and Deshar Sawyer won't forget student comments of their romance.

"He's so dark, and you're so light," Solberg, 17, was told. Then there was the day a racial slur was scrawled on her school locker.

Sawyer, also 17 and an African American, has been interrogated on why he dates a white girl.

Their interracial relationship began around the start of the school year, when the football player kissed the cheerleader outside art class.

As schools become more diverse, more teens are crossing over racial lines to find a date.

"I've seen a lot more interracial mixing," said Foster Principal Horst Momber.

The 665-student school is 55 percent white, 19 percent African American, 16 percent Asian or Pacific Islander, 8 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Native American.

With Foster's rich racial and ethnic mix, students also are taking the initiative - such as proposing a multicultural club - to discuss race relations, Momber said.

Sawyer said his parents don't mind if he dates outside his race. Carol Sawyer, 35, his mother and a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle, said race relations have gotten much better since she was in school.

"When black guys dated white girls, it was a big thing," she said. Overall, there was little interracial dating, she said.

Solberg's mother, Candy Fowler, 48, thinks her daughter should

date whomever she wants to. Interracial dating was definitely not tolerated when she was growing up in Tacoma during the 1960s, she said.

But times have changed, and Foster students exemplify the increase in interracial dating across the country.

Of 602 teens surveyed in last year's USA Today/Gallup Poll, 57 percent said they've dated outside their race or ethnic group. In a 1980 Gallup Poll, it was about 17 percent.

Dating attitudes have only changed in the last decade, said Professor Fayneese Miller, director of Brown University's Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America in Providence, R.I.

Two years ago, Miller began research on interracial teen dating.

People were quick to call minorities who dated outside their race "sellouts" 10 years ago, Miller said. "I don't think the young people today necessarily take that view," he said.

Today's teens are willing to sit down with their peers and ask questions about race; adults tend to be more uncomfortable about the subject, she said.

Though more teens are dating outside their race, racial stigmas do persist, Miller said. Most parents don't mind interracial friendships - it's the dating that worries them, she said, and black and white relationships still cause the most strife.

There is less resentment among teens toward interracial dating when more opportunities to date exist, Miller said. For example, a student who can't find a date might get upset when she sees someone of her race date someone of another race.

Solberg, now a Foster graduate, plans to attend Highline Community College; Sawyer will be a senior next year. The relationship might stagger, they said, but their stance on interracial dating is solid.

"I'm cool with it," Solberg said. "If you find someone who's going to treat you right, it doesn't matter what race you are."

Cheryl Harris' phone message number is 253-946-3979.