Steve & Ruth White are husband & wife, ordained ministers and founders of A Place For Us. We recently spoke with them.

INTERRACIAL VOICE (IV): What is A Place For Us?

RUTH: A Place For Us is the nation's largest establishment for interracial relationships, because we do so many different things. We started by working with interracial couples and their families, and we started realizing that there were many other people -- biracial children and other people who had to deal with transracial adoption, families that didn't want to admit that their kids were interracially dating, etc. So we started expanding the organization from just working with interracial couples and families to going to the schools, corporations and churches and breaking down barriers of racism there. Most churches, though, didn't want to have us around because they didn't want to deal with their own prejudices and bigotry.

IV: This is mostly in the Los Angeles area, correct?

RUTH: No, we're all over the country. We've also had requests to start A Place For Us groups in Germany and Canada. So, we're not just across the U.S. anymore!

STEVE: We started here in the Gardena area. Then as people began to hear of us, especially through the media, we began to get a strong reaction from different geographical areas. Orange County here in Southern California was one of the first and then other areas across the country started sprouting up. It wasn't possible for us to fly around to speak to all these people, and as big as our telephone bill is, it's not possible to keep in touch like this all the time. So we realized that it was necessary to start charter groups in those other areas, so there would be people close by who could be supportive. One of the main reasons for this is not to "clique up," not to be a small inclusive, cultish-type group. The whole purpose for starting groups is to break down feelings of isolation that many couples feel, especially if there's been some disagreement directed toward them from their families or from friends or maybe from their churches.

IV: What year was A Place For Us established?

STEVE: 1984. We are a not-for-profit concern and donations are tax deductible.

IV: What about your personal backgrounds?

STEVE: I was born in the Pacific Palisades on the coastline here. It's a small town right on the coastline, pretty upper echelon economic area.

IV: You're a white gentleman.

STEVE: Yes, though my background is multiracial. I've got Dutch and German. I know I have African in me -- the Moors from North Africa, specifically. So, I know that I'm multiracial.

IV: You are an ordained minister.

STEVE: Yes, both Ruth and I are. I grew up in the Palisades in a pretty isolated situation. The only black person I knew growing up was our maid who helped clean the house and such. When I went away to school at Cal-State Los Angeles I began to contact other cultures. That school is in East Los Angeles, so I was in a Mexican American culture, eating and talking and the whole nine yards. It was really a broadening experience, so things began to open up for me there.

IV: Where are you from, Ruth?

RUTH: Denver, Colorado.

IV: How did you come to move to Southern California?

RUTH: I came out here as a result of having too many family members there, both on my mother's side of the family as well as my father's. My family was almost marrying each other, because there was so many of us. I felt that was not the place for me to be, so I moved to California. A friend had been asking me for a long while to move here, so I did.

Living in Denver, you're around people of different races all the time. There was no "across the tracks" as it is here. There was white flight, where many whites moved out of the neighborhood as blacks moved in, but those were still nice neighborhoods. Even the poorest areas were nice. The projects, which was one of the first places I grew up in Denver, was nice. They had to keep them clean, so I didn't know anything else but that. There were white people around even there. I had the opportunity to be in the Girl Scouts, and most of the people that I grew up with who lived in the projects ended up graduating from high school, going to college and having good jobs. That's so different from what you hear from many other midwestern and eastern states.

IV: Interracial Voice readers will see your picture, but you're a black lady.

RUTH: My skin is black, and I'm multiracial with Navajo and Choctaw Indian, Irish, Spanish -- my great-grandmother was from Spain -- and African ancestry, of course.

IV: Is this the first marriage for both of you?

RUTH: Yes, but I had three children before I got married.

IV: Both of you attended the Multiracial Solidarity March in July, and yours was the first national group to endorse that event. Thank you again.

RUTH: Well we didn't plan to be the first, but we responded to the fact that this was something that was needed very much. We weren't concerned about who else responded to it, but we knew we needed to.

STEVE: We know that this was a quality event, and we also know what it feels like to sponsor something and not have the support of other groups. We didn't want to be guilty of that, so we really wanted to respond straight out of the chute.

RUTH: That was something that was needed for a long, long time. Again, we didn't stand up to do anything like this previously, because you hate to start out doing something and look behind you and there's nobody there to support you. So, we said we would be behind this kind of thing, because people need to see us in action doing something. You know, we can have conferences all day long, but that's an enclosed kind of isolated type of thing. This was out in the open, and it showed that we're not fearful of you -- whoever you are. We're just here to be who we are.

The thing that I had a problem with is that the media didn't give Interracial Voice the publicity that it needed to have. I felt that others were gaining an advantage -- by hogging media attention, not giving correct information as to who was starting the March and what it was actually about -- from something that Interracial Voice was doing to the benefit of us all.

IV: Now, you guys are going to do something in Los Angeles next August.

RUTH: After we had one of our staff members go with us to Washington, she not only fell in love with you as a person, but she fell in love with the whole idea of the multiracial issue. That was something that had been clammed up in her life for quite some time. She's a country music singer, and there were many instances that came up where she was degraded in many ways. For example she was going to sign a contract in Nashville, but when they found out that she was multiracial, they didn't even sign the contract with her -- though they loved her music.

IV: Kathy Bee?

RUTH: Yes. So, she had been bottling these kinds of things up in her for a long time, plus her own family's inability to deal with certain racial issues. After she went to the March, she was totally set free. Before we even got back to L.A., she called me from her hotel room and said "we have to do this in Los Angeles." I said do you realize how big a project that would be, and she said "I don't care, we need to do it." She said there were a lot of people in bondage the way she was in bondage, and the March really set her free. She only became involved with A Place For Us a few months ago, so for her to say that she's going to D.C., and this is important -- it was really inside of her, and she wanted to be set free from not talking about it and not dealing with what had been going on around her and in her family.

IV: You're talking about Multiracial Solidarity March II.

RUTH: Yes. You started all this, Charles. We're so appreciative about what you're doing, and we don't want to take anything away from Interracial Voice. You will be there, because people need to hear what you have to say. In your speech, you brought everything home the way it should have been. People out here need to hear that kind of thing. We'll try to get some of our celebrity friends to participate, and we're in the process now of working on fundraisers so we can fly you out here. We also want to get as much media attention for it as possible. We couldn't do as much when it was done in Washington, D.C., because we didn't know what was going on. Now, we're not only going to try to have interracial organizations involved with this, but we're also going to reach out to other groups that have lots of members, especially churches. We want to try to get everybody involved in this. They need to. In order for us to have racial harmony in our society, we've got to go for the big stuff.

IV: Clarence Krygsheld, the former President of Chicago's Biracial Family Network, said that he noticed there were no churches involved in the March. Would black churches be opposed to something like this, since many black politicians -- with whom these churches work intimately -- oppose the multiracial Census initiative because they see it as drawing down their numbers over a period of time?

RUTH: There will probably be many traditional black churches that would not want to participate, and there will be some traditional white and Hispanic churches that won't want to participate. There are, however, many congregations that are becoming multiracial, and they want to reach out to other communities. What they mean by multiracial, too, is different. It's not like interracial individuals, but rather an integrated congregation. That's good in itself, but that doesn't mean there's no racism within the people who are there. That's the one thing most multiracial churches don't realize; you don't know the heart of the person who is in your congregation.

We want to work on that, and have those people come as well, so they can understand what interracial and multiracial really mean. Clarence was right in that there were no churches represented, but I know some like Brick by Brick were involved, though they couldn't actually make it. It's not like the door wasn't open for everybody, and what we want to do is encourage them. Now, politicians are another thing. The multiracial category that we tried to get here in the state of California failed, and one reason was that the entire multiracial community was not informed and involved. There were Senators and other people who are against interracial relationships who opposed the bill, as well as Latino organizations who wanted to increase there numbers. You know, we're not in this movement to work on numbers. We're in this movement to say if there's one biracial or multiracial child who has a problem with marking one race over the over, there's a problem We don't care about the politics of numbers.

IV: If MSM II occurs next August, that's going to come after OMB (Office of Management and Budget) makes its decision on a multiracial category, unless they delay that announcement from mid-1977 to later in the year. So, is this movement something that's bigger than the Census question?

STEVE: Yes. It impacts me every time I go into the classroom and have to deal with many multiracial kids who aren't adequately represented, who have to deny one of their parents and relatives, who have to mark a certain box on the school district form. I feel their frustration, and I hear the parents' anger at being forced to do that. It's a real strong thing, a very practical thing. That's where it becomes more than just a number, more than just the Census. It becomes a personal, family issue.

RUTH: We also have to deal with the heart. Before many of these things can really change, a lot of people have to deal with their hearts. They've got to change their hearts. In terms of the multiracial category, you can have something down on paper, but how much enforcing is going to occur, who's going to monitor it? These are things we need to be concerned about. Will someone have their own racist agenda, and just because it's on the box, still harass other families.

IV: In what way?

RUTH: Even if it's on the books, someone could say in our state, community or district we don't do that or they take the form and mark what they want to after you've marked what you have.

IV: You're suggesting someone could manipulate the forms. Are you talking about the national Census forms, the statewide forms or both?

RUTH: Both. We're more about families, though. We want to see the multiracial category on forms, but we prefer to use the initiative route, and that's what A Place For Us is planning to do for 1998 in California. We hope it spreads across the country, and we want everybody and every multiracial organization to be involved with this. Not only multiracial organizations but other organizations, too, women's political caucuses or whatever. Your multiracial families are within all of these groups of people. Everybody will tell you well we're all mixed anyway, but they don't want to see a multiracial category on forms. Now how stupid is that?

IV: So, if OMB approves the 2000 Census category, then next August's event will be a celebration, and if OMB rejects the multiracial initiative, MSM II will be a protest against that decision.

RUTH: Definitely, because the category has to be there. We're not going away. These kids exist, and if you can come up with categories for everybody else, then there needs to be a multiracial category for our kids to mark who they are. What I mean is a box that says multiracial, and if they have to include everything else they are, then that's fine, or either multiracial and they mark off everything that's a part of them.

IV: Right. It should be their decision to identify themselves.

RUTH: Right. That's why we spend a lot of time in the entertainment industry with producers, etc. We do a lot of talk shows and keep ourselves out there -- not for our faces to be seen, since we have some of our other people going on shows -- but to let people know we're here for them. Yesterday we did a program working with about 75 kids in low income housing. The theme was about self-esteem and for them not to look at color and to not let other people tell you that you're going to set back based on the color of your skin. We do all kinds of stuff. We put on a yearly youth summit to facilitate dialogue and learning about interracial relationships and other related issues. The youth lead the workshops in this event; we adults are only facilitators. We learn a lot from the young people; they're intelligent and care very much about these issues.

The bottom line purposes for everything we do are to promote racial harmony and break down walls of prejudice and racism. Ignorance is a wall too, and I sure hope we break that down too!!

IV: What other major projects are you working on?

RUTH: Well, other than next year's March, the 1998 ballot initiative comes to mind again. We have to get something like 695,000 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. See, it's different than trying to get legislation passed to get what you want. It's cheaper through that route, but the politicians play this other game, and we don't have time for games. You're talking about having to go up and beg these legislators to accept your policy. We're saying we want the people to vote on what they know is right. That's the philosophy of A Place For Us.

IV: You favor letting people vote up or down on this issue?

RUTH: Yes, because with all the legislation that exists so far, people don't know they exist. When you put something on the ballot as was the case with Proposition 187 concerning the immigrants, everybody heard about it. It was the ballot. It was something that was going to be a topic of discussion across this country. That's what we need. We need such a strong awareness of what's going on that it becomes a second language in everybody's house.

STEVE: I don't think it would be overthrown by a higher court as 187 was. I'm sure some people would object, since they already object to a multiracial category...

RUTH: ...but they don't object to all these other names they want to give to their people. We're not denying that we have black or white in us. We're saying we want to accept all of who we are, and that's the way it is. We're going to do all we can to make this come to pass, but we've got to work together as a team, too. People can't be trying to hog media attention and have their own agendas. That's not going to make it work. We should forget that.

IV: Steve, how do we as a nation arrive at the point where we do away with all racial categories?

STEVE: That's a great question. I don't know exactly how we get there. I think the multiracial category is one way to do it. I think eventually we ought to stop all the categories, because that would surely simplify things and cut out a whole lot of beaurocratic mess and waste that we shouldn't have to spend money on.

RUTH: Recently, in one of our newsletters, I explained that I had met with the Lt. Governor and had been invited to a private political party. I expressed to those people my feelings on the multiracial category, and that's how I found out what the specific bill was. No multiracial organization told me that there was a bill in Sacramento. I had to find out by going to this political party. Some assembly people did some research for me, got the information to me, and that's how I was able to work on it from here, but I wouldn't have known because the multiracial organizations working on it hadn't informed me or A Place For Us. We have chapters all up and down California, yet we were not told anything about it. We had to find out on our own.

I would prefer that we not have any racial categories at all. They keep us separate. If there's a school or a person who needs money from the government, it should be based on need, not based on the color of their skin or how many people they have in their schools or in their neighborhoods based on a certain color of skin. I have a problem with that.

IV: What about gender-based programs?

RUTH: Gender either. I'm kind of old-fashioned when it comes to gender things. I could care less about a lot of this gender stuff that's going around. I mean, if you're good for the job, then that's fine. I think some people just want to get involved with something that includes men to try to compete with men. I'm not trying to compete with men. You can keep me as a secretary, just pay me the money I'm worth. I'm not trying to compete with you. I just want to be able to do my job, and if I feel I need a raise, give me a raise. I know that's not pretty logical, because many people want to be in top management, but if they qualify to be in top management they should be and not based on their gender.

IV: Did we discuss how you two got married?

RUTH: We met in business through a mutual friend who happened to be black. She was Steve's friend for a long time before she met me, and she was my friend separately from him. We were all business partners, and we started going out to lunch and dinner together, and because I wasn't attracted to Steve, it really didn't matter. I could talk to him about almost anything, because I was used to being around and talking to lots of guys. Guys don't cut throat like a lot of women do. I'd tell him about my kids' fathers, and he would talk about his past girlfriends. He used to say "I have no desire to get married," and I didn't either. I just wanted to raise my kids and to continue to work. Steve was so nice and sweet to me, but he also seemed to be such a sad person. I came up to him one day and said "I bet you have the prettiest legs under those pants," and he was totally shocked that I would make a statement like that.

STEVE: Talk about breaking the ice.

RUTH: So, then we started talking, and then there was this Italian guy who was involved in the organization who liked me. Steve got mad and didn't want him anywhere near me.

STEVE: I got jealous.

RUTH: Then one day Steve invited me out for Memorial Day, and I invited him over to my cousin's house, because we didn't have anywhere to go. On the way over, he asked me how I felt about him, and I said I thought he was a really nice person. I knew what he was saying, but I wasn't about to answer that. We spent a few hours at my cousin's house, and after we left he said "I really want to know how you feel about me." I said "I think you're a very nice person, and if I was going to marry anybody I would like to marry someone like you. You're real nice, and you're real nice to my kids." So I left it like that. The following weekend, we had a business convention that we had to attend, and we had lunch and Steve said, "Well, you are going to marry me aren't you?" I was in shock, but I said "Well, yes!" I mean this guy just ate up all the ice cream in the whole place. He was so...

STEVE: ...don't lie.

RUTH: You did, you kept on eating ice cream. He was so excited.

STEVE: Well, I was hyper.

RUTH: I know. So, that's how it started, but then the trouble started when Steve announced our engagement to the church that he was attending. It was multiracial, and the pastor had interracially married people but never a black and white couple. Steve made the announcement, and most of the class was excited about it, but the class's teacher -- who was also interracially married -- did not approve. Then the pastor and minister wanted to give Steve premarital counseling without me being there, and they did. They took Steve, and they tried to totally manipulate him in one of those sessions. When I found out about it the next Sunday, I went to the church, and when the pastor finished ministering he saw me. He went out one door, and I went out the other door, and I met him and said that I demanded to know why he did premarital counseling without me. He said, "Well, I thought that Steve hadn't told you everything about him." I said, listen, I've known Steve, and he's told me everything about him, and I've told him everything about me. I said, "I demand to be counseled by you." I wasn't going to let him get off that easily. I was really mad, and I really didn't want to be counseled by him, because I knew as much about the Bible as he knew. He wasn't living by it, so I wanted him to know that we were going to have a little debate there. So we set up a counseling session -- under protest -- and I started going through scripture showing him where he was wrong. I said to myself that if Steve's willing to marry me after messing around with people like you, I'm still going to marry him no matter what anyone thinks.

STEVE: He refused to perform the wedding. He couldn't give me many specifics, other than to say that it's wrong -- it's not God. So, Ruth and I were married in a small ceremony at the church where she was going -- that we wound up attending as a family...

RUTH: ...and that pastor has one of the biggest multiracial churches in the state of California, but he believes in interracial relationship, and he doesn't care who you are. He will stand up for interracial relationships, even if he doesn't get anything else right -- he gets that right.

Steve's parents came up to the church that day. They came to tell Steve that they couldn't attend the wedding, and that if he married me it would be a disaster.

IV: I remember Steve telling me once before that his parents were against the marriage.

STEVE: Yeah. My mom cried a lot, and when she could verbalize it she said, "I only want the best for you." In other words, she didn't think Ruthie was the best person for me.

IV: Because Ruth is black.

STEVE: Because she's black. I think Mom had a feeling that all black people live in Watts and live in run-down decrepit situations, on welfare. So, Mom cried a lot, and my father exploded when he found out about it. He was really angry. When he could verbalize it, he said things like, "Birds can fall in love with fish, but they don't get married. They're two different species." He also said, "You really must have hated us to do this." Like I would pick somebody just to get back at my parents -- somebody that I would have to live with. They don't have to live with her -- I do. Why would I do that to hurt somebody or to get back at somebody? It doesn't make sense.

RUTH: But they use things like that to make you feel guilty for what you've done. We've found that out a lot more as we've counseled people, kids in college and people interracially dating.

STEVE: Anyway, my parents did come to the church. Our oldest son, Pershaun, who was about 7 at the time, showed them around. He was a little gentleman to them and showed them around the church. He was so kind and gentle to them. They said they had business to attend to. I was kind of flabbergasted, but I left the door open. I just said, "Folks we love you, and we'd like you to be here, but if you can't make it, if you choose not to, we still love you, and the door is still open." We went ahead with the preparations, and when we were standing in front of the minister, and he was just starting to speak, the door creaked open, and Mom and Dad came in. They sat down and witnessed the ceremony and signed it.

RUTH: Signed the marriage certificate.

STEVE: Signed the certificate. There was a point where the minister was quoting from the Book of Ruth that "your people will be my people, and your God will be my God." I thought my dad was going to have a heart attack. He took a deep breath, and he was like "UhhhhhhHuuuuuuuuhhhhhh!!!!" It sounded like all the demons were tormenting him.

RUTH: There were so many good things that happened, too. My mother-in-law calls here all the time and talks to us, communicates with us. We have a very good time when we visit her. The family has always treated the kids like family, not like "those are not our children -- those are not our blood." The kids, all these 16 grandchildren of Steve's parents, they can get together and it's not like "well, you're not really my cousin, or you're not really this or that." It's always family.

IV: You've been married how long?

RUTH: Sixteen years.

STEVE: We were married on November 21, 1980.

RUTH: There have been so many fun things that have happened. I want to give you one instance when Steve and I were dating, and we took the kids over to his family's house for dinner. We drove up to the Pacific Palisades -- an all-white area -- and our youngest son who is the darkest of all the kids got out of the car. Grandpa was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and my son ran up to him and said, "Hi, Grandpa" and gave him a big bear hug. Steve swears his dad turned green.

STEVE: I was looking my father in the face, and he had this look of like "Oh, my God, they're here!" This little dark kid is hanging on to his knee calling him Grandpa -- out in front of the house no less.

RUTH: They became bosom buddies, though. Those two were always in devilment together.

STEVE: Yeah. My folks came around, famously. There was a time when the L.A. Times did a story on us. My mom got the issue, and she took it around to her neighbors and showed them the story about her son and her daughter-in-law. The people in my neighborhood in the Palisades did not communicate with one another; they were pretty isolated. For Mom to do that was really an indication of her good will and her love.

My father is dead now, but just before he died, he took the boys and me out to a Dodger ballgame. We had a good time together. The boys had a lot of fun, and the Dodgers won for once, and Dad and I got a chance to hug each other and to tell each other that we loved each other. I could tell he was pretty sick, and I had a feeling that this was a really special time for all of us. He died very shortly thereafter. I always feel comfortable, because I know we had a time to tie those loose ends together. I don't regret that at all. I'm very happy that I felt his approval of the choice that I had made, and that he realized that Ruth is a magnificent wife. It was probably tough for him to acknowledge, but I believe we really had a time to make peace before he died.

RUTH: Could I put out an appeal now to everybody to get involved with this March, to become members of A Place For Us National, to give donations to what we're doing so we can make this thing successful?

IV: You just did.

STEVE: Thank, Charles.

RUTH: I really appreciate you. We love you very much.

IV: It's good to be loved.

RUTH: One of the things that we'll need as we start working on this is people who have access to the press to keep getting information out about this second March, not just one person sending stuff out. We need people all over constantly bombarding the newspapers and the media with this infatormation. What we want is for you to be on David Brinkley. We want you to be on 60 Minutes. We want you to be on all the places that they allowed Farrakhan and others to be on. They did not give you that, and that's what we want to get. We want you on every program there is, talking about what the March stands for. That's what needs to happen. We need all these organizations, all these people to contact their local media and constantly talk about it and get out the press releases. That's going to bombard the media. They're going to say, "this must be important -- everybody is sending stuff."

IV: Steve and Ruth, thank you for your time. See you next August in Los Angeles if not sooner.

STEVE & RUTH: Thank you, Charles.

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