Dr. Ryder's approach challenged my own way of thinking...

Professor Ryder's "Sex, Love, & Race" course provided an historical context in which to understand interracial relationships and marriages in the US. What was especially significant about this class was the emphasis on the way in which gender, race, sexuality and class were taken into consideration when we analyzed legal structures, power dynamics in relationships and the politics of inheritances.

Class discussion, assigned and suggested readings, and film screenings were influential in exploring not only the white-black binary in terms of interracial relationships, but also investigating the Asian, Native American, and Latino experience. What is more, Professor Ryder's approach to teaching multiracial and biracial identities as complex and dependent on other factors challenged my own way of thinking prior to studying this material. What I have taken away from this course is fluidity: to think, to speak, and write about the ways in which interracial relationships and multiracial/ biracial identities have and continue to operate within the American context.