Another reason why America is not "color blind" is because of how, not just other people, but family think about interracial dating. African American families are tolerant when it comes to close friends and family, but not when it comes to other people, while people are tolerant only of other people, not of people close to them. Not only do interracial couples have to deal with strangers who don't approve, but there's also the issue of family who doesn't approve. All these obstacles are not usually faced by same-race couples. 2. Coontz talks a lot about how people define family, not too long ago family began to mean a married couple and their children. In the past, family meant many different things: a large kinship group from which one derived one's rights and property, as described by European nobility, or middle-class Europeans and North Americans.