His main concern was the children. That&rsquo;s what Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple, had to say for himself.</p><p>Why did he deny them a marriage license? He believes mixed marriages don&rsquo;t last. And Bardwell says he is worried about the future of kids born from an interracial relationship. He says they suffer.</p><p>Phoenixx Cartwright, 12, a Lincoln Prep seventh-grader, says she doesn&rsquo;t feel burdened by being biracial and she&rsquo;s offended by Bardwell&rsquo;s ignorance.</p><p> &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s rude and kind of stupid, mainly,&rdquo; she says.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not in the &rsquo;60s anymore. He&rsquo;s mean. It&rsquo;s not a big deal being mixed. Kids just ask if you are mixed, and that&rsquo;s it. I&rsquo;m proud to be mixed. It&rsquo;s cool. I don&rsquo;t know why he would say something like that.&rdquo;</p><p>I don&rsquo;t either. I&rsquo;m mixed. I had my fair share of acceptance issues, but I would hardly call it suffering. And I&rsquo;m fairly certain all kids go through issues. For some kids, it&rsquo;s religion or education or athletic skills or money. For me, it was being comfortable in my skin.</p><p>Jamal Brown, a 29-year-old biracial man, says being mixed doesn&rsquo;t hold you back.</p><p>He&rsquo;s also in a mixed marriage and has a biracial daughter &mdash; with a bright future, he says. And his godmother has been in an interracial marriage for almost 10 years.</p><p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how it is down there in Louisiana, but being mixed isn&rsquo;t that problematic here,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I had barriers, but I also had an advantage by being able to look at both sides of the story and see a different perspective.&rdquo; </p><p>As for Bardwell&rsquo;s comments on mixed marriages not lasting? Jamal doesn&rsquo;t get it.</p><p>&ldquo;There are lots of people who come from different backgrounds and get married and it lasts forever,&rdquo; says Jamal, who has been married for almost two years. &ldquo;Marriage is a lot more complicated than race. If people don&rsquo;t stay together it&rsquo;s often because they can&rsquo;t operate together, not because of their backgrounds.&rdquo;</p><p> It&rsquo;s disheartening that ignorance like this still exists. Deena Smith, a white woman, and her husband, Shadrach Smith, who is black, remember the race riots. They were high schoolers in Wichita during tumultuous times, and when they got married in 1978, mixed marriages were rare.</p><p>But 31 years later, they are still happily married and have two grown daughters. She says she can say a lot about making a marriage work, and none of it is racial.</p><p>&ldquo;To be in a relationship with someone over 30 years you have to really have mutual respect and carry out the same values throughout those years. You grow together and learn together. It&rsquo;s about addressing problems together and finding solutions.&rdquo;</p><p>She says raising children is some of the most difficult work that anyone can do, and it must be taken seriously, regardless of race.</p><p>&ldquo;Like any family, you have to make conscious decisions about the community you live in and provide a nurturing environment for your children. We live in Brookside because there are a variety of people. We exposed our children to role models of various races they can be respectful of.&rdquo; </p><p>I&rsquo;m sure Bardwell would be shocked if he met the Smiths or some of the many successful mixed couples out in the real world. </p><p>&ldquo;We like to think the world has grown,&rdquo; Deena says. &ldquo;But there are still people who are limited in the way they allow themselves to view the world.&rdquo;