Student raises more than $10,000 after parents 'cut her off' over black boyfriend

A US student has raised more than $10,000 (£8,221) through crowdfunding after claiming that her mum and dad cut her off for having a black boyfriend.

Allie Dowdle says her parents refused to give her any more cash saying they didn't approve of the relationship.

Writing on her GoFundMe page, Allie said: "As I am 18, my parents have chosen to no longer support my future, stripping me of all my resources."

The 18-year-old's dad has denied that the issue is about race.

Allie says she and Michael Swift dated for around a year after first telling her parents but that the issue came to a head before Christmas after Michael approached her parents again.

She claims after that conversation, she was cut off by her parents and no longer has access to her personal savings, car and phone and can't afford to pay for her education any more.

"My dad did not give me an option: he told me that I was not allowed to see Michael ever again," she says.

"Why? Strictly because of skin colour. It wasn't a quiet 'no,' either.

"I'll never forget the yelling my parents did, when they expressed how disappointed they were in me, that I could do so much better.

"I did not know what to do. I couldn't comprehend how someone could be seen as less because of pigment. I still can't comprehend it, and I never will be able to.

"How could my love for another person be wrong because of his skin colour?

"And why would that make me unworthy of a future I've worked so hard for?

"Because my parents have listed me, their own daughter, as someone who is not worthy of their time and money, I have turned to the public for support."

Michael Swift now attends Clemson University in South Carolina

Bill Dowdle says that his daughter's comments are a "justification" giving her the moral high ground and said that he and his wife would accept anyone their daughter dated.

But he said there were "issues" involved with biracial dating in the south of America and he'd cut his daughter off because she'd started dating black student Michael Swift in secret.

"[She's spoiled] and it became obvious that she needed to go out in the world and grow up," he told the New York Daily News.

Allie Dowdle's family live in Eads, a town 30 miles east of Memphis

And not everyone has been supportive on the student's crowdfunding page.

Susan Martin wrote: "Dating a black man and sending a privileged white girl to college who can't get a job because her parents took away her car is absolutely ridiculous. Take a bus."

Meanwhile Marissa Kizer wrote: "Sending a white girl from a middle-class family to college is not fighting racism. In fact, expecting to avoid work, student loans, etc. and be treated like a hero for dating a black guy seems pretty racist to me."

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