My girl Cat had posted a blog the other week about interracial dating and the woes of the black women and I responded but it still got me thinking on the subject and I wanted to share my thoughts here.
I'm sure by now, most of us are famaliar with the sad statistics on how nearly half of black woman will never marry, can't find good men, are having babies out of wedlock, raising kids alone and blah, blah, blaze blah. Basically, if you're a black woman who had your heart set on meeting and marrying an eligible black man, and worse if you're professionally successful and highly educated, well, you may be shit outta luck.
However, research articles are saying it may be light at the end of the tunnel. Its funny how me and my black girlfriends will be out and we'll see a black man with a white woman on his arms and immediately scrunch up our faces and think 'why her? when there are so many of us wandering around'. However, its even funnier how when we see a black woman out with a white man on her arms, we want to cheer, give high fives, standing ovations, dap, love etc. And why?
Cause you know what I say: Take their men too!
Don't hate! Congratulate. No better yet, conjugate, copulate, mate! That's right. Black women, iffin you are trying to secure a committed relationship with marriage potential, please do not sell yourself short by only considering one type of guy. There are so many more out there and truthfully, you just may have to consider different colors and flavors! Why should we go without while all our racial counterparts are getting their men and building homes and lives together, while we struggle trying to be mothers and fathers, raising kids and maintaining homes alone or worse not having kids cause we haven't found a partner! Why should we accept perpetual singledom if that's not what we want! We need to expand our horizons.
Seriously, we are too good to be missing the boat on having a family or finding true love. Sometimes you just need to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. You maybe surprised what you could stumble upon; like a real love.
8 comments:
Let me preface this first. I think my mom did something subconsciously to me when I was a kid that made it so that I've never been attracted to white women. It's very strange.
I love you point of view here. There are so many varieties of people out there, why limit yourself to a certain group b/c of skin color? That's crazy. It's high time we make real strides to squash this color shit in this country. I'm tired of EVERYTHING being a race issue. I can guarantee you that there's someone out there who will try to link issues such as gas prices, Global Warming, the endangerment of the Polar Bear, and a crappy second season of Heroes to race. There's got to be a way for us to FINALLY get past this.
Am I being a dreamer here? Absolutely. But didn't a certain Civil Rights leader also have a dream?
I hear you both. I've always fancied myself an equal opportunity employer. I've never thought once about dismissing a girl because of race. I grew up having crushes on white girls, black girls, indian girls, asian girls, martian girls, italian girls, middle-eastern girls and everything else in between.
If you find love -- real and true love -- then why let the his/her melanin level stop you from experiencing that wonderful emotion? Don't let other people's opinions stop you -- at the end of the day, you are the one that will go to sleep and wake up next to this person. Do their opinions really matter? I think not.
I rest my case, your Honor.
Now the next question is- is there enough interest in us (black women) from "other" brothers to sustain a movement of us looking beyond our race for love. with todays society so fixated on light, bright, damn near white idea of beauty its hard to say. I even had to sit back when Usher's wife said that she believed some people disliked her b/c she is a brown woman. she said if she was white, mixed or latina people would think Usher had a gorgeous wife. part of me, sadly, agrees that society may indeed think that way.
I'm co-signing 100%!!
there is a study showing that men don't have race preference but women do. In fact for a black woman to consider dating me i would have to earn $220,000 more than a black man of similar attractiveness (all other things being equal). I posted a blog about it. Please comment :-)
Black men have an overwhelming preference for black women. It's merely more conspicuous when their significant other isn't black.
Personally, I have zero romantic interest in white women. I only say this so that my intentions in the comments that follow won't be misconstrued.
That said, I have to agree that it is, perhaps, in black women's interest to consider widening their pool of potential mates to include non-black males. This is especially true given the discrepancy in the numbers of black women and black men who graduate from college and enter the professional ranks.
Moreover, black women seem to have more bourgeois priorities than than a lot of black men, even adjusted for income and education. Many black men who are educated professionals realize how good they have it in the romantic milieu, and are in no hurry for marriage and domestic indentured servitude. White guys, in my purely anecdotal observations, seem to largely share the same sensibilities as black women about marriage, kids, buying a house way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, etc...
My prediction is that in 20 years, the number of black women involved in interracial relationships will eclipse the number of black men involved in them, which is presently higher. I can imagine a situation in the black community similar to the dynamic in the Asian American community, where Asian-American women marry whites, who have a wildly disproportionate chunk of the wealth of this country, in inordinately high numbers.
[Cat] -- from most of the comments I've heard about it, the perception/problem with Usher's wife goes beyond her complexion (I personally love her skin tone)... I've talked to some people who couldn't grasp that the ideal woman for a 27 year-old R&B sensation with his veritable "pick of the litter" would be a woman 12 years his elder with 3 rugrats already gift-wrapped for him -- seems like it just threw some folks for a loop.
With that being said... sadly, you are probably right about the fairness of her complexion. Aside from the aforementioned gerontophobia, some of their critics may have subconsciously found themselves far more accepting of him marrying Rosie Perez or Paula Abdul -- just because of their shade.
To be quite frank, there are so many black males that aren't worth the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoes. I think that's why it's so hard for some black women when they see us with other races. For all we know, he may have just been paroled after doing 8 years hard time for killing his neighbor -- but because pickings are so slim, one will take offense. Some of us just aren't worth the trouble... and that's why I take such pride in not being one of them.
With a house, car, degree and a good job, I've already vanquished much of the competition -- a sad but true reflection of the preponderance of black males our society. So many are content to sleep in mom's basement and roam the streets, with no responsibility (besides their 6 kids, of whom they take such great care). If we could get black men to stand up and overachieve by-and-large, we'd be in infinitely better shape.
I agree 100% ... I am not mixed but all my siblings are... and its not that I would totally rule out dating outside my race, but just sort of feel like its my duty to keep my family black since everyone else is already mixed. i can definitely see myself being patient and waiting for my brother to the night for a while before I take that leap though.
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