Clearly I lied last time I said I was going to restart this thing. So I'm not making any promises, I'm just gonna write.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, or perhaps if you're a wealthy white republican, you have probably heard the following "news" that goes something like this:
The educated and successful black woman is in crisis! SHE CAN'T FIND A BLACK MAN! Especially not one of her own caliber! She is lonely and bitter! What ever shall she do?! EUREKA! MAYBE SHE SHOULD DATE OUTSIDE OF HER RACE!
Pause while you all process your shock and disbelief.
Aaand we're back.
Many many people have weighed in on this. I won't link to them, because as one of my fav tweeter/blogger/blackfeministfolks Sister Toldja would say, your google is not broke. Actually, I'll link to
her, because she rocks, but not her specific post, since she says what I want only better, and this is MY blog. Okay, only child moment done, and back to the point: I'm gonna share my feelings on the matter, because, as my twitter followers discovered today, I have feelings about it.
Now, for the record, I am not against interracial dating in principle. Two people who love themselves and their identities (yes, I believe race & ethnicity & how we deal with them are integral to identity) and want to date people who don't look like their mamas and daddies can be perfectly happy & well adjusted. More power to them. I do believe love comes in all colors, and have even skiied the slopes myself in my "dating history" as it were. I always went to school with white men, and one or a few have caught my eye.
But, at this point, and for the forseeable future, my desire is to love a black man. As I tweeted,
"I want to be with a black man, have black babies, and frolic in Black love. And I will. Ratio can kiss my beautiful black behind."
Now I'm no separatist or idealogue. I like people of all colors and creeds, and they like me. But at some point I can't quite pinpoint, the concept of Black love became very important to me. And I am not ashamed. I knew (though not so starkly as I do now) when I ignored the application packets for HBCUs that I was leading myself away, not towards, many men of African descent. But I refuse to find my education & ambition incompatible with finding a partner of my own race. Essence has been quoting ratios at me for years, but I've always said, I don't need the [insert ludicrous percentage here] that are unavailable. I just need one.
And I know that the Washington Post is not speaking directly to my early twenties self. I know there are people wondering why it'd even bother me, and saying I should just live my life. But I resent the implications of a national newspaper declaring that "my people" are in some sort of love drought, as though the larger American (and Western) population is doing so much better. This is NOT the latest pathology that liberals can find and cure.
Black women have always headed households, and thus have striven to make themselves attractive to employers. This generally means education, and it's not new. I find this new line of arguments too similar to what "we've" (in quotes because this started well before my time) heard for years. From black women who were too lascivious to be raped and black men who were powerless to stop it, to the black matriarchy in the Moynihan report that was castrating men and ruining families, to the present day black woman who is getting educated and making money and leaving her potential husbands behind, it is the same narrative. Black people can't get it together. Black women won't submit to the traditional model of American womanhood, and our men can't live up to masculinity's demands. I, for one, am over it.
In fact, I think it's important to point out that this is not solely a black woman's issue. Women of every complexion are making more money than men, and we the people of America are gonna have to deal with the results of the women's movement one of these days. To treat the need for a new marriage model as though it's a Black woman's issue marginalizes the real problem that many of us have with not knowing how to love one another, especially for keeps.
Even MORE galling is the idea that it takes some magazine or newspaper article to introduce the idea of dating interracially. As though anti-miscegenation laws weren't around because people were doing something to outlaw. Giving the eye to a white man is NOT new, and I don't need anyone's permission to do so. I'll date who I want, when I want, and I don't need some concept of supply and demand to grant me the opportunity. People are not oil prices. Stop.it.
But most disappointing of all are the black men jumping on the band wagon to tell me and mine everything we are doing wrong, and why we're single. From Steve Harvey, to angry men on twitter, to strangers on the metro, every black man seems emboldened to become a coach on how to catch and keep a good brother like themselves. (Never mind many of their shady dating histories and treatment of women.) Now I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as a bitter & beleagured black woman. But if this is really so epidemic, doesn't anyone think there may be a reason, that is not solely our fault? And of ALL people, it would be nice if black men weren't berating us. By taking themselves and
their privilege out of the equation, black men take black women down another unnecessary peg. We become crazy shrews with unreasonable standards who don't love them, when history demonstrates that is false.
Well world, I could go on and on, but I shan't because I went in on
twitter already, and someone (everyone?) is tired of it. My points are as follows-
- I don't need the media, black men, or America telling me who or how to date.
- This is not a new situation, and there are no novel solutions. Just love and hard work and a society as a whole that values love and commitment.
