Looks like I am going to revisit this issue (interracial relationships) sooner than I thought.
What spurred me to thinking about this was an article I saw yesterday which I featured on my sidebar here. That, and a trip I took to the King Of Prussia Mall yesterday. The King Of Prussia Mall is, I think, the second largest in the country, so it was a perfect lab for my little experiment; especially on a busy Saturday afternoon in August.
Now of all the couples I saw yesterday- I am going to guess that I saw maybe nine or ten interracial ones; and none of them seemed to be black women with white men. Everyone of the interracial couples I saw seemed to be a white woman with a black man. ( I keep saying "seemed to be" because you just never know anymore)
So what does that tell you? Well it tells me that (and I know it was a very small sampling) black men with white women still far out number the alternative. So, in a way, the fact that according to the census bureau there are now 117,000 black woman white men couples in America, as opposed to 95,000 in 2000, (how do they keep track of this shit?) I guess that means we are making progress. Or could that just simply mean that the black female is changing her criteria for dating? According to the article I feature here, I think it means both. What the author seems to be saying; is that black woman can finally acknowledge that there are some f****d up pathologies with black men, and that their-black men's numbers, are too few based on a series of unfortunate social phenomenon. And if they can openly say this, isn't that progress? I don't know, is it?
Let me say for the record, that I don't now, nor have I ever had a problem with interracial relationships. To take that position would go against my libertarian streak. However, personally, I have never dated outside of my race. (I take that back; I did date a Chinese and a Syrian on two separate occasions; both of who were Jamaicans born and raised. I am not sure where that stacks up) I just always found sisters more attractive, and with very few exceptions, found that we have so much more in common. But I have never gotten on brothers and sisters who do, because relationships are something that's personal to the individual. Why pretend you are someone you are not just do date someone in your own race when you are going to be miserable in the long run? It's why I suspect that people like Clarence Thomas, Ward Coonerly, and Angela McGlowan, have all married outside of their race. They are much more comfortable with people who think like they do and who they perceive to be beautiful. Now do I agree with these people? HELL NO! But it's not because they are married to white people; no, it's because they hate themselves, and could not marry anyone but a white person.
I am guessing that most of the sisters who are now finding themselves in interracial relationships are not like the people I just mentioned. At least I hope they are not. I am guessing they have just run out of options, and they are just not finding good brothers out here. So, they look for just any good man period, be he white, purple, or whatever; who shares some things in common with them, and who will at least make them happy. You can't blame them for that; everyone wants to be happy. And if our brothers are in jail, killing each other in record numbers, or if girlfriend gets a job in Boise Idaho, just what would we expect girlfriend to do? Keep running to the store to buy triple A batteries for the rest of her life?
Now the article also mentioned some web sites; and at the risk at starting an e-fight with this issue all over again, I must say that I take umbrage with some of them. Dating outside of your race to make yourself happy is one thing. But dating outside of your race, and trashing brothers (or sisters) on your way to the other side is quite another. I have been in the company of some ignorant ass brothers who proudly declare; that they would never go back to dating sisters, because....well, fill in the blank. Now that's some ignorant shit. Just like the sisters on their web sites who slam brothers for whatever reason. Usually it's because some Ike had done her Tina wrong at one point in her life. So they cheer like hell because Whitney left Bobby; not because Bobby introduced her to the crack pipe, but because Bobby is... well.... a brother. Now that's some ignorant self hating shit for your ass. The irony is, that these types of people always seem to end up being miserable no matter what the race of their partner is. Real live cases of shit attracting flies if you get where I am coming from.
I have a white colleague, a very successful attorney here in Philly, who will only date sisters. And he does alright. Trust me, I have seen the dime pieces by his side as proof. But he does it for purely superficial reasons. He finds black women much more attractive that white ones, so for his own selfish reasons, he prefers to get his freak on with only sisters. Call me a hypocrite, but if a black man takes this exact position about white women it pisses me off. Why? I don't know maybe it's because unlike the sister, he has so much more choices. So to right off a sister because you find white women more attractive smacks of self hatred to me. It doesn't bother me when my white colleague displays those traits because his race and what it brings him will not make that an issue. But for a black man in this country, self hatred is a luxury you can ill afford, so if you find it manifesting itself in any way you should check yourself.
I am going to revisit this issue again, because I think it's important, and because there are so many other facets of this -such as the children of interracial relationships that I didn't touch on. I am heading back to the Mall now, but I promise you, I am just going to shop this time.
