While there are still prejudice and sexist comments related to more common interracial couples (such as BW/WM, AW/BM, BM/WW or AW/WM - I noticed I didn't see much about Latino and Hispanics though), in particular, the scariest and most hurtful comments I found were about Black women with Asian men (especially given that I am a black woman who's dated outside my race).
For the most, part I saw some very disturbing posts from people with all sorts of opinions on the matter, who perpetuated, in their own way, racism against both Blacks and Asians.
See these links for examples:
- http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t247219.html
- http://www.chinasmack.com/2009/pictures/chinese-black-couple-shanghai-metro.html
and here:
http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/chinese-men-with-black-women-african-wives.html
The negative comments came up more than comments about supporting interracial relationships (namely, BF/AM couples).
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I myself feel a bit conflicted about the topic, and while my thoughts and assumptions are guided by actual facts and my background in sociology, I want to acknowledge now that is merely speculation.
I understand that many issues around this topic are race related and have nothing to do with what it should: two people who love each other.
If only this was as easy as whether two personalities match, if a couple has chemistry, rather assumptions of racial prejudice, and betrayal.
I saw a blog online where someone (still trying to figure out if it was a man or woman) was griping about black women taking white men over the ‘brothers’ and how the white bug has infiltrated black women at large.
I brought this conversation up with a friend, and he said he didn't like to see black women with white men, shaking his head as though the act would be a sin.
I got upset, retorting how many black men I know have always admitted they prefer white women over black women- for a plethora of reasons especially because black women have attitude, and white women are more easy to control. Nearly three quarters of the 403,000 black-white couples in 2006 involved black husbands.*
Stereotypes aside, I know that he wouldn't mind being with a white women, since he has often times talked about women he wanted to be with, realistic and unrealistically, and a good number of those women were white. It's a double standard I just can't take.
Black women are always at the bottom rim of the line in every societal fashion: our dark skin isolating us from mobility and relationships.
Being the pro-black nationalist that I am, originally, the idea of dating a white guy was a scary thing - almost a betrayal to my people as it were. I even go as far to claim that blacks dating whites is an act stemmed from self hatred, where dating a white person is an example of success, a conquest of the unattainable; or an act of defiance, to attempt to achieve the taboo in effort to stick it to the 'man.'
Personally, what takes me aback is the idea that someone would do it for the sake of sexual experimentation and dominance. I know plenty of guys, white or black (and other races) who wouldn't date me solely because of my dark skin (or as one person described "Island dark" skin), whether they think I'm a nice person, they could never bring themselves to be attracted to me because. Furthermore, I know a lot of white guys who only be interested in me because they think black women are exotic; an old stereotype passed down from European ideology about black women being these animal-like sex vixens, like the jungles of Africa venerates through us enough for a hot night and nothing more. It sickens me.
It gives light to the why some people among the colored community are desperately seeking lighter skin and thin, straight hair as the object of success and social mobility. We've all had someone in our lives say things that connoted this deep self hatred; the 'that's some good, soft, straight hair', and 'nice straight nose' comments.
What's worse is watching black women go through great lengths to lighten their skin: and the things they say s frivolously about it. My own mother, once was commenting how she was upset when she noticed my cousin got darker and she should have stayed in her "nice light color". The saddest thing I ever heard though, was when I was once tutoring and 11 yr old black girl, and she said to me, of her own volition, that she would do anything to be light, even slather her entire body in skin lightener, and didn't care that meant she would as light as an Albino person.....
Granted, this girl at the time was in the Metco program, where urban students of color are bused to all white suburban schools, and may have been speaking through her traumatic experiences there, but the media and marketing industries do continue to enforce and in fluency these ideas (I once went to by skin lighter to help my acne scars, and saw on the box one brand "the lighter you are, the better you are").
To bring this all back to the subject at hand, all of things AND MORE that black women suffer through compel them not to date outside of their race. Meanwhile, black men have generally felt free to court any woman.
While since the "Guess who's coming to dinner" film, it has been ever-more encouraged in society for black men to date white women, black women dating white men is still very taboo. The Former situation is often celebrated and seen quite often nowadays. The latter, takes much battling and even plays out in pop culture like a Romeo and Juliet story from hell. Take for instance the Aida Broadway play, or the Disney channel series Lincoln Heights, where a young black girl and white young man in love are constantly being separated by their families and people in their communities. There's even ‘Something New ’with Sanaa Lathan and the Guess Who movie, a Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher adaptation of the Sidney Poitier film I mentioned earlier. This movie however has a black woman, Bernie's daughter, in love with a white man, Ashton, and Bernie's character can't stand it.
Black women who date outside their race have also been known to criticism black men in stereotypical ways. Much of these comments come from black women who had bad experiences dating black men. I heard and read from BW saying that BM are too trifling, are too broke, always cheap, are too thugged out, too many in jail, and too few to be relationship or even marriage worthy (see the article links below). The idea of a scarcity of black, that they are a dying race, saddens and scares me to the core (for all the social, cultural and institutional implications).
Yet, if these assumptions bare some sort of truth, unless black women date outside their race, they too are a dying breed anyway. There's some statistic that says that 42% of black women over 30 won't get married. I'd date out my race too to strengthen those odds!
Racial prejudice, double-standards, statistics, internalized racism, culture, and all around awkwardness are barriers to black woman's quest. like anyone else, for happiness. If the stereotype is that black women have too much sass, too much attitude is true, well, then I don't blame them! There's alot to be angry about and alot of reasons to feel cheated, and isolated. So if black men have admitted to not liking black women as far as the bedroom, why shouldn't we open our hearts to men of other races? Perhaps the melting pot truly starts with a good black woman, and maybe that's not a bad thing....as long as it's real love.
What do you think?
An article about the topic, which brings up quite a few questions for black men
