Interracial Dating: Grudgingly Heading Toward Acceptance
“She’s cuter,” I said, indicating a petite Latina with waist-length dark hair who had been seated across from us.
Bestboy gave me a deep sigh.
“Will you cut that out?” he asked with a note of exasperation.
“I will when you start dating brown people,” I fired back.
The comments come to mind quickly – they are difficult to tame.
I recently tried to put my finger on why Bestboy’s dating habits bothered me so much. I have other friends who date interracially and their choice of partner never phases me a bit. So why is it different when it comes to him?
After a little probing, it came to me.
It is the same reason that certain comments cut deep.
Like TAN remarking “and I do have to acknowledge that blonde/white/gold/peach/light turns my head faster than Darkness, even if it isn’t a superlative blonde, peach or whatever” in his discussion of why he is trying to condition himself to like mediocre black girls. Or that one line from “Cupids Chokehold,” that Gym Class Heroes song where Travis raps that his girlfriend has “porcelain skin.” Yes, I am aware of his girlfriend and his biracial heritage. But it still hurts to hear a brown man openly praise a certain skin tone that most black women will never achieve. As a black woman moving through society, these comments aren’t casual or innocent to me. They are not attacks. But they are reminders of what I am not, and what I will never be.
In discussions of beauty – particularly those on women centered blogs – white women can understand being held up to an unrealistic standard of beauty. To be impossibly thin, impossibly blonde, impossibly clear skinned, with a body that defies the law of physics is presented as something that is attainable if you try hard enough and buy the right products, though many women find these efforts to be futile. What most of these conversations do not understand is that when black women pick up these kinds of magazines, or watch advertisements on TV, or popular television shows with popular white actresses, we do not get the message “try harder.”
The message we receive is never.
You will never look like this. Not if you straighten your hair, or lose weight, or work out every single day, or have the perfect body and the perfect wardrobe to match. Even if you fit all those requirements, you’re still “pretty for a black girl.” And if, for some reason, you do not fit these requirements, if your hair is frizzy or curly or kinky, if your thighs and ass will always keep your size in the double digits, if your features are not keen, if your skin tone is too deep, then there are many people who will never consider you beautiful.
They will never see who you are.
I remember reading an online conversation where a (presumably white) commenter had said “Well, every where I go, I hear Black is Beautiful!”
And I thought to myself yes, because that has to be stated – over and over again – for people to begin to believe it. The idea that white is beautiful is so common, so throughly saturated in our society, that is does not need mentioning.
It is just fact.
So, in watching the transformation of my friend’s dating habits, I also wonder about the influence of society. Why is it that now is the time he chooses to date white women almost exclusively? Is it because we are approaching the age for marriage and children? Why is it that the women he chooses to consider long term relationships with are always white?
Occasionally, my black woman rage seeps out and I find myself lecturing him. While I am currently on the sidelines of the dating pool, I see my single black female friends who are gorgeous and talented and ambitious and caring and wonderful remain single while my quirky, IBM** on paper best friend brings by white woman after white woman and I just want to know why.
And then it hits me. I don’t really have a problem with him dating white women.
I do have a problem with the specific white women that he is dating.
Back in high school, we were all learning our tastes. So while he dated a seemingly endless stream of girls, of varying races and ethnicities, they all had a few things in common. They were bold, intelligent, and interesting. They had some physical traits in common, but for the most part, the girls he dated back then were defined by their personalities. I remember one girl dyed her blond hair varying colors to match her mood and wore a piece of hardware on a chain around her neck just so she could tell the boys to “suck her nuts.” The other girls from that era were equally as interesting and colorful and I can remember most of their likes and interests.
Page 2 of 4 | Previous page | Next page