So lately I have been meeting a plethora of really nice guys. They’re handsome, intelligent, quirky (but not crazy), and generally interesting enough to pique my curiousity and sustain my attention outside of a five-minute IM session or a cute picture (which in all instances, I actually believe might be them). There’s just one thing.
None of them are Black.
I remember back in the day how adamant I used to be concerning interracial dating. In short, I just wasn’t doing it. I dated Black guys, I flirted with Black guys, and I sexed Black guys exclusively. I’m not sure when it happened that I decided to pursue seeking other races, but it was probably in California with a 10 1/2 inches of Hispanic dick down my throat.
*ahem*
Last night, I was chatting it up with this guy and we were talking about music and movies and stuff and I was thinking to myself “how come I don’t ever get to talk about this stuff with Black guys I meet online”? Maybe it’s because I say hello and they respond with “Top or bottom”. Maybe it’s because I don’t get down on being called a “nigga” (or any other typographical alternative therein) by a Black person. Maybe they don’t get my sense of humor. Maybe it’s because I loathe modern rap and R&B because it has trite lyrics and repetitive, noisy beats. On the flip side, how could they be viewing me? Sambo? Mandingo? Big black cock? Urban tour guide? Magical Negro? Exception to the stereotype? Ex’s revenge?
Rationalization, 1. Karsh, 0.
I find myself thinking of that Ketih Boykin article “When Black Men Won’t Date Other Blacks”:
In a culture that devalues black males and elevates white males, it seems less likely that white male racial self-exclusion is rooted in self hatred than it would be with black males. After all, white men have no reason to hate themselves in a society that reinforces their privilege. Black men, on the other hand, are repeatedly assaulted by messages that communicate our alleged inferiority.
Let’s face it — racism is still a problem in the LGBT community. So why should I chase somebody who doesn’t want me? I have no interest in spending my time trying to get a prejudiced white man to look at me in a white gay bar or to talk to me in an Internet chat room. I’d rather spend my time talking to that cute, intelligent black man who the white man is ignoring.
All I can say is if you find that Black man, let me know.
I’ve been with a few white boys, many Latin and of course many, many brothas. I can appreciate beauty in many forms, but my strongest love will always be for my own. My impression is that darker people are taught to look outside their ranks, to look for validation from lighter skin.
Many brothaz and sistaz have made similar statements as yours. I can’t say that I fully agree. Many brothaz, like myself, are degreed, professionals, and can talk about books, movies, art, the whole spectrum. And play some ball, do the damn thang, lol. But I have great, stimulating conversations with brothaz. C’mon, I know you do, too. Right? LOL
Conversely, the opposite happens, Tyrone and Lil Roc wanting to get their freak on. But I get the same thing from whites, online and off.
It’s great that you’re exploring your options. But don’t start limiting them. Please! LOL Also, BTW, interesting backstory on that quote. I’ll send you an email.
Rod
Brotha2Brotha
I have to say that I am in agreement with Rod. And I am one of those black guys that you can’t seem to find. I have mostly dated outside of my race. Not out of taste but neccessity. I couldn’t find a brother that I could relate to that wasn’t some b-boy clone. The professional brothers I met thought I was too “artistic” even though I am degreed as well. I just happen to be in an artistic field. Or many brothers that had a similar lifestyle as mine exclusively dated whites, asians, or latinos.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of white clones and I don’t date them either but it was especially egregious coming from my own because I have spent my whole life try to explore “outside the box.” I am not going to change what who I am in other to fit some brother’s expectation of what black really is. I was born black and I am black even if I like Cyndi Lauper because I love Angela Bofill too
I won’t give up my search for my “Black Knight” but I won’t disregard other races. I recently had two guys that wanted my attention. One was white and the other black. I kept telling the white guy “no.” The black guy turned out to be a total fake but the white guy kept calling me. The white guys has been nothing but sweet and adoring towards me. The choice is clear here. But in my heart, I wish the white guy was black. Is that wrong?
LMAO at what was down ya throat in Cali…
I know this is going to sound way-fucked up, but it’s my reality of a mindstate I had when I first came out. I sexed white guys (the paler, the better) because I wanted to sex a more feminine (read=”southern belle”, more so than “sistah-gurl”) man, and, in my mind, that particular stereotype never fit the black guys I hung around with, hetero or (the few) homo.
Definitely not the same thinking today.
While I confess I used to get quite bent out of shape at the site of an interracial couple, I am long since over that, as well as any need to try telling other people who they should date. It’s hard enough finding love and companionship in this world without other people dipping in. Nevertheless, my own preference is to find another Black man to live my life with.
Having said that, I am currently single and have been it seems like forever. My ability to connect with other intelligent, professional, confident and secure, Black men, who want a committed, monogamous relationship with me, and with whom I share things in common, has been a search in vain. I can’t tell you when I last had a date.
I’ve made the conscious decision to hold out for what I want and as a result now do my socializing alone. But I can appreciate folks who do what they have to do to break up the isoolation.
Does it really make a difference? I thought all men were the same. I’ve been ignored and dismissed by white and black men alike.
Last year was the first time I dated outside of the black race and it made me really think about outside the box with the whole interracial thing. I live at military base interracial dating is common place here. I went on dates with a few caucasian men as well as a Jamaican/Belizian guy who and it was cool actually. Could talk to them better than I could some of my own black American brothers. Dating these guys made me realize that I might be missing out on my man by limiting myself to just brothers. I am currently seeing a brother right now though and it is nice to now I have some options now cause living at a military base with the whole don’t ask, don’t tell policy can wreak havoc sometimes cause most black men here are seriously on the dl here and rightfully so though. Again I just keep my options open when it comes to the whole interracial thing.
Maybe I’m on my lonely, but I think race is a fiction (a very powerful one at that), and it might be high time to consider the kinds of investments we place within it. The way cultured and “conscious” black folks revere blackness amounts to a kind of fetishism–this is one thing Heru didn’t quite pick up on in his great post on fetishism @ blackfunk.org. You know, I like kente and mudcloths, too, but their existences and histories don’t make me cum any harder or faster.
Fetishism is not something only practiced by white boys. I’m not even saying it’s bad; indulge it, but don’t be a slave to it. Holding out for Mister Black Mister Right means that you are attributing a lot of things based on son’s blackness, that his blackness will make him be like this or like that, turning race to a kind of totem, an American totem that switches from phallus to baton to nightstick depending on who wields it. Same thing happens for whiteness, another fiction reinforced by every fucking facet of our Western society.
My reaction, however, could be both a generational and a regional thing–I’m younger and spent most of my life growing overseas as a military brat. My perspective and sense of Eros in relation to race would be much different, I gather, had I spent my formative years in the U.S. I say this mostly because Keith Boykin’s article assumes that white people and black people are fixed in their identities, that race and desire (or totems and taboos) aren’t at all subject to change, evolution or mutation. Leroi Jones and Jack Kerouac fucking under some New Jersey bridge in the ’50s (a hypothetical, but the shit prolly went down) has a different erotic charge for me than if same thing occurred between E. Lynn Harris and David Sedaris today.
Just my thoughts. -kharypolk@yahoo.com