Black men, White men, and every man deserve a fair shot
I am pissed as I write this blog post. I generally refrain from writing blog posts when I am mad because it sometimes can cloud one’s judgment. I have however heard this crap enough that even when pissed I can address it.
Before I get into my prose, let me assert to everyone reading this, I am mostly void of overt or internal prejudices. I say mostly because like muscle memory there seem to be certain parts of the unconscious mind that behaves that way and must be retrained whenever it involuntarily reacts.
Beauty is subjective and society tends to arbitrarily define it at the detriment of many. I believe all human beings are inherently beautiful irrespective of race or skin tone. This is not a cliché, I have been reprogramming my mind not to think based on the caricatures we see in the mass media. Lastly, I believe folks should be with whomever they want to be with. Moreover if they find a certain tone, race, size, shape, hair type, and culture, that turns them on more so than some other, they should feel free to do so.
That said, what I find ignorant about the article “Why I Am No Longer Interested In Black Men” is the generalization the author Wendy James makes. As an engineer I am generally concerned about numbers first. They are absolute.
According Pew, a record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another. Since the article is about Black men relative to Black women I will concentrate there. 16% of Blacks marry outside their race. 22% of Black males marry outside the race while 9% of Black females marry outside their race. Before black women jump on that number they must note socioeconomic reason that can be inferred for both Black men and Black Women that is beyond the scope of this post. Suffice it to say that by the numbers 78% of Black men marry Black women. If one extrapolates a much higher incarceration rate for black males in the lower economic strata and that folks in a higher economic strata live in more integrated areas, it should not be difficult to normalize those numbers.
But back to the article at hand. When growing up my mother always told my two sisters and me that if you lay with dogs you generally rose with fleas. In other words you tend to mimic those you surround or vice versa.
Wendy James said,
I used to love black men so much that I dated them exclusively for a long time and then I began to notice something.
The love is unlikely to be returned.
Why would she do that? This is 2014. One would think she would date someone attuned to her. Her making race a qualifying factor is no different than the ignorant Black man who dates exclusively White women.
Wendy James statement below is probative and it puts my mother’s words into context.
Initially, it began with celebrities. Many black male celebrities are married to or dating non-black women. Names like golfer Tiger Woods, basketball champ Kobe Bryant and billionaire and music mogul Dr Dre, who could contribute significantly to the black community and to black families, have chosen not to.
They avoid black women like the plague. There is nothing wrong with interracial dating but the level that black men do is distressing. It’s as if they believe that dating white women will make society more accepting of them.
In the UK, you would be fortunate to find a black footballer or even a black actor with a black wife. They loathe their women so much that they even slander them in front of their white companions, much like the black male I mention in the opening paragraph. The hurtful and humiliating comments appear to be a dismal attempt to ruin the self-esteem of their women.
Her frame of reference are the entertainers and the athletes. Though very visible they represent a fraction of the entire Black male population, yet she holds them up as representative. Most Americans should (or anyone else) should not use entertainers and athletes as marriage validators or trend setters.
There is self-hate in every race, culture, or creed. It is true that it is more prevalent in Blacks and Browns because White privilege is still in vogue however hidden or unrecognized by most. The solution is not writing shallow pieces like Wendy James’ article. I am sure she lashed out because of what has happened to her. She must take responsibility for her own part in her problems with Black men. And to Black women and all women in general, maybe when misogyny is no longer supported by your support of misogynistic entertainers and athletes, things would change for you.
Maybe Wendy James should try some Engineers, Accountants, Doctors, Lawyers, Plumbers, Electricians, Policemen, Firemen, Sanitary Engineer etc. of any race. It seems like her pool based on her examples may be very narrow and limited.
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