Not only do I date outside of what society insists is my race, I do so unapologetically. There is little more important to me than my independence and over the years I have developed the audacity to not care what others think of my personal life. Still there are those who feel that:
a) I care about their opinions on my romantic choices
b) They have the right to an opinion on the aforementioned choices
And far worse
c) They have the right to shout those opinions across the subway/park/cafeteria/street at me in a vain attempt to shame me or at least disturb my bliss.
I think we know who I am talking about- racist, angry marginalized-feeling black men. Few black women who date interracially have not been accosted by these guys. The tale is always a slight variation or mélange of the following scenarios.
Scenario One: A black woman is minding her own business in a public place and is approached by a black man she finds undesirable for whatever reasons. She refuses to respond to his advances, which can range from a polite rap to crude animal noises, prompting him to get ugly and accuse her of looking down on him because he is black. This is usually followed by accusations of her being "uppity" (how dare a sister be confident and selective) or disorganized crass verbal abuse with a bit of righteous indignation. Clearly this man is being rejected on the basis of his skin color and not because the woman is simply not into him. Apparently, she should be so flattered that a strange black man (supposedly a scarce commodity, are they printing that schlock themselves) has approached her that she should immediately submit herself to him, hand over her digits and felate him on the spot no questions asked. Duh!
As an aside, if these guys suspect rejection why do they bother to approach and what makes it clear to them that a woman has not limited her options to 20% of 12% of the population. Personally, I wear a pin that says “no brothers” (joking), but I mean for the rest of us.
Scenario Two: A black woman, accompanied by her non-black man, looks a little too happy and secure in the relationship. This provokes the ire of a black male passerby who just can’t stand it and proceeds to accuse her of being “uppity”, an “Uncle Tom” etc. (please refer to the tirade summarized in Scenario One) as if her man is not there. In this case the angry man’s skin color works for him as the non-black companion usually does not want to get into a fracas that the press will somehow ultimately paint as a hate crime with the brother as the victim. Also, the embarrassed sister usually wants the incident to be over and dissuades her man from getting into the confrontation which is after all “not about him”. What a shame for everyone! The woman is mortified, the brother gets what he wants without sustaining a much deserved ass kicking and the other guy is not even allowed to defend the honor of the relationship. Well, we have come a long way.
Usually no one who witnesses any of these events comes to or is allowed to come to the aid of the black woman. This begs many questions. Why is this behavior acceptable? Are we supposed to accept that black men are so damaged by society that they granted carte blanche to be racist misogynists (that’s right, I said it again)? Are black women the last viable target for their misplaced anger and if so how can we change this? Of course, there is always ass kicking which i think they might respond to, but this unlikely to take hold on a grand scale. Although I wonder how these dudes would react if someone approached them with a tirade of racial hatred.
I have no answers but I would love to put together a compendium aka blog of stories of black women in interracial relationships who have been harassed in the manners outlined above. I love it when people share their stories. It helps us keep things in perspective and it transfers the burden from one and spreads it among many which makes it easier to bear.
I have had many conversations with women in which we try to understand the motivation behind those who harass us. We go back and forth from anger to confusion to attempts at understanding but we will never really know. Enough, lets focus on someone we have control over – ourselves- and lets get those stories out there!
By the way, haters need not respond. Any intelligent person knows that I am only talking about a small selection of the black male demographic and aside from my father and a guy I dated in junior high I don’t hate black men any more than I hate people in general. And, I already said I don’t care a wit about your opinions. I wasn’t joking. Want to spread hate? Make your own reactionary site and send me the URL, I always need more material for my stand up.
I haven’t come up with a name yet. I am taking suggestions.
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