I guess I never really got why it is such a big deal to date outside your race until I left my small hometown and decided it was OK for my White boyfriend to come visit me at my all Black college. For the first time I experienced racism from my own kind and it was NOT pleasant.
His name was *Alex and he was the love of my life (at the time). We did everything and went everywhere. The brothers didn’t hide that they hated seeing us together. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I found it strange that these same men paid me NO attention when I was single and ready to mingle. Now I have a real-life Ken doll and my brothers have an attitude!?!! Go figure.
Crossing the color line when it comes to dating is a personal choice. You either do or don’t, but perhaps you simply never had the opportunity.
Dating across the coloring line is nothing new. From Frederick Douglass to Love Addiction’s Marcus, many have found true love as well as heart break when crossing the color line. But if you cross the street into milk-in-your-coffeeterritory is dating much different?
Relationship foolishness can be found in your own backyard regardless of if you and your mate share similar skin tones but sometimes cultures can clash. Either you get each other or you don’t but such vast differences can definitely be a deal breaker.
For instance, the time Alex slipped up and said a phrase commonly said by Caucasians when African Americans aren’t around, or the time when he wanted to rock my sorority t-shirt. Can you imagine!?!!* A tall blonde White dude rocking sorority gear at a historically Black university. Can you say RIOT!
We were young and dumb but such culture clashes resulted in us going our separate ways. No matter how you slice it, there are some cultural differences. The question is can you handle them?
According to a 2010 Pew Research Center study, "Intermarriage," or marriages of people who come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are becoming increasingly more common in the U.S. In fact, such hook-ups have more than doubled since 1980, with 15 percent of marriages in 2010 being interracial. 17% of these couples are Black, 9% White and 26% Hispanic. (Source)
What I found most interesting, is Black males top the intermarriage list. About 24% of Black male newlyweds in 2010 married outside their race compared to only 9% Black female newlyweds.(Source)
So the same brothers that were giving me such a hard time in college are probably now married to Becky and I’m single? Life’s funny isn’t it!
My motto is, “Don’t sit home alone if you don’t have too,” and I am sticking to it! I know we may have our hearts set on an Obama brother (and we are all aware of his interracial background) but if that doesn’t happen, then what? The book Is Marriage for White People? says that Black women have the power to modify the “relationship market” by marrying interracially.
Maybe there is something to that theory. I’m not saying to give up on your Cosby Show dream family but with stats like this, a sister would have to be on another planet to not sit up and take serious notice.
There are so many factors that can cause an interracial hook-up that I couldn’t possibly name them all. Perhaps, the #1 factor is simply love.
* Names have been change
