race relations

as a darker skinned black girl growing up in sunny california, i have always been reminded that i was not deemed pretty. everyone in my immediate family (excluding my sister) was fair skinned and all my friends were fair-skinned as well. throughout grammar school and middle school and well into my sophmore year of highschool, the boys in my age group never let me forget that light skin was in. and white or asian was even better. so i did other things to make them fall for me. i was a champion kick ball competitor, tetherball contender, huffy bike racing all around tomboy. i thought, hey -- if i could be there friend long enough - we would turn into an afterschool special romance. it never happened. instead they always befriended me to hook them up with my best friend leeanna (think aaliyah). it went on like this for years. in highschool, i fell for my daughter's father because he prided himself in being attracted to dark skinned woman (though his ex before me was fair skin) so with him, i thought i atleast had a shot (ed note - i learned later that he was just telling me what i obviously feared, as he would cheat on me with a white chick named bobbie). it wasn't until i turned 21 that i realized i too was flyy!

now, the brown paper bag conditioning was something that played a huge role in my life even if i didn't realize it. my maternal grandfather had a serious color complex that my grandmother called him on. my mother tried to tell me often that i was as pretty as my cousins who had long beautiful hair and fair skin -- but tv and everything around me told me otherwise. besides, my mother and her fair complexioned freckled face couldn't tell me nothing when i watched men fall over her redbone beauty. i listened to my aunts compliment my caramel complexioned cousins calling them pretty and little black girls like me received compliments like funny or smart.

that being said. i was very aware of my place in the dating pool chain. i attended a high school with the majority population consisting of asians, then white, then black and mexicans. the athletes were usually black men who then dated asian girls. some of them dated black and mexicans, few of them dated white. it was considered taboo -- and if they did admit to dating different races, but only under the circrumstances that they were easier to deal with and didn't talk back like black girls.

this would be my first negative experience with interracial dating. i myself thought white guys were cute -- but none of them ever showed interest in me, so i kept my appreciation for white men limited to luke perry, richard grieco and mark walhberg (yo -- don't HATE!) as far as dating white men. i tried, several times. i thought, if they were nice, why not? however, i kept running into white boys who wanted to be black boys so much that they had the hip hop act down to a tee. one white boy refused to date white girls, saying he needed a BLACK QUEEN in his life. and the other one who supposedly had a crush on me -- then hollered at one of my good friends teneisha. before dumping her and getting with her older sister. this would be my second negative experience with interracial dating.

that said. i've had my encounters. so obviously, i didn't think it totally wrong. but as i grew older and went to college and watched the black athletes refuse black women strictly because they deemed black girls as "gold diggers", "mouthy & with too much attitude" and "sexually inhibited", i began to form an opinion. i began listening to the concerns of black women who were alone and feeling desperate to an extent and felt their pain. the same pain that i nursed during grammar school and middle school. i watched women dye their hair blond, lose weight until they were on the brink of an eating disorder and compromise themselves for a chance at someone who didn't want them. someone who seemed enamored by everything that they weren't. and it hurt. while i never fell into the trap of trying to become what Vogue, Vanity Fair & Cosmo deemed as beautiful, i beat myself up mentally for it. soon, a black dude with a white girl would pass me and i would start to pinpoint the differences between her and i. what she had that i didnt -- i didn't even have to be attracted to him! and afterwards i would always feel less than.

now, after i turned 21 and came into my womanness (so to speak) i became very brash and comfortable with my body. my new body, since i just had a daughter. and i attracted a different type of man. and since i was newly single (as i just found out about the other woman) i became more intune with men and the dating pool. it was during this time, that i felt the most secure. i would see interracial couples and not have a breakdown mentally. i didn't feel like i was less than the white girl on a black man's arm -- i just felt different. but when i heard comments from charles barkley and dennis rodham bad mouthing black women -- i felt betrayed. but quickly categorized them as stupid (taking note they had an uncanny resemblance to the ball players at my alumi mater Kennedy High). and i took my newfound love for poetry as a voice for these concerns.

i would talk to men who dated outside of the race and try to understand. i wanted to understand why there were more black men that dated outside of their race than woman. i wanted to know what was the difference, or if there was one. i wanted to know what black women did wrong. in many cases -- they would say the same thing: "they are easier, dont talk back. give me money, buy me things". and after awhile, i believed it. now, i dont think all interracial couples have this foundation. i think the unhealthy ones (like any other relationship) do. when i moved to NYC, i was like damn -- its high school all over again. i was in creative meetings listening to men talk about puerto rican woman like they were hot food. i've heard men say she's hot -- but her accent is too thick, she can't talk during sex! that disgusts me on sooo many levels, i can't begin to tell you.
in NYC, Latinas were hypersexualized and soon i would have to write a review about Black Eyed Peas for a hip hop publication and ripped into them for a song they had about Spanish Women. limiting their attraction to these women by using adjectives used when describing mexican food.

and it was here, in NYC, that i would have my first bout with this uneasy attraction. i dated a spanish cat. upon introduction i thought he was Black and later found out he was Dominican. no problem. i learned from dating a Puerto Rican model during my first months in NYC that it was considered disrespect if you mistook the two - so i thought i was in the clear when i told my new friend "oh, i thought you were black when i first met you". homeboy flipped out -- told me
he wasn't BLACK he was DOMINCAN. i asked him about the slave trade and the boats and the background of domincans -- i mean, i thought it was cool. he made sure i understood it wasn't and went so far as to tell me, if anything "I call myself a SPANISH NIGGA, but i AINT BLACK and i don't care what the history books say." ughhh, ok??? i tried not to sweat it -- if anything, i understood being a bit tight about certain ancestral things (ahem, my lightskin/darkskin complex) -- so we continued to hang out. it was soon after this incident when he would reveal his interest in me was simply because i was so soulful... i was soulful with an afro and just SO black. i was shell shocked.

and it was here, in NYC that i met my good friend and ex-roomate (by default, lol) Vic. she is a fair skinned beautiful and intelligent sista who with both Black and White parents. she admitted to me the inner battles a multi-cultural woman has to deal with:

1)black people who hate her cause she thinks she is better than them/treated better
2)white people who hate her cause she's not ALL white
3)people who are attracted to her because she is exotic

she admitted she always wanted to have dark skin. she envied my afro and said their was no denying i belonged. she was challenged daily about her birthrite. i never EVER thought of it from her perspective. and was totally and utterly ashamed of ever passing judgement. i guess the grass is always greener...

all that said let me make this sparkling clear: i believe in love.

if that means homosexual partners or interracial couples. i do not agree with people who refuse to date someone that may be the same race as they are -- i think thats a whole 'nother level of self hate (like a dude telling me white girls ain't got flava -- and he's white?!)...

now i don't have a problem expressing the pain that black women may/have feel. this being the catalyst for many conversations between J and I. i mean, if we don't talk about it -- black men will continue thinking "aw she's just jealous" -- instead of "damn, we have some deep psychological ish in our background. she may feel this way because this"...that's a giant leap in understanding the sexes!
and through these conversations, i have learned that there is nothing wrong with people having preferences (i.e., tall, short, voluptous, petite) -- though i'm sure there is a fine line treaded.