Dating Outside Your Race
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Spungen & trumwill: Black women’s antipathy towards interracial dating is no myth, and the topic of much discussion in black women’s magazines and the fodder for quite a few black comedy routines (the most famous of which being Chris Rock’s routine on how black men are indifferent to white men who come to black clubs because they know black women will pay them no attention).
I’m a black woman from an upper-middle class background and most of my black female friends who are also upper-/middle class simply will not date interracially. I’m quite unusual in my social circle in that I regularly date white men - my black friends are not hostile about this at all (well, the female ones anyway - the men are somewhat less charitable), but the general vibe is “That’s great if it works for you, but it’s not my thing” and will generally brush off white men who express interest in dating them.
Those who’ve taken the plunge have done so tentatively with much fretting, confusion, and constant back-and-forth with their friends - the meaning of one simple date is ridiculously overblown due to the racial difference. Find an Interracial Friend Today!
This seems totally counterproductive, of course - there are far more affluent, professional black women than black men and if they want to marry someone who is their socioeconomic equal, their odds are going to be greatly improved by looking outside the race but come hell or high water, so many black women are determined to hold out for their IBM (Ideal Black Man).
From what I can see, their resistance to interracial dating seems to be based on a variety of things: A) a genuine physical preference for black men (hence the ubiquitous expression “He’s cute…for a white guy”) B) a strong desire to be with someone with similar cultural touchstones/shared experiences who just “gets it” and with whom they can let their guard down - black men just feel like home to them.
C)suspicion/distrust of white men (that WM want to have sex with them but not be in a serious relationship with them/that they see black women as wild rap video hos (akin to Asian women who suspect their appeal to white men is based on submissive geisha girl fantasies) D)some vaguely political sense of needing to uplift/support the race & black family life - interracial dating is like a betrayal of that
E)a general view of white people as practically belonging to a different species. I get some truly bizarre questions from black women who know I date white men (as in “Is it true that white guys (insert bizarre behavior/strange physical characteristic, etc?) that seem to suggest they just view them as so different, strange, & foreign to themselves that it’s not surprising that they can’t imagine dating them.
Throughout my life, whenever I’ve entered a new social/work situation, which due to my field & personal interests/hobbies, tend to be mostly white it usually goes the same way - men giving a lot of sidelong glances & sort of feeling me out - creating that strange vibe you get when a man seems interested in you, but for some reason is not quite showing his cards, until they get a sense that I’m open to dating them or actually see me dating another white person. Later on, they’ve told me that they’ve felt more cautious about approaching a black woman than, say, an Asian or Hispanic woman, because they just felt like black women were less open to dating them - there was just a wider gulf to cross. I used to find this somewhat annoying, but I have to admit this wariness is based in fact.
