I used to cringe every time I heard a black woman
cry about a black man they saw with someone from a different ethnic group. It
used to literally make me nauseas because, to me, it assumed that just because
people have tha same outside wrapping means that they’re automatically supposed
to be a match. Tha simplicity of such fallacious logic never made sense to me,
but in this arena we weren’t dealing with logic. This was some straight
emotional stuff sent over by tha special effects department. As this socially
discomforting drama would unfold, quickly rising to a full scale code red alert
tha glaring black woman would often eventually enlist tha help of a few friends
who likewise expressed their utter contempt for what they saw. As tha fully
fueled and battle ready sortie readied themselves for takeoff I could only look
on in pity at tha poor, unsuspecting villains who, until tha storm clouds of
dissension had formed, were probably having a good time. And God please don’t
let it be a white girl. That was usually his, and her, death warrant…lol…..
Over tha years I learned that their anger/frustration wasn’t random. It was
very specific. Yes, and while tha often unsuspecting female companion was made
to feel as unwelcome as someone showing up to fashion week wearing overalls and
an Elmo t-shirt it was tha black man who received tha majority of the visual
gunshot blast. Tha often raw emotions hid what was really at tha core of tha
reaction: tha black man consciously chose tha other. Being told that we live in
a society that values a more Eurocentric standard of beauty is a foregone
conclusion. Most of tha fashion magazines that you see while standing in line
at tha grocery store display images that, except for hair color, could pretty
much all be tha same woman. Whenever a Black woman graces one of these covers
it becomes such a big deal because, well, it’s out of tha norm to say that
something not gleefully Eurocentric is actually worthy of being a standard of
beauty. And then there are cultural differences. Tha African culture is a very
expressive, live out loud experience. How we love, how we communicate, how we
feel music, how we dance, how we desire, they all solicit passion. It is a
fundamental element of who we are as a people. Of course there are varying in-house
degrees of temperance. We’re not all running around a fire, naked, at night on
tha beach (which sounds kind of cool…and is actually something an “other”
girlfriend once told me her family thought black people did…seriously). Some of
us find it equally fulfilling sitting in a quiet room all day long fully
engaged in a book, a variety of cheeses and a cup of herbal tea. While we may
all have tha same root truly there are many different branches to our tree.
That we are not monolithic is quite evident, but rarely a message that we hear.
Tha prevailing messages that we do hear and see tend to be tha most damaging
ones. For instance, if you turn on tha radio and listen to pop music, most of
those messages are two-dimensional at best. They mostly consist of “your booty
is_____________” or “I’m wanna take you home and _____________”, or “let’s
________”. All of the songs sound the same. And the videos are…let’s just say
they’re pretty much soft porn. In them women have been reduced to being the
basest form of sexual objectification. In fact that’s their only job. Having a
big butt and walking across the screen in clothes that are too tight must be a
hard job to cast for. So the next logical role that many young women feel
forced into assuming, if they want to get the attention of the vast majority of
young hustlers, ballers and shot callers, is that they have to look like the
video girls. So now you have an inordinate amount of young women getting boob
jobs, butt jobs, ribs removed and plastic surgery. And what’s the result? You
have an army of young women, and men, sprinting to the bottom of social
decency. My goal is not to bemoan pop culture. It is what it is. It has always
been about making money by appealing to the least common denominator in people.
I get it. But when you look at the most recent study by the Centers for Disease
Control regarding marriages by ethnic groups and out of four distinct ethnic
groups in this country, black women have the lowest rate of marriage at 29%.
Conversely, research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute reveals that black
teens between the ages of 15-19 have the hands down highest rate of all
abortions at 41%. So, do you still think those images don’t do any damage? Of
course they do. These images make it easy to perpetuate the myth of the
oversexed black woman. The numbers above speak for themselves. There’s a lot of
sex going on, but not a lot of marrying. Consciously choosing a black woman to
be your wife is quite different than choosing a black woman to go to bed with.
Those two are not even remotely the same thing. Sometimes consciously choosing
a black woman means turning off the television, getting up from in front of the
computer screen and actually going out and meeting one of them. That takes a
lot of courage and a lot of men are chickens. It’s easy to hit it and quit it.
That doesn’t take any social skill nor does it exhibit the kind of backbone
that it takes to create a legacy. Why not choose a black woman to settle down
with? That means you’ll have to suspend any pre-conceived notions that you may
have (see fears) and realize that they’re as fiercely loyal, passionate,
creative, complicated, endearing, loving, supportive, calculating,
multifaceted, intelligent, reserved, vulnerable, alluring, articulate and
physically wondrous specimens as any woman worth loving is.
