OK, so this week I get to talk about my 25th
wedding anniversary, which was last Tuesday. 25 years married, and 27 as a
couple. Not too shabby. And I’d gladly sign up for another 25. Of course, we’ll
both be old and decrepit by then. On the other hand, people are looking good
and functioning better for longer and longer these days. So who knows?
Anyway, our 25th anniversary brings us back to
that Cheerios commercial that caused so much of an uproar among certain less
enlightened members of our population. As of this date, 15% of new marriages
are interracial, inter-ethnic, or whatever you want to call it. In fact, I
think we’ve reached a very important tipping point, and it will increase even
more in the near future (anyone for 25% in 10 years?). The website wearethe15percent.com documents some of these marriages, and if you scroll
through long enough, you’ll find a picture of the four of us…although we’re not
happily posing with boxes of Cheerios, as one family did.
And this brings me to something that Cheryl put on her Facebook page:
I want to say this about my anniversary. In the 25 years Keith and I have been married, we have had to face very few unpleasant racial incidents. I think I could count them on one hand. We have had a multi-racial marriage for 25 years and NO ONE CARES! I know other people have experienced unpleasantness, and their experience is their experience, but my experience is true and valid, too. Surely people have privately disapproved, but the support and friendship Keith and I have received has been overwhelming.
I’d like to take a little time to talk about both of those
incidents. Yes, there were only two; and they both involved women. Black women.
They were women who were offended at the sight of Cheryl with me because to
them it represented her stealing something that was “rightfully theirs.” It
represented me passing them up to choose someone from “outside the community.”
And there are many of those women still around. In fact, a fair number of them
came out of the woodwork during the whole Cheerios debate. They feel perfectly
justified in their feelings, and don’t see themselves as bigots. Well, to those
ladies, I have three words:
Get over it.
Really. I’m going to try to explain this is very small words
so that they’ll understand me.
When I was in my 99% black high school, I dated black
girls…or at least tried to. I was a little too geeky even for the smart girls
in my school. When I moved on to college, I found a much wider pool of geeks to
hang out with, and most of them were white. Obviously, you date who you know
and hang out with, so I ended up dating white girls.
But here’s the very important point. In fact, it’s so
important that it will be on the test. Whenever I found a black girl that I
liked, and was considering asking out, it turned out that she was already
seeing someone…someone who just happened to be white.
Now far from me taking offense at this, railing against the
girl for passing me up for “one of them,” and at the guy for “stealing
something that was rightfully mine,” I took a sense of validation from this.
Why? Because if this girl was dating a white guy, it obviously meant that we
shared the same set of values; values that judged people not by the color of
their skin, but by the content of their character. Well…OK…we also judged by
whether or not the other person was good-looking, but that’s just human nature.
These are values that the women who felt wronged by Cheryl,
and who feel wronged every time they see a black guy with a white girl, don’t
have. And this clash of values meant that we never would’ve gotten along in the
first place. So ironically, they’re complaining about not being able to have
something that they wouldn’t have wanted.
But there’s something more basic going on here. There’s
something even more important that these women are missing in their kvetching
and kvelling about people like me and Cheryl. This is where the test comes in. If
every black girl I was ever interested in when I was in college seemed to
already be dating a white guy, then what is the likely correspondence between
black girls with white guys and white girls with black guys?
If you said 1:1, then you got an A+. Congratulations.
In other words, it was a total wash, and statistically no
one lost out. The black girl who I would’ve been a good match for is not
complaining that I ended up with Cheryl and I’m not complaining that she’s
spent the last 25 or 30 years happily married to a guy whose last name just happens to be DelVecchio.
And if neither one of us is complaining, if we’re each happy
for each other, then everyone else just needs to shut up and get over it.
So there!
Posts
Black women have been portrayed in the media mostly as the hardened, less beautiful, hyper sexed versions of our white counterparts. Black men, however, with the advent of televised sports and music, have been portrayed to the world as verile and attractive, and even more so today. Of course, black men face negative stereotypes as well but the stereotypes have done little to diminish their desirability. Black men have more options regarding interracial dating and marriage and the more they exercise those options the less desirable black women feel and are seen by the global community. If black men don't want their own women, why would anyone else. And for those that do chose black women, let's not even talk about colorism....
ReplyDeleteThe point is, as black ppl, we never got our house in order. We've barely taken control of our images in the media, we still haven't tackled the disproportionate amount of poverty, and we have yet to address the myriad of other issues that affect our long abused community. Instead, we try to ignore the facts, ignore the abuse, and ignore the important role that black marriage has in strengthening both our image and our wealth.
To that point, I am happy for anyone that's happily married. I am however, unhappy with the idea that you, and black men like you refuse to understand your role in further diminishing black women's cache, and in essence black people's collective worth.
This, of course, will fall on deaf ears because had you understood, your blog post would be titled something completely different.
Also, it looks as though the ratio you give as an example has come from personal observation during your matriculation at college. Awkward teen behavior and limited scope aside, I would point you to a Pew Research study with data culled btwn. 2008-2010 on interracial marriage:
ReplyDeleteGender patterns in intermarriage vary widely. About 24% of all black male newlyweds in 2010 married outside their race, compared with just 9% of black female newlyweds.
-http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/02/16/the-rise-of-intermarriage/
This my friend, speaks to something beyond love, but an endemic.
Ah, Anonymous, it's too bad I don't have your email address, because I feel that we could have a fascinating conversation, despite the fact that we seem to disagree with each other.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, I didn't form a "negative opinion of black women" based on any images from the media. Indeed, I had no particular opinion of black women at all. My parents raised me, even in the mid 1960s, to view everyone...white, black, or purple…as equal. Therefore to me a good-looking and nice black woman was no different than a good-looking and nice white or Asian one. It was purely the luck of the draw that I ended up with someone who just happened to be white. And for me to say, "No, I can't even consider someone who isn't black" would, at least in my mind, make myself as bigoted as those we protested against.
Now…I know that bigoted is a loaded word. And I know that among certain ethnic groups, "keeping to your own" is a big deal. Say for example with Orthodox Jews, or many first generation immigrant groups. And while we don't quite call it bigoted, while we don't quite call it closed-minded, I think that it may still get pretty close at times.
If I really believed in the ideal of a world where you were judged by the content of your character rather than the color of your skin, then I would be a hypocrite to say, "No, not you. You're a nice person, but I'm going to hold out for someone black."
But really, if you're still reading this, let's talk by email.