Thursday, October 11, 2012

HEY... DID YOU HEAR THAT..?


TACTICAL

Developed a strategy for dropping my classes with a counselor at school yesterday.  Bailed on the Intermediate Algebra and will wait until the week of Halloween to drop the philosophy class.  As far as going into the nuts and bolts of the decision here, I will prolly deal with that in the coming days (or weeks… it really is a small deal).
                            
COROLLARIES AND THEIR CONUNDRUMS

See, when you are a brother who dates outside of the ethnic group, you have to be prepared for some blowback.  For instance, “you have your white girl” is a dog whistle being blown.  It says that “You were too weak for a strong sister and you could not stand with a willful African-American Queen...blah, blah, blah”.  I refuse to believe that this is an issue with only one ethnic group (yeah, I am sure there are some good ol’ boys that would LOVE to have some “re-education classes” with me and the Princess in attendance), so the topic should not be that unfamiliar to anyone reading this journal, the struggle with race and how it impacts relationship.

The comments made, the reference to my having gotten “my white girl” and the one left in my blog recently about the hypocrisy that they perceive from my ramblings, break down into a code between African-Americans, at least for me.  I covered the “my white girl” statement but the hypocrisy one is more nuanced and subtle.  Does not alter that bullsh*t that is behind it, but still, it is something that as an African-American man that I take as an affront.  Pity, that I could not be having this discussion “up close and personal”, so that whatever is left out of in my writing would definitely come across face-to-face.

o·re·o/ˈôrēˌō/
Noun:
1.      A brand of chocolate sandwich cookie with a creamy white filling.
2.      offensive. An African-American who is seen, esp. by other blacks, as wishing to be part of the white establishment.


In my teens and as a young adult, there were several instances where I was accused of being an “oreo” because of my tastes and interests.  While I have always admitted to my being open and willing to be in an interracial relationship that was something that was not happening.  When I made it to school the first time in Carolina, there was young white woman who worked in the Four Season’s Mall, and we struck up a friendship of sorts.  One day as we shared a lunch at, of all places, Chick-fill-a, out of the blue she said something that explained why I had not dated a white girl as a civilian.  She said, “Mark, I like you but you are too white bread.  I need someone a little grimy, a little more “hood” than you will ever be, Detroit or not.”  I don’t remember what I could have said to her unsolicited comment, but I have kept that in my head as the definition to why I never really had a non-black girlfriend.  At the time, with gangsta rap being led by Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, as the walls between African-American men and White women were evolving beyond “Beulah Land”, it still had not reached the point where it was normalized enough for a cat like me.  The “prestige” of dating a white girl did not matter to me and I was not ever going to be able to provide the “homeboy experience”, with all the midnight calls from jail and getting the “bomb weed and drinking 40’s with the homies” for a young woman seeking that kind of adventure.

Fast forward to 2010.  Not only is there a bold as brass “rainbow club” just off of downtown here in Omaha, there are a gang of interracial couples walking around, from all levels of the socio-economic sphere.  And the way that they are integrated into day-to-day activities… I mean, no staring and no awkward silences… it was just a “live and let live” nonchalance that I did not expect to find in Omaha, of all places.

During the year that I put my social life on hold to 1) Get it together and 2) Wait out Nebraska, I would say that 75% of the “pings” I received were from White women.  Though I don’t think I am all that (yet all that is my goal!!), I have become accustomed to attracting the attentions of women, young and old, blue-chippers as well as non-qualifiers.  But the one sister who used the “cat’s paw” technique and would subsequently age me out, were typical of the African-American women that approached me.  With me being the semi-analytical person that I am, I had to try to quantify this curiosity and make more observations on the phenomena.

If I were to make a reach and describe what goes on between the brothers and the sisters in Omaha, it would be one of mistrust and much of that is due to the lack of African-American men who are stepping up and providing the kind of model for a balanced and healthy relationship.  Why this is, I think, is due to the culture and its permissiveness, which has erased the stigma of being immature and acting in poor taste, as Julia describes here in this recent incident on her “Highway…”

Combined with the other REAL and seemingly permanent conditions that make for fewer and fewer brothers who qualify, let alone are blue chip material, available for relationships, African-American women feel unfairly left behind.  They see (or so it seemed when I was a kid) couples like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian and wonder why could it not be Kanye with some beautiful sister.  It has always seemed like athletes were either being hypnotized by the “White She-Devil” once he escaped the gravity of being poor and living in the hood.  But now, it is not just the pimps and “wanna-be’s” who are leaving the farm.  Now you have a cat like me who is “bailing out” on the sisters.  But if Paul Harvey was telling this, I would figure that this would be a good as place as any to hint at “the rest of the story”…

6 comments:

Beth said...

I know that there is a whole level of interaction here that I've never been subject to, and a whole 'nother kind of tension. Growing up in rural Indiana and spending some time in the South, the usual prejudice among whites was against mixed-race relationships in general. I know that there are prejudices in the black community as well, which you have described.

I've never bought into it, and from the time when I even THOUGHT about relationships, I felt that people should be with whom they want to be with! Love whoever you want, right? For me, it's always been as simple as that. I know all kinds of other things get tossed into the mix, though.

I find it weird. I just want people to find their happiness.

GleamingFossil said...

So if you're "bailing out on sisters," why the need to talk about black women the way that you do? Just because you claim to have only dated a low percentage of white women in the past doesn't have anything to do with your choice today.
If you have no interest in black women, obviously that's your right. I just think its rather foul to attack black women or single black mothers, the way that you do here. Why do you even care?

It's insulting when black men turn to another race for love or whatever and then think it's their green light to try and put black women down and talk about them as if they are only damaged goods...as if they've sampled every "sistah" out in the world. It is especially irritating when that "black man" has black female children by single black mothers.

I have been a long time follower of your blog and was only a reader. My recent discovery of your dating choice has tarnished the image I had of you and I could no longer stay silent. Not because you are dating outside of your race but because you are now in the ranks of the typical black dude that gets on a high horse when they cross the color line and think they are entitled to put women of their own race down. I wonder how your "black" daughters, "black" sisters or black female friends would feel reading your rants.

Anyway...I part ways from your journey today. Have a nice life.

Mizrepresent said...

Where i am at, the location in GA...this is the norm...this is what i see every.single.day. And, truthfully, it used to bother me...but not anymore. Your choice, their choice, in love is exactly that CHOICE. If you, him, or them were meant for me, this Brown Sugar, then it would have happened long before reading this post or your hooking up. Happy for you to be just happy and Mark, that is all. SMILE!

Ken Riches said...

Someday it will all be about what is on the inside, and the outside will truly be irrelevant...

Anonymous said...

I think it's easier for a white guy to date outside of his race than it is for the other races. Except for certain sections of the rural South, I don't think white people feel like were Race Traitors because we fell in with a different skin tone.

Reggie said...

My brother in law is Caucasian and he's a really nice guy. I honestly couldn't imagine my sister with anyone else.

I'm glad they found each other.