…And the “why are so many Black women single?” discussion continues. Deep, long sigh. Following the success of its story, “
Single Black and Lonely,” that sparked new fire under the conversation about un-hitched successful Black women, the Washington Post is back with an article entitled, “
Single black women urged to date outside race,” about a new book called “Don’t Bring Home a White Boy: And Other Notions That Keep Black Women From Dating Out,” about why Black women are limiting themselves to Black men. “Black women are in market failure,” the book’s author Karyn Langhorne Folan told Washington Post. “The solution is to fund a new market for your commodity. And in this case, we are the commodity and the new market is men of other races.” We asked our
Facebook friends “Is anything keeping you from dating men outside of your race? If so, what is it?” to find out if their reasons coincided with Folan’s notions listed in the article. Folan’s reasons (in bold, below) rang true to these readers:
Reason 1: “After slavery, I would never, ever date a white man” “I am unwilling to give up something freely to them that was once TAKEN!” commenter Ebony Griggs-Griffin wrote.
Reason 4: “I don’t find white men attractive “ Nothing against dating outside my own race,” Chontay Woodruff admitted. “I just prefer and [am] attracted to my own race.”
Reason 5: “White men don’t find black women attractive unless they look like Beyonce” “Don’t know how to meet guys that are open,” Akira T. Anderson admitted.
Reason 8: The sellout factor “A lil voice in my head that does not want to hurt or offend the men in my family by bringing home another race I feel like I would be taking away their work and what they instilled in me and they probably do not even feel that way,” says Shahida Nmn Mimms.
Reason 9: “We’d be too different” “I can’t imagine explaining to a man of another race why I only wash my hair once a week or why I wear weave and that he can’t run his fingers through my hair. It’s just too uncomfortable for me,” said Seana Marie Brooks. There were also plenty of responses from women who say that they happily date or are married to white and non-Black men. Natasha Williams wrote, “When all my friends were complaining–and some still are–that there were no good available men out there, I decided to not fall into that same rut and was open to any decent guy who would ask me out. I’ve been dating interracially [sic] for the past 15 years. I’ve been with my current boyfriend for 4 years and we are talking about taking it to the next level now. Everyone in my family thinks he is awesome, including my brother. I’ve found that all men are basically the same in one way or another.” Personally, I approach dating the way Angelina Jolie approaches child adoption, so part of me is asking, “why are we even talking about this?” In this free world–the world in which a Black man can be president of the United States; the world in which Black people have broken down barriers after barrier and have gone from being a sub-culture to the pop-culture (just check the Billboard charts)–why aren’t more of us comfortable with “dating out” anyway? Furthermore, while I’m all for equal opportunity dating, I think that who you date should be a choice based on empowerment, not fear that you’ll end up
…aah… alone (wouldn’t that just be the worst thing that could ever happen?). All this attention to the single Black female can seem like fear mongering. The statistics and the media can make it seem like we’re desperate to meet men and we’ll try anything, even
…gasp… dating outside our race (because then we’d
really be settling–insert eye roll). Let’s date out because we want to be adventurous, because we’ve met people that we’re interested in and could care less if they are blue or green, because love is limitless, so we shouldn’t limit who we love. Sisters, approach dating outside your race in the same way you would approach dating
within your race–not because you
need love, but because you deserve it girl!
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