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Recently, my gal pal and I were chatting about everything from cocktails that give you the best buzz for your buck to relationships and dating. This led to a rant about the sister’s slim pickings, which eventually led to her dusting off the good old Black-men-don’t-like-Black-women record that’s on constant spin. Ughhhhhhhh, here we go again!

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Among her long list of examples, she mentioned Kimye (Kanye and Kim), Hollywood Hino (from VH1’s La La’s Full Court Life) who said “they attitude” after being asked why he’s never with Black chicks and the most recent of them all, Chad and Ev (though that seems to be a done deal).

Though I really wanted to decline the invitation to her pity party, I accepted the invite and listened as she vented. My sisters have been singing this bitter heartbreak tune for years, and I too was one in the choir—until my voice got hoarse and tired from the same wailing notes.

I wasn’t annoyed that a lot of Black men seemed to be stepping outside the color line (I actually think it’s beautiful when a sincere love is strong enough to conquer cultural differences); my annoyance was more about the “other” slowly starting to become the preference–like Black men weren’t even looking for Black women anymore.

I was aggravated after watching pretty brown girls come into the game with our ballers, rappers and actors, but slowly get traded out for lighter shades. After sitting on the aggravation for a while, I just stopped caring. I realized that for the percentage of Black men who don’t value our beauty like they do others’, it’’s their own internal issue that really has nothing to do with me.

It’s not my problem that I used to be good enough until his climb up the corporate ladder. It’s not my problem that he mistakes my calling him out on midnight creeps as a bad attitude. It’s not my problem that he doesn’t see beauty in the same type of woman that brought him into this world. It’s not my problem that he’d rather go get something new who wouldn’t have even looked his way before he made it. That lack of admiration he has for the girl who has chocolate skin and beautiful kinky hair, much like his own, is a result of his own insecurities, not mine or yours.

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After really listening to and processing the typical excuses for Black men to date outside their race—attitudes, not sexually experimental, not adventurous enough, etc—I found them to be over-generalizations that had nothing to do with the real reason Black men date interracial. The over-generalizations were only means to justify Black men’s crooked logic that “other” was the last step to prove they’d “arrived.”

In a society (especially within the entertainment industry)that celebrates “other,” women that aren’t Black act as accolades needed to land a top spot in the hierarchy of popular culture. As Black women, we too could definitely make a list of stereotypical over-generalizations of why we just can’t with Black men: they’re all locked up, they’re not educationally equivalent, they don’t make the same amount of money, they’re all on the down-low and so on. If we just want to be all the way real about it, our list could probably have a little more statistical backing; but I won’t go there.

Coming to this realization, I wasn’t going to continue to entertain or trip about something that had nothing to do with me, and I urge you (and my friend) to do the same. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “What others think of you is none of your business.” Other people’s negative, false perceptions of you are a reflection of their own shortcomings, not yours. Don’t waste time being bitter and complaining about the negative because then you fail to see all of the positive, including the bunches of Black men who still adore us. Jay-Z, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Denzel Washington and Will Smith are among the many. And if it still bothers you, why don’t you follow the brothers’ lead and try coloring outside the lines? You just might find yourself falling for an “other” too!

What are your thoughts on Black men dating outside of their race? Does it bother you or are you over it?

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