I Don't Understand What You Don't Understand

Everybody does a post on interracial relationships, right? Ok. Here we go.

Belle at A Belle in Brooklyn did a flashback post today. As a relatively new reader, it was my first time reading this version of the same sad story. Here was my response:

Honestly, though. I'm tired of the whole thing. Belle, I agree with you, I don't care if individuals choose to date outside their race, I do, however, take issue with individuals who try to make it about anything other than themselves. If you have a hang up, you have a hang up and that is not the entire (enter demgraphic)'s problem. In other words, this black man clearly has a strong attraction to white and asian (I note he did NOT mention Latina women...) and instead of saying that, he wants to make it about black women, as if we're at fault. False, sir. I do not know you, thus I hold no responsibility in that. Claim your preference and take whatever comes as a result.

Further, I'm beyond trying to convince black men who think like this of the err of their ways. Quite frankly, if you don't want me, I don't want you neither. Let's skip the semantics, carry on. I've never understood why we, us black women, fight them so hard on this. They've got a problem that is theirs, so they need to work that out. I say I don't understand, but I do -- I'm reminded of the video of that black woman on Tyra's show who began crying as she spoke about how it sometimes seems like no one wants black women. We want to be wanted, that's the nature of being a woman.

I'm just ready for people to stop trying to down black women as justification for what they do. It's crap -- and that's all.

I had been thinking about doing a post on interracial dating after a conversation I had with a friend last night:

Her: So yall goin on a date for the next 5 days?
me: Uhh... are we going on a date in the next 5 days?? No. Why would we do that?
Her: Cuz I'm sure yall pass goo-goo eyes every time yall see each other! What's up with u and white boys
me: LOL. Ok, first of all, I don't do goo-goo eyes
what's up with me and white boys? Uhh... they're boys? Is this a trick question?
Her: Lol
Shut up
me: what?? ur the one asking me a crazy question. what are you really asking me
Her: What's up with yall?
Lol
me: ok then.
Her: So....?
me: i don't have an answer for that question cause there isn't anything up with me and white boys

I'm pretty consistently surprised at how fascinated people are by the fact that I do date non-black men. I date men. I'm attracted to men so I date them. This makes sense, right?

I was even more taken aback by this friend because she dates women (did everyone notice I did not say she is a lesbian? Ok -- that's important). I felt like she'd get it -- it's about who you're attracted to, and she'd go even further and say it's about being open on who you're attracted to. Now whether or not anyone agrees with that, the fact is, that's how she sees things, but she has been FASCINATED (almost to the point of criticism) by how I've dated white men. I don't get it. I wanted to respond to her "what's up with me and white boys? What's up with you and girls?" but I didn't -- that wasn't all that important.

Anywho, the point I'm trying to make is that I could go into all of the social reasons why I'm open to dating outside of my race and make some larger point about how we all need to just chill out and mind our own business, which was what I intended to do until I read Belle's post. You know, ultimately, one shouldn't have to justify why they choose to be in relationships with whomever they choose to be in relationships with. That's the individual's business and surely none of mine. No one should ever, in my opinion, justify the type or sort of people they are attracted to. Attraction in and of itself is hard to explain and thus is all the explanation necessary.

I used to be fascinated by other's fascination and now I'm a wee-bit annoyed by it. There's nothing to see here, I always want to say. I'm not interested in having some long drawn out discussion about who I'm attracted to and why because trying to explain it, to me, is like trying to justify it and I should not need to justify that.

I have found that most of the time there's a larger question they want to ask or discussion they want to have that usually goes back to how "black" I am, which is also a stupid question. I'm black. That's enough -- who I do or don't date has nothing to do with my ethnicity.

On a final note, I'll never, ever try to "justify" or "explain" why I date non-black men by placing the blame on anyone else. I date men -- period. There wasn't some wayward relationship I had with a black man that made me decide all black men were dogs and thus I'd only date white men. I take offense to people, like the guy in Belle's anecdote, who do that. If you're attracted to people outside of your race, that's fine. But we shouldn't make people feel like they have to explain it and on the flip side we shouldn't feel like an explanation has to be at the expense of a group of people, most of whom we don't even know.