I chose Harvard because I love to intellectualize, and I love being around people who love intellectualize. Pointless conversations don't exist. I take something away from every interaction I engage in.
Growing up around the compassionate conservatives of suburban Texas/Oklahoma has taught me the value of alternative viewpoints. I never discount someone's intelligence or motives simply because they don't agree with me. I reserve my venom for the unabashedly xenophobic and the willfully ignorant.
There was a recent exchange on an email list I'm on about Jill Scott's column for Essence on interracial dating. I expected tempers to flare because lets face it: Ivy League Male is to White Girls as Tyler Perry is to Big Black Peen, but I wasn't expecting this.
A Harvard Business School graduate came up with these gems.
according to the US Census 2000, 91% of black men that are married are married to BW. So I don't know where these assumptions about BM not prefering BW come from. probably from some insecure BW who isn't getting any, so she blames WW to make her feel better
Ummm ok.
Then came this:
Men date women who like them. PERIOD. So when you think back to the black men you have dissed in your lifetime, you can't get mad when he turns around and dates a woman of another race. What black men in his right mind( who is an alpha male, smart, got cheese) is going to chase a bunch of women who don't like him? thats the dumbest shit in the world. and I love it how black women think they can DICTATE to black men exactly who they should and should not be attracted to.
Hate to break it to BW, but WE DICTATE WHAT IS ATTRACTIVE, NOT YOU.
WHAT is he talking about? Do you follow? Because I don't.
But here's the best one.
what metric r u using to quantify successful bm and which women they choose? just anecdotal comments from your girlfriends about the fine brother across the street they saw with a latina is not evidence that most successful BM choose non BW. the facts are that 91% of BM marry BW and thats only what matters. what sense does it make to worry about 9% of men (which is a really small absolute number) of men who are already married and who u probably wouldn't meet anyway?
BW have all the opportunities to meet successful BM cuz they go to elementary school, high school, college, and they work with them at companies across america. however, if u dont choose them, but instead u choose athletes and drug dealers to have babies with, whose fault is that? not the BM who knows how to read..he was always there..u have to choose the brother while he was on the come up, then when he gets successful he will wife u up. look at what white women and asian women do. it might help u learn a lot.
N&*@* what?
I found these comments to be so disgustingly offensive that I just had to respond. Here's what I wrote.
It took me a long time to calm down long enough to write this email because Aaron's comments are not productive or insightful. They are incendiary.
I am continually perplexed by men who can so easily unleash such vile sentiments. You undoubtedly have a black mother/grandmother/sister/cousin/teacher who at some point raised you, cared for you, loved you, or taught you. The fact that you don't even respect them enough to reconsider a statement like "look at what white women and asian women do. it might help u learn a lot" says more about you than it will ever say about me or any other black woman.
Perhaps Black women get frustrated when they see men dating outside of their race because at the end of the day 1 in 9 black men are in jail. 65% of black children are raised in single parent household. For every 100 degrees awarded to black men, black women are awarded 216. and 42% of black women have never been married.
We are continually left picking up the pieces of communities that are left broken by the absence of Black men. And it is particularly meaningful when black men acknowledge that fact and its reflected in their choice of partner.
So perhaps you don't want to date or even marry a black woman.That's fine. Love is love is love. But at the very least show Black women the same respect and care that they have shown you and yours for all these years.
By the way your assertion that black women should look to white or asian women is nothing new. America's has been telling Black women that they should be anything other than who they are for hundreds of years. That's precisely why some women have such a negative reaction to interracial dating. We hyperbolize because its difficult to separate the real statistics of black male outmarriage (11%) with the constant attacks we suffer on a daily basis.
But Black women are not victims. We are strong, and we are resilient. That's precisely why most of us will never have to lower ourselves to considering a man like you for any sort of relationship.
P.S. I love black men, and I certainly do not fault them for not being able to overcome the varied structural and institutional barriers to their success. But give me a fucking break.
-Kim
I will never understand men who passionately try to defend themselves and their "blackness" while simultaneously disrespecting black women. If you're just not into black girls that's cool (not really), but don't get defensive when someone calls you on your "preference."
Despite all this fuckery, at the end of the day I will always love Black men. I am you, and you are me.
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