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yeloson"I'm just not attracted to black women."
He was expecting either a reassurance for his rationalization or an argument (he liked to argue). I really had not the patience or the energy for either. My mind already arrayed a variety of questions, like, "What about Beyonce? Halle Berry? Mariah Carey?" the usual range of white acceptable blackness, but you know, that really meant nothing.
Anyone who's willing to say that line, in Oakland, clearly had some serious issues (and clearly, serious blinders, cause really). I just dropped the conversation and kept it moving. My time is best spent not engaging with foolishness if I don't have to.
Let's be honest- there's people who you're "supposed" to date. Acceptability, mostly determined by your skin color, language, and economic class. When you step outside of that, you're going to catch shit. Between family, "community", and people who look like you(or who you're dating), somewhere, somehow you're going to catch shit.
Most people choose not to think about that. They date who they're supposed to date and never ask why. Some people internalize it AND also becom proponents of it. No need for subtle aversive racism for them- they need to "protect their race" from "dying out". Ironically, most of these folks need to really look back 3 generations- they're not as pure as they imagine.
But then there's those who choose to catch the shit and break the expectations-
Sometimes you make that choice because you're buying into the bullshit, like the mother who really wanted me to date her daughter because I was half white. Sometimes you make that choice because you're just fetishizing and looking to "collect'em all", like the white girl who says, "I really like asian guys" to me, as if that makes me feel special. Sometimes you make that choice because you're rebelling against the group, or the idea, but, you know, that's a poor place upon which to build a relationship.
And maybe, sometimes, you're making that choice out of love.
"Love is love is love is love"
She says it, she believes it. And I want to believe it. But through all these filters? I only see a phrase which has so many steps before you can understand it in context for it to mean anything- as much as "Can't we all get along" is used as a dodge for fucked up behavior. I can't say love is love, because love is only love if it isn't actually a word taped onto the stuff above.
"I love you" is a phrase I heard repeated so many times in high school, between the circle of 5 white guys who dated the same 5 asian girls. I guess each of them loved each of the girls the same way they loved the other 4- as objects, as fetishes, as special acquisitions, oriental treats. I'm sure the girls loved each of the guys as they loved the other ones too- interesting they didn't date anyone else given that the school was almost 50/50 white and black. Funny how all these people who don't see color manage to date only one color, all the time.
"I can't believe you're against racism and you'll only date asian women!"
Of course, I never said I would only date asian women- I only said I wouldn't date white women. How sad and how fucked up the mentality that if I'm not dating white women, I must mean I only date asian women. I even explained that a) this is a choice for myself, and not something I advocate to anyone else, and that b) it has to do with the fact that I don't feel like dealing with white privilege on top of everything else with a relationship. Somehow, my choice to not have sex with white people was racist- oppressing white people through denial of my cock.
Apparently, a lot of people hold my cock in much higher esteem than I do. And they've never seen it. I guess word gets around?
Actually, it's about the basic privilege issue of hearing the word, "No." It upsets the hierarchy. Everyone is supposed to lust for white women. I mean, Ming the Merciless, Fu Manchu, Long Duk Dong, dude from Vanishing Son and Chow Yun Fat in Pirates of the Carribean have totally proven the scientific fact that asian men are totally enraptured by the white wimminz, except we lack the savagery of the Brute or the Deviousness of the Jew to pose a real, credible threat.
My choice to say no dethrones white women from the vaunted prize position. It's not even about me- it's about me choosing to date WOC over white women, and not tied by some foolish "I can only date my own" logic. Cause, you know, no way would anyone sane choose say, a brown woman over a white woman.
"What about her?"
"She's not my type."
It took less than 2 minutes for us to figure this out. She only has white friends. She gives the barest of greeting. She can't let them think she might be interested in me, after all, then she won't get to date white men, they'll regulate her to a lesser status, "asian" instead of "honorary white". I watched her friends make the glances to her, they were gauging her reaction, and she couldn't let anything slip. She's "too white" for me, and I'm not white enough for her. I suppose it's nice that these things work themselves out quickly and easily.
"Why do you like me?"
I hate this question. I get it, I know it, I wonder it myself a lot. But damn. How do I explain why I find her beautiful? How she makes me laugh, smile and want to get lost in her eyes? No matter how many times I say it, I'm up against her lifetime of words telling her otherwise. Everytime I get this quesiton, everytime I answer honestly, I watch the same response. She pulls away like the rest, becomes more distant. She thinks I'm lying to her, she's distrustful. Maybe only subconsciously, but I'm an anomaly. I there because I want to be there, I'm not using her, I'm not fetishizing her, I'm not telling her who to be. The basic reasons for breaking the interracial dating line aren't there, and she can't compute it.
And so we fall apart. Just like the last 3 people I've dated. Damn.
Beauty?
I don't have any answers. Just a song that sticks in my mind:
You see, between you and I there's a thin line we stand by
But if we ever find ourselves on the other side
Then time will stand still and whole worlds will collide
We hardly know ourselves if we've got nothing to ride for
Struggle to live to the fullest and die for
And make love and wage war for.
He was expecting either a reassurance for his rationalization or an argument (he liked to argue). I really had not the patience or the energy for either. My mind already arrayed a variety of questions, like, "What about Beyonce? Halle Berry? Mariah Carey?" the usual range of white acceptable blackness, but you know, that really meant nothing.
Anyone who's willing to say that line, in Oakland, clearly had some serious issues (and clearly, serious blinders, cause really). I just dropped the conversation and kept it moving. My time is best spent not engaging with foolishness if I don't have to.
Let's be honest- there's people who you're "supposed" to date. Acceptability, mostly determined by your skin color, language, and economic class. When you step outside of that, you're going to catch shit. Between family, "community", and people who look like you(or who you're dating), somewhere, somehow you're going to catch shit.
Most people choose not to think about that. They date who they're supposed to date and never ask why. Some people internalize it AND also becom proponents of it. No need for subtle aversive racism for them- they need to "protect their race" from "dying out". Ironically, most of these folks need to really look back 3 generations- they're not as pure as they imagine.
But then there's those who choose to catch the shit and break the expectations-
Sometimes you make that choice because you're buying into the bullshit, like the mother who really wanted me to date her daughter because I was half white. Sometimes you make that choice because you're just fetishizing and looking to "collect'em all", like the white girl who says, "I really like asian guys" to me, as if that makes me feel special. Sometimes you make that choice because you're rebelling against the group, or the idea, but, you know, that's a poor place upon which to build a relationship.
And maybe, sometimes, you're making that choice out of love.
"Love is love is love is love"
She says it, she believes it. And I want to believe it. But through all these filters? I only see a phrase which has so many steps before you can understand it in context for it to mean anything- as much as "Can't we all get along" is used as a dodge for fucked up behavior. I can't say love is love, because love is only love if it isn't actually a word taped onto the stuff above.
"I love you" is a phrase I heard repeated so many times in high school, between the circle of 5 white guys who dated the same 5 asian girls. I guess each of them loved each of the girls the same way they loved the other 4- as objects, as fetishes, as special acquisitions, oriental treats. I'm sure the girls loved each of the guys as they loved the other ones too- interesting they didn't date anyone else given that the school was almost 50/50 white and black. Funny how all these people who don't see color manage to date only one color, all the time.
"I can't believe you're against racism and you'll only date asian women!"
Of course, I never said I would only date asian women- I only said I wouldn't date white women. How sad and how fucked up the mentality that if I'm not dating white women, I must mean I only date asian women. I even explained that a) this is a choice for myself, and not something I advocate to anyone else, and that b) it has to do with the fact that I don't feel like dealing with white privilege on top of everything else with a relationship. Somehow, my choice to not have sex with white people was racist- oppressing white people through denial of my cock.
Apparently, a lot of people hold my cock in much higher esteem than I do. And they've never seen it. I guess word gets around?
Actually, it's about the basic privilege issue of hearing the word, "No." It upsets the hierarchy. Everyone is supposed to lust for white women. I mean, Ming the Merciless, Fu Manchu, Long Duk Dong, dude from Vanishing Son and Chow Yun Fat in Pirates of the Carribean have totally proven the scientific fact that asian men are totally enraptured by the white wimminz, except we lack the savagery of the Brute or the Deviousness of the Jew to pose a real, credible threat.
My choice to say no dethrones white women from the vaunted prize position. It's not even about me- it's about me choosing to date WOC over white women, and not tied by some foolish "I can only date my own" logic. Cause, you know, no way would anyone sane choose say, a brown woman over a white woman.
"What about her?"
"She's not my type."
It took less than 2 minutes for us to figure this out. She only has white friends. She gives the barest of greeting. She can't let them think she might be interested in me, after all, then she won't get to date white men, they'll regulate her to a lesser status, "asian" instead of "honorary white". I watched her friends make the glances to her, they were gauging her reaction, and she couldn't let anything slip. She's "too white" for me, and I'm not white enough for her. I suppose it's nice that these things work themselves out quickly and easily.
"Why do you like me?"
I hate this question. I get it, I know it, I wonder it myself a lot. But damn. How do I explain why I find her beautiful? How she makes me laugh, smile and want to get lost in her eyes? No matter how many times I say it, I'm up against her lifetime of words telling her otherwise. Everytime I get this quesiton, everytime I answer honestly, I watch the same response. She pulls away like the rest, becomes more distant. She thinks I'm lying to her, she's distrustful. Maybe only subconsciously, but I'm an anomaly. I there because I want to be there, I'm not using her, I'm not fetishizing her, I'm not telling her who to be. The basic reasons for breaking the interracial dating line aren't there, and she can't compute it.
And so we fall apart. Just like the last 3 people I've dated. Damn.
Beauty?
I don't have any answers. Just a song that sticks in my mind:
You see, between you and I there's a thin line we stand by
But if we ever find ourselves on the other side
Then time will stand still and whole worlds will collide
We hardly know ourselves if we've got nothing to ride for
Struggle to live to the fullest and die for
And make love and wage war for.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 10:32 am (UTC)It's like movie producers denying Danny Glover funding because there isn't a white hero . . . and his movie is about the Haitian liberation.
o.O
Read a history book, producers, ALL the white people were the enemy. That's why you're STILL screwing over the country over two hundred and some-odd years later!
Granted, I am attracted to white men; I'd date white men. Then again, as a black woman, I reckon I should be "grateful" anyone would like me--this includes black men, mind.
I don't think people realize how hurtful it is to hear the absent regurgitation of internalize white privilege/standards of beauty. I could say "Black Is Beautiful" all day long and believe it with all my heart, but when you rarely see the society around you cosigning that . . . you start to feel like a liar. When BET execs say a black woman can't carry a show on the BLACK NETWORK . . . oy.
But then you have magazines like Italian Vogue that sell out like whoa, and you're say . . . "all right . . . now we're talking!"
But yeah, nobody wants to be a fetish; that's no fun. And you do you. I'm not mad at it . . . then again, I'm not an entitled white woman, either :-P.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 04:55 pm (UTC)a) White people are supposed to have all the attention
b) Men are the attention givers to women as the status flag
Instead of keeping it moving, there becomes this insistant demand that we give them attention, because, you know, otherwise their whole world of white womanhood might come apart.
It's jacked up.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 05:07 pm (UTC)Well, 'scuse me if I want it to be longer and more substantial than that.
But wanting v. expecting . . . deepness right there.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 05:16 pm (UTC)The whole concept of "I don't deserve love" + "POC are incapable of giving love" is pretty much internalized emotional genocide.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 05:22 pm (UTC)But then again, there are black romance novels, and thank God for them, or else I'd never get any examples of a black woman receiving love.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 08:07 pm (UTC)i think it's there. its just under constant assault and rendered invisible.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 08:06 pm (UTC)Pretty much.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 10:56 am (UTC)Otherwise, they only dated white and Asian women. Of course.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 05:05 pm (UTC)(You know, as if cultural self knowledge magically transmitted by sexual intercourse. God. Us men are dumb you know. The question is whether we choose to stay that way or step out of it.)
The thing I've noticed about asian women is that they occupy this strange space in terms of the racist hierarchy- they're the halfway between dating someone ethnic and white. For white people (the lighter skinned) asian women fit the colorism issues, have straight enough hair, but are ethnic, while for POC, asian women are ethnic, yet have straight enough hair, and fit the colorism issues...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 03:37 pm (UTC)The one time I thought seriously of crossing the color line, the guy... Well, suffice to say, that guy wasn't ready for *anyone*, least of all me--!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 04:44 pm (UTC)Parallel, I hear a lot of asian women say they won't date asian men, I guess supposedly because we're all addicted to the same sexist bullshit of the motherland. (Nevermind, you know, that we're just as many generations removed as the women...). I don't know, I mostly hear this from women who've either a) never dated an asian guy (hmm), or only dated one or two and had bad experiences (you know, because one proves the whole lot of us is no good).
Which I'm sure is probably the same for black folks dating each other as well.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 08:08 pm (UTC)oh, i know that routine!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 02:28 pm (UTC)I never even considered how much I get away with shit! Hmm...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 03:37 pm (UTC)The issue of the guy I know, he dates anyone BUT black women, so...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 08:46 pm (UTC)*nods*
At what's also implied there: if you refuse to date someone white it must mean that you aren't "diverse" or "open-minded". White acceptance is the marker of diversity to these folks.
The irony.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 08:52 pm (UTC)I hate this question. ... No matter how many times I say it, I'm up against her lifetime of words telling her otherwise.
And this would be me. :(
I never believe it when men of color tell me they like me, isn't that something? Too many messages tell us (black women) that we aren't desireable - even to other men of color (the first time I met a couple that was a black woman and Asian man you could have knocked me over with a feather. It had never, ever crossed my mind that there was the remotest possibility that an Asian man would ever want to be with a black woman).
no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 09:56 pm (UTC)I know what you mean. I met a girl who was half Asian (of the Indian sub-continent) and half black, and we were all shocked that her mother was black.
But then I remember the first time I was with some Asian friends and they were discussing a Pakistani actress who was supposedly ugly, and someone said 'she's so black' and everyone looked at me. Awkward.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-10 01:00 am (UTC)The unspoken idea is that, for men of color, a black woman is a step down, particularly if she is dark. I always figured Asian men in particular would stick to "their own" or date white - but never black.
It's good to know that isn't always the case.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 05:30 pm (UTC)"Why do you like me?"
It's a sad state of affairs that folks of color - women of color in particular are sent constant messages that they can never find anything resembling real love and have to settle for being a fetishized relationship caricatures. It's hard not to internalize these messages which inevitably leads to what you describe here, that when real love does happen to come along we simply can't believe it, can't get over our suspicions and end up making it a self-fulfilling prophecy which just further enforces the worthlessness we are supposed to feel. It's a vicious cycle and I wonder if we can ever completely break away from it.
Le sigh.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 08:57 pm (UTC)ARGH.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 02:29 pm (UTC)