“So you have jungle fever?” and “You’re into black guys?” didn’t become frequently asked questions until I began attending school at Towson University (TU) as a freshman. I grew up in one of the seventeen cities in the United States named Rochester (Wikipedia, 2015). The most significant difference among them is that this Rochester belongs to a New England state that is listed in bold when you Google “Least diverse state.” If you flip through my year book from senior year, you will count 3 black students in my class, only one of them being male. Although New Hampshire is over 94% “white alone”, (and zero percent Native American) my high school proudly flaunts the Red Raider mascot, a stereotypical Native American with a face tinted blood red (Census Bureau, 2014). This was the place I was born and raised; where nobody had to whisper the “n word” or hesitate to stick some feathers in their hair and paint their skin red as a sign of school spirit.
Growing up in New Hampshire didn’t prevent me from making friends or dating guys who weren’t white. I felt a certain pride in hanging out with people who were Dominican, Indonesian, Laos, Filipino, Hispanic, etc. because it set me apart from others. My parents taught me good morals, like not judging others by their appearance, though I did have to keep my jaw clenched when I visited relatives. They would ask me about the “colored kids” at my job as a camp counselor and spoke the word “bi-racial” in hushed tones, as if it were something to be ashamed of.
After deciding to enroll at Towson University, friends of mine joked about me going to “the hood” and the violence in the Baltimore area, but I was never worried. Fitting into this lifestyle felt more natural to me than living in Rochester ever did. In Rochester everyone appeared to me as clones, walking down school halls clad in American Eagle apparel with Aroma Joe’s coffee cups in hand, but at TU everything clicked. Gay, bisexual, straight, transgender, black, white, Asian, it was there and it was beautiful. All it took was one semester for me to breakup with my high school boyfriend and fall completely in love with a guy from my dorm. He was the first black guy I had ever dated. My ex’s response? “I can’t believe you dumped me for a n*%$#@.”
Telling your parents about your new boyfriend is hard enough when his skin is the same color as yours, but it becomes even more difficult when he is at the opposite end of the color spectrum as you. I called my mother up to tell her about my new boyfriend, and nervously came clean with the statement “I’mSeeingSomeoneNewAndHe’sBlack!” Though I knew my parents wouldn’t care, wouldn’t forbid be from seeing him, or treat him differently than my past boyfriends, the fact that I felt the need to admit he was black, as if it were a crime is absurd. How many times had I said “Mom, I met this guy, he’s white”?
No matter how anxious I was to tell my family about my boyfriend, I felt proud of my interracial relationship, like we were the result of the world uniting and becoming a better place. While some people smiled at us as we held hands in D.C. or walked side by side around the Inner Harbor, others just stared with disapproving eyes. The thing is, people were tolerant, but they were not always accepting. Where friends from home had laughed in my face, believing my taste in guys had somehow done a 180 as a result of moving to the city, black guys I currently went to school with were intrigued. I began receiving attention from darker skinned guys, one even proclaiming with a wink that he had “never had a white girl before” as if conquering a white girl is some badge of honor or just something to check off a list.
Dating a black man is not the same as dating a white man. I was pushed out of my comfort zone and I learned more than I ever would have had I been with some someone who grew up just as I did. He showed me new music, food, and gave me a new perspective to consider. His family welcomed me with open arms and I am a better person because of it. Friends asked me what it was like dating someone who is black and giggled asking if it was true about “what they say about size.” One friend admitted “I could never date a black guy because I wouldn’t be able to understand what he was saying.” All stereotypes I had been used to hearing about this unchartered territory.
When my relationship eventually ended, the phrase “once you go black, you never go back” rang in my ears. It put me in a box, limiting me in ways I didn’t realize until recently. The more attention I received from black men, the less white men wanted to talk to me, as if I had been eternally branded as a traitor. They seemed to be intimidated by my dozens of Facebook pictures with darker men, causing them to run before they even got to know me. “They’re riddled with sexually transmitted diseases” one ignorant guy messaged me on Tinder after seeing a single picture of me with black guys on my profile. To them, Black men were filthy and diseased, which could only mean one thing: I was too.
As my luck with white men plummeted, I was inevitably pushed further towards black guys. I began attending parties where I was one of the few white people. Guys would approach me, rarely avoiding grabbing my butt or asking the question, “So you like black guys?” I became known as that girl who was only interested in dark men and suddenly, the body that took me years to become comfortable with became one I was questioning again. “You have no a**, Erica” one guy commented at one of these parties as LL Cool J’s “Big Ole Butt” blasted through speakers, while another told me he was willing to deal with my lack of a chest because I had “an a** like a dancer.” Many of the songs on the radio by black artists seemed to put emphasis on parts of the body that I was lacking. Flo Rida’s “Can’t Believe It” flowed through party speakers with its lyrics “Damn that white girl got some a** I don’t believe it” and “black girl got some a** it ain’t no secret”, taking me back to feelings of insecurity I started having as a little kid.
The first time I had ever questioned my physical appearance was before I even began first grade. I was running around my house in a black one piece bathing suit and remember looking down at my stomach, thinking that it stuck out too much. I immediately sprinted outside in the daylight to get a better look and make sure I wasn’t fat. Critiquing my body became a regular occurrence after that.
As I slowly prodded my way through middle school then high school, my body began taking on the features of a woman. My 5’4’’108 pound figure became more defined and I started to feel proud of my body. I felt that I looked the way that I was meant to look: small waist, small everything. But going to college challenged my standards of beauty. Previously I had learned to fear looking heavy from various places including sitcoms featuring women trying on dress after dress and finally asking “Does this make my butt look big?” Her husband would assure her that of course her butt didn’t look big in order to prevent her from trying another outfit on. Where growing up as a white woman had taught me not to be fat, I was now told by rap culture to have a “fat a**.” I began to feel that I could never live up to stereotypical “black standards” and that my body type would only be appealing to white men.
Moving from one of the least to one of the most diverse states in the U.S. has not changed my preference in guys, even if it may appear otherwise. I have always been drawn to dark haired, dark skinned, brown eyed men, but with only 1.5% black men in the entire state of New Hampshire, I never had much of an option (Census Bureau, 2014). Does this mean I will never date a white man again? Honestly, I’m not sure, but I should be able to make the decision without considering if I fit perceived black or white standards better. Reading the article The Reality of Dating White Women When You’re Black by Ernest Baker inspired me to consider the reverse perspective, which is comparatively different. Baker discusses how a white woman can be seen as a “trophy,” whereas I have found that dating a black man is often seen as something “filthy.” Regardless of the differences, Baker and I have found that whether male or female, being part of an interracial relationship can cause people to view you as a “sellout” or a “traitor” to your own race, even if the words are not spoken directly. Though there are challenges when it comes to interracial relationships, it is not all negative. It is a good feeling to know that you are secure enough in your relationship that the disapproval of others only adds to the excitement. As Baker wrote, “Maybe knowing how much a diverse range of attraction upsets people is part of the appeal of interracial dating.”
I am united with those who have white skin by similar experiences or the culture we may share, but I do not view us as an army fighting a war against all others of different shades. I don’t see sides where interracial couples are choosing “them” over “us” while same-race couples remain loyal. The only wars I see are the ones with ourselves where we are the traitors, betraying our own happiness by worrying about skin color or the size of our body parts instead of simply finding someone we love.
References
Baker, E. (2014). The reality of dating white women when you’re black. Gawker. Retrieved from http://gawker.com/the-reality-of-dating-white-women-when-youre-black-158…
Census Bureau. (2014). State and county quickfacts: New Hampshire. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/33000.html
Wikipedia. (2015). Rochester. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester