IDGAF Who You Date
A few weeks ago, I wrote in our newsletter about the short scene in Van’s episode of “Atlanta,” which focused on a black woman yelling angrily at a random white woman about stealing all of the black men. In my opinion, the scene was out of pocket and clearly unnecessary. Clearly, this is a phenomenon right now because over the past two weeks, I’ve had to deal with my Twitter timeline being dedicated to the following things: 1) Discussing why Winston Duke is wrong for saying that black women cured his insecurities when he clearly isn’t dating one; 2) Folks asking black women to save Kanye; 3) Debating how woke Donald Glover is for putting out his “This is America” video having a strong preference for white women. Honestly, I’m sick of it. So, let’s just get this shit out in the open. Black women don’t give a fuck who you date.
I don’t know how many times we have to tell you this and how many different ways we have to say it. Black women simply don’t care. Everyone has preferences, and there’s nothing wrong with that. This is the crux of my problem with that scene in “Atlanta.” I don’t know any black woman, even my damn self, that will start yelling and raging at a random white woman for dating a black man, especially one that we don’t even know. Nobody has time for that. Sure, we may make snarky comments to our friends, roll our eyes, or laugh about her inability to twerk, or just dance on beat in general, but we’re not about to go from 0 to Angry Black Woman in 2.5 seconds flat.
The only time that we do care is when black men put black women down in an effort to explain why they are with a white woman. Cop out excuses of “black women don’t understand nerds like me,” or “black women just don’t fuck with me” are huge problems in this discourse. In fact, they’re utter bullshit. In my opinion, these are just flimsy excuses that you use to justify your own preferences. They also reek of entitlement and contribute to the maintenance of the patriarchy, and it needs to be stopped immediately. Stop projecting your own insecurities and feelings onto black women.
As a sales associate at a major retailer, I would often see black men come into store with their white girlfriends or wives. While some would be super chill, shop, and go about their business, others would project almost aggressive body language to all of the black women in the store. They would stare us down as if daring somebody to say something, be over affectionate in their PDAs, or in some cases, being overly “Black” in their interactions with my black male colleagues. I would tilt my head to the side as they dapped up the black male associates or used copious amounts of AAVE for no damn reason other than to say, “yeah, I’m with this white girl, but I’m still a n****”. Sir, nobody cares. I don’t know you or her. All I care about is whether or not you want these damn khakis.
The reason why Black women refuse to clap back at Winston Duke for saying that black women cured him of his insecurities, but he’s clearly dating a mixed race woman is because he has never uttered a negative thing about black women. He praises black women when he can, and he moves on about his business. He didn’t attack us so why should we attack him? Furthermore, he allows us to flood his twitter mentions with offers for “M’Baku to break our M’Backs out.” The guy is golden in my book. Now, if one day he opens his mouth and says something out of control, then we’ll handle his ass. Until then, live long and live strong my brother. The same can be said for Donald Glover. Yes, you can be woke and date a white woman. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. He can make a video as powerful and political as “This is America” and have children with a white woman. One does not negate the other.
If we’re being completely honest, black women know that there are some black men that don’t want us. It’s constantly shoved into our faces on a daily basis by society and the media. And that’s fine. We understand that we’re not for everybody, and furthermore, we’re too worn down by the other shit of this world to actually care. The only thing that we care about is stopping this notion that black women have a problem with interracial dating. It’s not fair to portray us as the problem regarding this issue, when black men are really the culprits. Yeah, I said it. They protest louder than women do, and if you ask me, it’s simply a case of a “a hit dog will holler.” Work through your own issues, be comfortable with your own preferences, and leave black women out of it. Please and thank you.
PS: In regards to asking black women to go save Kanye, go fuck yourself. It’s not our job.
