Black Women's Interracial Relationship Circle

'Permission to Live, Sir'

2009-12-10T15:15:00.000Z

I came across a saying the other day that people will give you forgiveness before they will give you permission. Truer words have never been spoken!

Black women spend an inordinate amount of time waiting to be given permission, even permission to do what they want and know they should be doing. They want their community to give them a go-ahead, a green light or a pat on the back and say, 'Yes we have weighed it up now and think that it is ok now for you to proceed'. Very sad to see all these black women who wont move on with their lives, but are just milling around waiting for a 'thumbs up' to get on with life, it is sad because they will never get one. They are the only willing horse now re the so called 'black agenda' and their lot is to be worked to death!

Years ago when I was doing talks and book signing events, I remember going to a 'bw gathering/meeting' to talk about my book. In this particular meeting I really felt out of place because I just sensed that these women had gathered to really marinate in their fantasies about black love, in fact move even deeper into their illusions and I was really about to shatter it all. I recollect that a black women (kind of well known round these parts), read out a poetry which contained a verse about sucking a bm &^%((No I kid thee not!). So it was that kind of meeting where bw wanted to get all 'caught up', in their unshared fantasies about black love.

Anyway after I had talked about my book's subject and gone to get a stiff Martini at the bar, a black woman approached me and said, 'When you came up to talk I said to myself, Interracial dating? Is this one now allowed'.When she said this to me I felt it very odd but couldnt put a finger on why now I see that it conveyed to me how 'permission seeking' as a group black women are, waiting for approval before they put one foot in front of the other.

I realise now that black women go to meetings and events and churches etc etc to be given their orders on what to do and what not to do, orders from which they do not turn to the left or to the right of even when it is clear why they would do well to! It's mind boggling to some of you isnt it, that in the 21st century, black women take their orders and run their lives on the command of Central Committee and do whatever is required of them.

attention attention: Black American Brides.Com set to Launch. Make 2010 the year you say 'I Do'.

I had one of those revelatory moments the other day, when in a private conversation someone said that white men are not in the habit of 'barricading' themselves from available opportunities, this rather, is the hallmark behaviour of black women in particular, and since they behave that way as a habit (and especially around the issue of dating), they tend to project this unto white men and think they too, put cultural and other concerns way out ahead if their basic desires and need for companionship etc. 'Rational self-maximising economic agent,' is a concept that keeps popping up in my mind these days when I survey the actions of black women, since coming across the book, 'Predicatably Irrational'. A self maximising agent (economic or otherwise) in my understanding, will have a need, look around and seize up the available opportunity for meeting that need. In order words, if you are famished and there is a huge plate of omlette in front of you, barring any immediate and physical barriers (eg a huge dog watching the plate of food), you will reach out and take the plate of food to satisfy the hunger.

I have watched freinds and collageues who are from backgrounds and cultures where self-maximizing are often second or third considerations behind, culture, hierachy, pride, I have watched them struggle to fit in with western systems.

Black women put what I would term, 'cultural concerns' (read: we have to be with black men), way out ahead of their basic and primary needs of mates and companionship, even when they are metaphorically 'starving' and have other opportunitites to meet their basic companionship needs. This means that black women are not behving in a self-maximising way. In the West, believe it or not, people are primed to be 'rational self-maximising' and systems are designed to respond to such 'rational self-maximising'. No, I am not saying this is the case absolutely, but to a very high degree.

The need for a man of black skin color is not a 'Primary need' for black women, though many black women give the impression it is. The truth is that a man of any color can serve.

So am I saying that white men are not putting race ahead of basic and primary needs for female companionship (ie are not racist or discriminating against non-white races)? I am not saying this at all. White men do discriminate but they do because at this point they can. God forbid but if half of white women set sail on a piece of ice to Lapland, you would see how fast racism and discriminating against any group of women would suddenly not make any kind of sense (reconnecting with their basic needs and available opportuntities to satisfy them). This is not the case with black women, they will dry up on the vine, waiting for that 1 in a million chance that a gust of wind will set the ice on a reverse path!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the IR Dating E-book

And send your questions to mailto:relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com

(I will try my best to give a reply/answer)

This is also about access to the Resources of Black Women

2009-11-25T15:21:00.004Z

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanks Giving!

It is of key importance within the general black thought system, that black women remain firmly located (locked) and localised only within the black construct/setting and unavailable to any other.

This might seem like an issue of black moral pride, even an issue of protecting black women but in reality by being so positioned, black women and their resources, be they material or otherwise, become held exclusively for the use of those within the black group and within ready access to be drawn on by those in the black category.

It has indeed been shown that it is wise to consider the angle of control of ‘resources’ when looking at how society is organised and this is very much valid way of looking at the situation of black women as a group within a social framework.

The whole notion of ‘keeping black women within black political mileu’ is the underlying sentiment that gives rise to thwarting and blocking responses that black women experience when they attempt any social movement beyond the black construct. This notion is also detectable in the unreasonable requirements they continue to be issued with, to keep faithful to the tenets of in-group mate selection, despite clear indications that severe number imbalances exist for this to continue to be a valid policy for black women at this point in time. In addition, the lack of concern, the skirting around or glossing over the reality of damage that such a requirement will have on a significant number of black women in their quest for relationships is also a clear sign of how low in consideration black women are placed within the hierarchy of importance operating within the black construct. That black women are here to ‘facilitate’ the tribal agenda (agenda both for and set by black men) and are seen as mere fodder for the furtherance of tribal goals and ideals is the message communicated by the indifference and lack of empathy generally displayed in these situations.

‘I was hungry and thirsty and I could not even reach out to pick a ripe and available orange within my reach because it was across the fence.’

The above comment clearly expresses the dilema faced by black women who find they cannot meet their needs within the black construct but are required to continue to remain within the black construct regardless of their personal sufferings.

Given that the designated area of operation of black women is within the political black construct, any attempts at expansion beyond this, is countered and blocked in a myriad of ways, from subtle to outright. Don’t forget that from her youth black women have their mentalities framed to be either effectively blind to opportunities indeed the world beyond the 'hedge' of the black construct or to cast a doubtful even disdainful eye on anything beyond the black construct boundaries.

In the beginning…

In the beginning, remaining within the black construct was an issue of necessity and safety, presently however the sentiment has shifted to being primarily a tribalistic one where tribal concerns like black uplift/black unity (concepts that are vaguely or only idealistically defined) are the reasons to limit oneself within one’s group.

Black women acquire and support this tribalistic mode of thinking, without understanding that it actually works against their specific, personal interests. A little deeper and clearer thought would indeed revel how their prioritising such tribal concerns means putting themselves at a greater risk of being enslaved to agendas that pay them very little (beyond psychic benefits) and loosing out on a personal front.

Some black women do however reach a point where they come to a realisation that they should place personal actualisation (for instance finding a suitable mate) as priority and above tribal ideals and all the restrictive and limiting tenets set up as the way to achieve tribal goals. Many more are today coming to a point of prefering tangible outcomes to intangibles and psychic rewards for instance of being hailed as 'true and dedicated' black women. What indeed is that 'badge' worth in the face of broken dreams and loneliness.

A willingness to place personal over tribal is a key turning point in the psyche of black women and marks a move towards black women becoming aware and acting as rational self-maximising social agents.

However, there are many black women and women in general who receive tribal injunctions as somehow being about elevating them as a unique group of women and being set apart and valued in the tribe even about an attempt to safe-guard their unique attributes as women of the tribe. They don’t see it as men simply trying to corner the market, and secure their stake in the women of the group, while at the same time, employing any tactic and exploiting any loop hole (including using religious tenets) to make women of other ‘tribes’ more available to them.

We cannot indeed overlook the fact that in the state of zero competition the devaluation of a thing is highly likely. Anything that becomes exclusive within a specific space has a high risk of being devalued and taken for granted within those confines. Is it then any wonder that black women are complaining that they are constantly being harrassed, treated shaby within the race and blamed and never given a moments rest in terms of the demands placed on them? Is it any wonder they are deemed the work horses and expected to put up with and endure burdens other women are ushered away from very quickly!

Many black women do indeed block out the clear signs of black men being all about having as many women as possible while removing the competition from other males with respect to black women, continuing to insist that keeping them within the group is somehow how black men express their strong desires for their brand of femininity and position them above other women.

Indeed I will add that I believe that many more black women have woken up from the stupor of years ago, when they could be heard saying, ‘Black men only want to use these women,’ displaying that they were happy with this state of affairs of other women being used. Their willingness to see other women used however, was the snare that entrapped them (yes many black men whispered these sentiments to black women while they played them or both parties), because they soon enough discovered that the game was on them, and they were the ones being used and discarded!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the IR Dating E-book

And send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com

(I will try my best to give a reply/answer)

Should BW just forget about seeking for that 'good BM'

2009-11-09T16:24:00.004Z

Almost a year ago, someone commented on my blog, accusing me of not 'levelling' with black women. She said this after one more example highlighting how black women were being devalued and passed over by the average black man, 'Why dont you just tell black women to forget about looking for black men and focus on white and others?'

You know that comment gave me a lot to think about, and I have attempted in the past to write a post about black women simply looking towards others. Lets face it, if you are a woman of a certain age and certain complexion and you are experincing 'shunning' by black men and even though day in and day out, you work, school or live around them (giving them ample opportunity to make a move) and no black man has of yet snapped you up, then really, why be so concerned about keeping them on the menu (they have had enough time to show interest and have not). It does make sense at least for expedience sake for you to simply look outwards and prospect new arenas indeed tailor yourself towards giving other men an all out chance. No one has finite rescources and at some point in a black woman's search, she is going to have to cut off a few leads to conserve energy and save time. Of course as usual a moral mill stone hangs around our necks (yes we black women have an almost irrational urge to always be 'moral' and consciencious in our dealings even when the people we are dealing with are totally amoral), and I kept to my policy of 'be open to all men'.

However someone has sent in a comment that has made me think twice about my 'keep prospecting among all men', mantra. Focussing in, might be an issue of optimising your chances and sending a clear message to break through the binding and imprisoning assumptions out there that trap black women in disadvantage.

Her is the anons comment

(and yes I have recieved the perfunctury note complaining that DBR seem synonymous with bm in this comment but if you can focus on the 'meat' of the comment for one second.....)

AH ALL THE OPTIONS!!!

I just wanted to tell you all a little story of my foray back into the dating world after a long time being single and basically giving up. I did post my profile on Match a long time ago but found that 80% of the men that viewed my profile were white but NONE would send flirts or better yet an email. Of course, you can bet that the vast majority of the DBRs tried to interact despite my profile clearly not being compatible with them on any level.

I also noticed that the vast majority of the non-black men that I searched for in the listings checked what is now termed "everything but a black woman." I've read the comments here posted by Evia who I respect for the work that she's done. However, I must say that you're not single and out there. I can tell you this can be VERY off-putting and I interface with white people in corporate america all day long. At the time, I interpreted it as proof of the racism in the hearts of white men.

I decided to give it another try and this time check ONLY white men as my preference. Guess what!! The darn floodgates have opened!!!! I was really reticent to do this previously as I am open to all QUALITY men, but I thought I would test it.

Interestingly enough, this has not stopped the DBRs from approaching me. In fact, some are even more aggressive. This sense of ownership is definitely alive and well. They also seem to think that you really have no choice. If they show ANY interest, you are supposed to thank your lucky stars and immediately engage them. I've noticed that in they're approach, unlike the white men, they do not try to show their value as men and good partners. They simply say "I'm a good black man looking for a relationship." While the white men QUALIFY their statements with why they are a good choice. The white men engage me about my day, my likes and dislikes etc.

After ignoring these DBRs, I've noticed that there is a pattern of more hostile interaction. They don't take the time to go back and read my requirements that clearly list white men. They continue to email and try to IM. As if to say "B... didn't you get my emails!! Don't you know that you are supposed to be happy that I am taking the time...!!"

They email me several times and try to engage me on Instant Messaging despite no replies. I've had to block them before the situtation goes further downhill.

I think that perhaps when White Men see an educated, good looking Black Woman who has checked that they are open to dating all races they either think that competition will be too much or that she is really just saying that she is "waitin' on a IBM." Either way, there is a big difference in the response. I should also state that my first time on Match was pre-Michele Obama. They may be getting used to the idea of the middle-class black woman. Or maybe they're just opening up to it more. Something has changed...

I thought I would pass this information along for others because the difference in response was truly incredible. I have to say it feels GREAT to know that you truly DO have options.

Anyway someone else wrote back thanking her for her insight...

Thanks for that information and insight. I guess it falls under the old adage of 'the truth will set you free'. I too am trying online dating again after years of being away. I am using Euro, Canadian and 2 US IR sites and I've always just wanted to check white only because that is my overwhelming preference. But have always been bullied by others & or my own social conscience to do the politically correct thing. Thanks to your observation, I'm going to follow my hearts conscience and post my true desires. I'll just block everyone who doesn't fit the criteria and keep it moving. Thanks again -Anon.

So here we have it, 'jack of all trades, master of none,' 'chase all the available rabbits and end up with none'. This strategy seems to have worked because it communicated that she was open to white men way way more than some general green lighting of 'all men' would have. It gives something to think about....

Yes black women tend to have a moral conscience in excess, weighing them down and talking them out of being totally focussed and Machiavellian in pursuit of their goals like everyone else.

Maybe thats what we need to ask ourselves, why we have such a need to be morally above board. Is this probably about how someone who constantly wants to take a bath might have a constant feeling of being dirty?

Update!
It doesnt hurt to just tinker with your profile (who says you must keep it rigid), indeed if your moral conscience disallows you certain choices, why not have two profiles; one saying all men and one saying white only (on different sites if it isnt possible on the same dating site) and see how this as an experiment goes.

Black women, we need to be savvy and play this thing with intelligence and to win, and stop hobbling along, hamstrung by excessive morality and inflexibility and sticking to 'tradition' and just one narrow way of doing things. Think creatively!

Indeed excluding black men on your profile does not necesarily mean rejecting them but can be about being 'wise' to the behavioural codes of black men and hence your opportunitites with them as a demographic and zoning in where you know your chances and choices (indeed what you seek out of a relationship) can be maximised!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the IR Dating E-book

And send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com

(I will try my best to give a reply/answer)

Black women and White men receive 'Thumbs up' for their ability to keep IR marriages beyond average!

2009-10-29T12:57:00.005Z

We are talking The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) folks, doing an intense, well researched study and it can be found at Study

The research aimed at comparing the likelihood of divorce for interracial couples to that of same-race couples, using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (Cycle VI).

Now if you believe the 'tattle' out there, black women are the reason why ‘Black love’ is in a bad place. According to wide spread views, black women are too aggressive, too independent and wont ‘let men be men' and all the other host of stuff they get accused of. Well then, you would expect that this report would show that black women (being the problem that we are said to be), would prove this by carrying their 'palaver' wherever they went.

But........the study says that black women just cant help themselves as usual in doing good!

Some highlights:

Compared to White/White couples, White female/Black male, and White female/Asian male marriages were more prone to divorce; meanwhile, those involving non-White females and White males and Hispanics and non-Hispanic persons had similar or lower risks of divorce.

Elevated divorce rates among interracial couples may occur because members of these couples are more likely to have characteristics other than race associated with a greater likelihood of marital dissolution. (Cough cough)

Whites, specifically White females, who intermarry tend to be less educated than those who marry other Whites (Qian, 1997).

I see that these NCFR folks are not of the 'let's lump all IR couples in one batch and hide the real picture' school of thought!

You would also think that given how black men constantly complain about black women, that when they go on to pair with other races of women, everything would be fantastic. Well not so according to this study, it appears other women are reporting ‘distress’ when in relationship with black men…………hmmm

When compared to their same-race counterparts, intermarried White females and Hispanics individuals reported higher rates of distress, but the same did not emerge for intermarried African Americans or White males (Bratter & Eschbach, 2006).

(Yes even though intermarried ww could be intermarried with not just bm, we do know who does the significant part of IRing with ww)

And

According to the adjusted models predicting divorce as of their 10th year of marriage, interracial marriages that are most vulnerable involve White females and non-White males (with the exception of White females/Hispanic White males) relative to White/White couples. (hmmm I see they have exonerated hispanic males)

You know, I do so believe that even if you give black men 'little green women' from Mars, they'd still find a way to mess it up royaly.

But ……..

Conversely, White men/ non-White women couples show either very little or no differences in divorce rates; or, as in the case of White men and Black women, are substantially less likely than White/White couples to divorce by their 10th year.

So it appears that even white men stand an even better chance of having a long-lasting marriage with a black woman than white!

Damn we are good!

And the clincher

Racial differences in marriage, on the other hand, correspond to higher divorce rates but mostly in marriages where the White spouse is female. NH Black husband/White wife marriages were twice as likely to divorce as White/White couples, and NH Asian husband/ White wife couples were 59% more likely, according to Model II. Highlighting the role of gender in interracial dynamics, the reverse combinations actually showed a lower or similar risk of divorce. White husband/NH Black wife couples were 44% less likely to divorce than White/White couples, and White husband/NH Asian wife couples were only 4% more likely to divorce by Year 10.

As for black love

Finally, we compared NH Black/ White unions to NH Black/NH Black marriages, which showed a persistently higher risk of divorce than White/White unions. We found again that crossing the racial divide for marriages between NH Black men and White women coincided with even greater marital instability than NH Black homogamous marriages experience. Generally, non-Whites who intermarry experienced less marital stability than their same-race married coethnics.

And there are all these women running around saying , white men cannot be adequate ‘partners’ for a black woman and touting that only black love can be able to meet their unique needs. hmmmmmm

Overall, way to go black women!

Background research for this blog entry by Felicia (thanks!)

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the IR Dating E-book

And send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com
(I will try my best to give a reply/answer)

Black Women as Drones and Self-Saboteurs

2009-10-19T15:59:00.002+01:00

There has been a massive campaign to extinguish self –concern in black women/girls in the last three decades, and the campaign has been largely successfully. I see it everyday, mindless, selfless drones of black women all worked up over and rushing around the cares of everyone else, with very little awareness that they have loads and loads of critical concerns that need to be addressed urgently. It’s really very shocking to me when I have to point out to black women, obvious issues that black women should attend to yet are busy turning over rocks to find issues that they can get stuck in to on behalf of others. It feels like pointing out the huge big soot stain across the forehead of a person who has just gazed at a mirror. I remeber a year ago writing to a well known journalist who wrote a lengthy article about supporting black men who are caught in the correction system. Since she decided to write about the correction system as a single gender issue, I wrote her back and asked her if she was aware that black women in the UK are proportionally more likely to be incacerated than any other race or gender (a sizable number as a result of being drug mules). She wrote back waffling about how she does care about black women as well. Oh really, yet even when black women are more likely than black men to be in prison, you still write about the situation as if it is something only black men face. I wouldnt even be suprised if women like her dont even know of this situation with black women/girls, given how occluded the whole picture around black women is. It is really a regime of 'obscure black women's issue so we can serve black men's issues exclusively' isnt it.

Whoever wrote this ‘self concern’ obliterating program that has effectively turned the masses of black women into robots working for others, needs to patent the program and sell it for some good money because it sho nuff is most effective!

And what’s more, among young girls I see this kind of ‘resignation’ to their lot, in fact I actually see black girls upholding their lot of being ignored, unsupported, called names like ugly and black as the way it is/should be.

Am I surprised? Not exactly, given that none of their big sisters gave any indication that the situation was to be resisted, wasnt the way things should be or normal, in fact, by their actions, they gave clear instructions that it was all something we should just go along with, tolerate and not try to protect/shield ourselves from in anyway or indeed move away from, but be trusting and hopeful while experiencing the worst kinds of humiliation and self esteem attacks known to humanity.

This weekend I was walking pass a group of black teenagers in a area densely populated by black people and there was this black lad tightly gripping a white girl from behind while rubbing up against her and two black girls were there making conversation with this girl. I actually heard one of them ask, ‘So you say you live round the block from …..’! Yep, these black girls saw nothing wrong with the situation, and where standing there making small talk as the black lad was all over their white ‘friend’. The picture said it all to me, that these girls had absolutely internalized and normalized their ‘inferiorization’ to the point that they are happy to be in vicinity of black boys behaving foolishly over white/light skin. These black girls still have the mind to fraternize with the perpetrators and the same girls exalted above them.

Am I saying that these black girls should crave lewd acts from black boys? Not at all.

And guess what, we their older sister let this situation happen where our young girls are no longer disgusted with expressions of colorism which get carried out and repeated constantly in their midst, at school, at play, at church (yes I have seen this go on in church under the watchful eyes of supervisors who see these patterns of behaviour and think nothing about it and what it means for black girls). These girls watch and look on at the various expressions of their marginalization and rejection as women.

You can imagine the range of accommodating mantra and philosophies these girls and women have stocked up to enable them put up with the situation, you don’t even want to go there to try to get them back to a reasonable frame of mind and one of self-concern. One black girl said to me that, ‘Black boys are allowed to date wherever they want’. ‘I said to her, ‘And where does that leave you, do you recognize that there is an impact on you and you need to take steps to ensure that their freedom to date does not cost you greatly?’

The worse thing is that there are black women who take it upon themselves to facilitate and defend black men’s choice to date whoever, which is essentially black men’s right to discriminate against them. Black girls call fellow white girls racists for not dating any black boy who demands they do (agreeing with a black mans self serving assessment), instead of saying to themselves. ‘What dog do i have in this fight anyway?' I mean, have you ever come across anything so delusional? I know thousands of black women who go out to bat for footballers when they are on the recieving end of racism yet these men wouldnt even spit on them if they were on fire. At what point will black women stop all these campaigns they get into to 'bring back the love of bm'.

But there are other reasosn why black girls are running into fights that are not theirs and that essentially strengthen the discrimination against themselves (shooting themselves in the foot as always)? Very simply, a desperation to show themselves supportive of black men and also sometimes a need to prove they are not like the rest of jealous black women, or that they are not a 'hater' as was elloquently stated by one of the commentors (more about not wanting to be identified among the hater bunch further down).

Everywhere I go black girls are going about in groups (4-5 girl groups). They seem to be the only less integrated group I see around constantly only with themselves or a few white girls. I think this is a reflection of the wider rejection they feel, so they band together however, black girls who are and have essentially been left to fend for themselves tend to adopt a very scolding and caustic attitude towards the world. I watched a black girl who could have been no more than 14 talking the other day, and you could have thought this was some old woman who had seen and gone through life. She was not only pontificating very loudly and unfeelingly, which seemed to me to be about her mirroring the attitude that might have been adopted towards her by others who are impatient with black girls vulnerability. Also she was talking about hair of all things, and announcing to all and sundry on the bus, that a girl (who she said was trying to run away from being black and ugly) has to deal with it, because she cant run away from her fate! Like I said, she was pontificating and a lot from her statements suggested she was internalizing not challenging the idea of black = ugly and in addition, her uncaring tone suggested a strong element of masochism for black women here represented by the girl who shouldnt/couldn’t run away from being black and ugly! I felt very sad for this generation of black girls.

One of the key reasons why bw are never good allies of each other is that they are so busy trying to prove that they are not with the rest of black women particularly around the issue of being jealous/envious of white women. This singular fear of being lumped into the category of those who are jealous ('haters'), have nappy hair issues, {insert newest accusation against black women} means that constantly black women undercut their own cause and agenda because it becomes more important to not be seen as jealous or having low esteem etc (and you display this by agreeing against your interests or against you understanding of a situation)

An example is, I watched a friend go gaga over her cousin marrying a Filipino woman. Now this young man was the first in his family to become a ‘professional’ in his field and you know as these things just happen, he ends up marrying a Filipina (sarcasm off), anyway I wasn’t expecting my friend to go all warm and mushy over the fact or even reveal it in the first place, but she made it seem like such a ‘progressive’ thing that he had done. Hmmm, you want me to believe that a black woman in the west has not deciphered that this situation is definitely not about black men being progressive in their choices.

This running away from other black women to not share their labels, is indeed an indication of the circumstance of black women, and that their collective situation has become so bad that each one is trying to put a distance between herself and the general ‘lot’ of black women, particularly the jealousy bit. Many black women are so bent on proving they are unfazed by the obvious white female preference (in real life not on the net) that they will deny a very clear case and evidence of such, and broadside other ‘sisters’ in a discussion about the phenomenon just to prove how ok with it all they are.

Yes in a bid to prove, ‘I am not like those other black women who have an issue with black men marrying others’ (particularly when they acquire some economic status), my freind went all gushy and kept repeating the fact that he had married a Filipina! Truth is that she didn’t even need to mention that bit of information apart from the fact that she was ‘performing’ and trying to distinguish herself from the close minded black women out there. Here she was agreeing with liberal definitions of progressive activities when we all know that interracial dating among these groups of men is anything but about applying the principles of progressiveness.

I hear Oprah has done something similar re the recent Good Hair Bad Hair mock-umentary (thanks faith), by Chris Rock. I might be wrong here and have got the wrong end of the stick (and am willing to retract the following) but it was reported that she tried to separate herself out from the weave wearing/non follicle growing members of black womanhood, by asking that her someone feel her hair to prove it to be the real deal.

I am not surprised one bit, about the separation antics being displayed among black women. As long as black women’s situation remains pitiful and something to mock and laugh at, black women will continue to scramble to get away from the rest of the black female collective even if they have to 'grenade' the rest to get away!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)

Black women actually 'sign up' to the twisted thinking they have

2009-10-09T22:42:00.002+01:00

http://interracialloveandspicebysara.blogspot.com/ which is Sara Taylors blog, is one of my favourite haunts!

Anyway on a recent post, an 'anonymous' commentor claiming to be a black woman, accused Sara of destroying black men and women. 'She' went on to talk about how black men are being left alone to fend for themselves by disloyal black women running off with white men!

Now even though I do doubt that this commentor was a black woman, I must say that I have and do come across black women giving an account that reverses the situation as it stands and those who do position black women as the aggressor or the abandoner of black men/black relationships.

In the face of the clear evidence that it is black men who have abandoned black relationships and refused to uphold the tenets of black love, you have black women making youtube videos saying black women have dropped the ball and etc etc. Now do you think these women are really seeing a situation that is totally different from what we all can easily observe? Do you think that these women do not see the reality confirmed by statistics (for many years now) that black men have been out dating and out marrying twice the rate of black women for it to be that it is black women are abandoning black men and not vice versa?

My response to this is No. These women have 'signed up' to both believe and distort the picture and reverse the actors to serve the agenda they have.

I want to reiterate that black women actually 'sign up' to believe and promote the twisted logic that is evident with a whole lot of what these types of black women spout and believe. It is very deliberate. So if you are a black woman who believes these ideas then know that somehow and somewhere, you 'checked' a box, that you would believe faslehoods and direct opposites of reality to support the ~~'false'~~ ideologies of black unity. It is deliberate on your part, dont get it wrong, you decide to believe falsehoods and outright lies about what pertains.

Black women who have PERVICE (persitent views inspite of contrary evidence), do it deliberately but they are also psychologically prepared to recieve these views.

I remember when I used to attend 'strong black women rallies' (out of curiosity), how a mood would be created under which black women would believe anything even when they knew the truth was directly opposite to what they were being told.

Under the spell woven at these rallies and meetings, out and out nonsense and things easily observed as false suddenly started to sound 'sensible' and maybe 'have something to them'. I actually think it is the 'maybe we are not seeing the full picture' spell, that is used effectively to capture black women. Many black women are told that there is another story to what they can visibly observe, and once black women believe that there maybe more than meets the eye, they become duely primed to slot in some 'nonsense' as the missing piece of the story. Now the created mood in these 'conventions' makes statements like 'our brothers need our help and support', become logical and sensible even when it is clearly observable that at this point it is black women that need support. I remember that one of the things that was never done was to challenge patently false accounts, as this would essentially 'break the spell'. I remember once doing this by challenging a particular statement. The women in the room got very angry. To this day, I believe the anger was because I broke the mood necssary for recieving and believing the fantasies they were being told about black men.

I also used to get the one where one of the 'leaders' would try to get me to bend to their will and blind-believe along with everyone else. They try to get a black woman like me who was unwilling to submit/collude with the self deception to bow. One of them said to me, 'You know that when black women get it together, black men will come home'. Now that statement was loaded with all sorts of psychological arm twists and was my 'cue' to give up the rebelion and just like a good black woman, go along with the self deception.

As a black woman you decide to be taken in by such fables, and give your mind over to the deceptions and falsehood! Therefore a black woman has to decide for herself that beliving the truth as evident in what she can observe is more important than agreeing to believe a lie in a bid to serve an agenda!

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The Image of Black Women Part I

2009-10-13T15:12:00.000+01:00

One of the very entrenched images that will not be given up without a fight is the image of the brash, loud black woman, unfeminine, unattractive.

The whole of western civilisation needs that image to continue for their collective sanity. I see it everyday. If anyone where to shift the portrayal (not sporadic representations of pretty black woman), to the point that the image of brash, unattractive black woman become severely eroded the prescription for Prosac and other calming medication would go up. This image is required to maintain the present way society is set up and run.

Indeed, one of the key reasons for the persistence of this image is the benefits it generates for all other parties, as we have discussed ad nauseum, however the key thing here is that the image ensures that black women are shut out of social and power alliances. You see, in a world where women depend on building alliances to survive and thrive, the very ability to create alliances is being attacked and taken from black women to mire them in disadvantage and to ensure that they never move into a better social situation and hence ‘reserve’ the good of the land for others.

I hear folks say that women should make their own money etc. BULL! We do not yet live in a society were women don’t need alliances and to be linked and connected to make it.

We still need social contact and to be linked in firmly to secure jobs, contracts, relationships, good education etc etc. A deliberate con man's (and women) argument is being sold to black women that they are an island that can live comfortably alone.

A slight detour here, but have you, like I, noticed that black women are often asked to run out in front of everyone else in living by standards and conventions that are light years ahead and thus impratical in societies current configuration. Yes even though these life concepts that black women are being told to run with might be progressive, society is not yet in such a place where living by such standards is practical and does not result in a sever penalties to all those who would dare live so out of tune with the rest of society. Indeed the move to make black women totally self sufficient and able to ‘go it alone’ can be seen by some as the ultimate feminist dream (for white women that is), but we can all observe what damage this has done to the image of black women deemed now a 'mules', 'beasts of burden,' 'masculine', needing no help or respite…who but a sadist would want that kind of life for black women.

In lots of ways black women are being urged to be pathfinders and battering rams to scale walls and beat down iron doors and when they have taken the brunt of it all, others come in after the battles have been hard won, to pick and choose the spoils they want.

Now back to the issue of black women and our image, ask yourself, who would want to build relationships(alliances) with the stereotypical black women, indeed who would want to give a job to the neck rolling, shrill black woman that occupies popular imagination? Not many for sure. It is important to see then why this image of black women is in heavy rotation and heavily guarded so that it does not move off and away from popular imagination. Remember that it is the very ability to create alliances that is being attacked and taken from black women here, so that societies assets and material resources continue to circulate only in specific circles.

Indeed the stereotypical image of black women has such a powerful hold over the general perception as folks can’t even believe, and I have a key example for you to underscore this point.

Now some of you have said that in online dating, you have often been ‘contacted’ by men who have stated in their online profile, that they do not want black women i.e. they want a selection of anything but black replying to their profiles or they want to be matched only to non-black women. So here you are preparing to respond to this nice white or other guy who has ‘winked’ at you and just before you fire off a nice flirty email, you decide to check his profile once more (you casually glanced at it first and it said he was a writer!), anyway you are in for a shock because he has clearly checked for everything but black! So how come he is emailing you, does he not see from your profile that you are black? What kind of disconnected thinking is that?

Many of you have wondered about this totally confusing situation. I mean why would a man who says or who indicates that he doesn’t want a black woman suddenly IM or respond to one. What many of us fail to understand is that the general idea of ‘black woman’ conjures up negative associations in many of these men’s minds, so when these men are filling out the generalised form and come across white, black, asian etc, as soon as black comes up, it taps into the negative associations and images particular those which saturate society.

But guess what, as soon as that classification assumed a personality e.g. Tyra, Oprah, Halle, Gabriella etc or you in your cute photo, suddenly he is no longer thinking stereotypes. Trust me on this one, but if these dating sites changed the system of demographic identification and made it more personalized e.g. instead of asian, white, black, they have asian =Lucy Lui or black = Oprah, you would note the difference before too long. The negative ideas of black women are triggered in all sorts of areas and ways, denying black women opportunity and their humanity. Yes I know we like to believe that people can think for themselves and all that, but the reality is that the average person (the population from whom most of your social interractions will come) has tastes and choices that are easily controlled and dictated. Humanity unfortunately is sheep that can be lead and manipulated and suggested to, and this is what those who control resources play on.

The image of black women is being controlled to sustain an impression that prevents her from moving to a more propitious place socially. This is a feminist issue for black women, not for white women for sure, because anything that would redistribute the resouces accruing to white woman will be avoided and down played and even made a figment of our active imagination.

Those that determine social images will, even in deep sleep, tightly hold the image and idea of black womanhood captive to the most negative stereotypes available!

What to do?
I have always said that I am not even worried about what folk plan for black women, IF ONLY BLACK WOMEN COULD BECOME SELF AWARE!

Black women walking about clueless about what they face and showing even less willingness to figure things out is the key problem. Indeed even if folks are training a nuclear weapon against black women, as long as we know they are, we can strategize against their worst plans.

But instead what do you get? Black women intent on remaining ignorant and preferring to run after dead dreams, work for crumbs or work to buy the affection of the very folk that would use them and in the end be happy to see them destroyed.

Under such a situation, very little can be done on a broader scale to wrest the image of black women from the negativity unless black women become serious and invested in the idea of organizing themselves. Each of us is left with the option of working on an individual basis to create the best impression of ourselves and the image we have in the minds of others.

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Give it up Part II

2009-09-24T11:13:00.002+01:00

Black women must give up living their whole existence around the notion of black community. It is the whole obsession of black community; of 'living for' black community, 'surviving' the black community, 'looking out' for black community, 'uplifting' the black community, 'protecting' black community, 'fixing' the black community, working for the benefit of black community, 'fitting in' with black community, 'residing' in black community, 'seeking her needs' within black community, aggitating for black community, 'rescourcing' black community,................. that has mired the black woman in her present hardship and misery and struggle.

It is black womens' refusal to stop playing community engineer or even god with the power to create without the necessary ingredients and raw materials in place, that causes black women to be burdened, stressed, struggling, denied, ill, drained, confused and depressed.

Black women must stop ordering their lives around, even putting themselves on hold for some coming great 'revival of black people.' They must go out and get their needs met NOW and from what is obtained and obtainable in the here and now.

It is black women's insistence on 'making up for', picking up the slack and 'keeping things going meanwhile', that has entrenched the idea that black women can handle it all alone and or need to be just left to get on with it. It is black women trying to be good 'race' women, who are willing to do more than their fair share, even work alone in the trenches of the black struggle, that has enshrined the shirking of responsibility and participation among black men, so much so they now feel that 'sperm' alone is an adequate contribution for the black community 'building' effort!

Black women must abandon shop, and lay down tools to all this struggling for and on behalf of the race, when the expectation continues to be for them to do it all alone.

Only then can black women be healthy and get themselves a slice of this life of which we all have only one to live.

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A Picture and a Thousand Words

2009-09-29T16:51:00.000+01:00

My thoughts on a range of things

2009-09-10T10:47:00.009+01:00

I have been on a month long break from this blog, and my thoughts have 'piled up' over everything and anything. I am going to have to do a clearing house style post today to just share from a range of issues.

By the way, thanks to those who emailed and wished me a good one. I think some people do realise that we BWE bloggers are human with needs of rest and nuture and sustenance.

I always remember how Evia talks about sustaining those who are doing a good work, so that they will not only continue, but others will step in and take up the call. Anything rewarded continues and we all need to get into the idea that we need to appreciate those who work on our behalf and I dont mean just financially, you still have a kind word or good deed that you can share even if you dont have money (and I must say thanks again to those who have contributed financially to me and for the work I do, you will not miss your reward. Amen).

Sadly I see an abundance of arrogance among black women, with regard these issues. Some of you are very spiteful and jealous of the BWE bloggers (possibly because you think they have somehow happened upon the leadership of some 'big' movement and you envy that) and you say nasty things about them at the same time enjoy the fruits and employing the principles that they have offered up freely. I trust the 'universe' to be fair on this one, and if you repay good with evil and lift your hindleg at anyone who you have been blessed off, and if you have at anytime benefitted from the work of BWE bloggers (even if it was some nugget or the other of advice you gleaned), and yet turn round and repay them with insults, false accusations, distortions, character attacks etc, then it will not be well with you. Amen. TAIHTSAT.

A few thoughts

On the ever confused state of black women
Every other person seems to know what time it is except black women. Black women appear to be in a particular mind about things which no one else is in, or shares with them. You get black women saying things like 'well I thought we are supposed to be doing it this way' or 'I thought this is what we should be saying.' Yet no one has been doing or saying things that way for years. Black women are so obviously and painfully out of step with everyone else that even a blind person can see it. It leaves one tapping their chin wondering, how in Gods name could anyone have stayed in this isolated and marooned mentality in the midst of everyone else behaving differently? What could have kept them shelterd from reality?

This particular 'lag' in black women's perception and in their thinking on things is a constant and repeating theme.

Their general befuddled state, and the 'so what page are we on now' type confusions black women are displaying especially when the general society has stopped reading and operating from any such 'books' that black women are engrossed with, suggest that 'blocks' and 'filters' have been set on black women's minds to filter out vital information that could have gotten them 'in tune' and in mental line with what the rest of humanity is now doing. This is the kind of thing done to keep people in an exploitable state, not knowing their rights and their opportunitites. The mental marooning of black women means they continue to have their rescources accruing to others, not knowing their rights and oppotunities in the current dispensation.

Black men’s dedication to the race
Are black men dedicated to the idea of black community? Well one way to acertain this is to look at how black men have positioned themselves and responded to the critical ‘needs’ of the community in terms of black male input.
Indeed, instead of locating themselves 'in' the black household and adding to rescources and the push for black families and the black community, they have evidently chosen to locate themselves 'outside' of it (as evidenced by single parent homes headed by black women) and outside it, where they can serve their individual interests better and indeed then constantly negotiate upwards, the price for their ever marginal involvement. Operating by sheer market forces and not the higher principle of 'community outlook' clearly puts black men in the category of self-server.

Another thing that black women havent caught up about black men
Black men now see us as rivals for the attention of white peoples. Over the years, black men have begun to view black women as their rivals for the affection, attention and other attonement overtures of white people. Notice how black men talk about how 'white society props up black women at the expense of black men, notice how they come with a catalogue of their own complaints anytime black women raise the issue of their trials in wider society, to take the focus off black women and block black women from the possibility redress, indeed any redress is due black men not black women. They are also 'measuring shoulders' with black women over IR because for them, it is about 'more white people have to like us than like you,' and 'our profile and universal appeal must be higher than your'. Any wonder then that many are fighting tooth and nail against black women opening up their options, all the while with a blonde on their arm.

We have become competition with them for any rescources coming by way of white people (in their minds this is all it is about), hence the sabotage, blocking and ruining of black women's PR with white males and general disorienting of black women re their wider options etc. Think about it, this is classic competition dirty tactics. Rival is the correct sentiment for how many black men now view black women, but poor black women always the last to figure things out and still running with the belief that black men are their 'brothers'.

Black women do indeed have to learn to watch people and deduce who and what they are from their actions not from handed down definitions.

About the framing of the debate about why black women are not marrying
As you all know, another day brings another article about the singleness plight of black women. Recently I read some commentaries and articles again putting the situation down to black women 'driving off' black men (in other words, black men's desire to marry and marry black women at that remains intact and unchanged). When I finished reading the commentary, the obvious question occured to me- as it usually does these days given how black writers and intelligensia have been afflicted with a strange case of 'ignore the huge polka dot elephant in the room'. Anyway the rhetorical question arose and it was, 'I suppose the situation couldnt possibly be that black men are no longer interested in marrying black women to any great extent. No of course not, everything with black men remains the same; this includes their interest in marriage, their motivation, the women they deem worthy of marriage etc etc etc, the issue is all down to black women and their snooty faces. If they could just smile, the rates of marriage would rise faster than the stock market.

My fear is that black women have become very adept at such convulated and disengenious reasonings themselves. I have just read an article written by a black female journalist regurgitating this 'its black women's fault' -of course in nice professional language but that is the bottom line of what she is saying. It is scary because I see intelligent black women who I feel have the trained critical skills to notice how these types of discussions and debates skirt black men's involvement in the state of things. These women unquestioningly go ahead to reproduce these faulty discourse styles and ones which are bent on castigating women as themselves!

Two things are clear, the objective of these articles is damage limitation and to head off any movement away from black men given the state of things. This is indeed an attempt to pull back black women into continuing to confine their choices to black men.

Secondly, I realize that admitting certain things about what is really going on with black men, will collapse the very precept around which building black unity becomes possible ie admitting that black men are just not into marrying black women anymore and by extension building black families, would then make the whole black love/unity aggitation look ridiculous given that black men could care less. It would be like, 'Why are we even pushing for this when the vital piece is missing'. The black unity aggitators know this deep down, that admitting black men are not onboard means admitting the defeat of the whole idea and so, these aggitators (who are predominately black women), will continue to collude with other parties in to not admit the truth just to keep hope alive. Hence they will continue to issue false reasons for the situation and fake solutions and those black women who unfortunately incline their ears to their voices will continue to chase their tails on this one.

The foolish-making effect.....
I know I shouldnt be amazed at what black folk get up to but I said to a freind after reading another article trapping black women in the false dichotomy of 'black men or no men', 'This article is just like me writing a full scientific piece, about how to get your daily vitamin C from eating oranges'.

If I wrote a ten page document about Vitamin C and eating oranges, surely along the way someone would ask, 'but cant you can get vitamin C from eating Apples or Kiwis or etc..' The fact that me, the writter, wrote a ten page article without reference to any other sources of Vitamin C (which is something even a 10 year old knows) would make me an absolute moron, in everyones eyes. But not in the black community. We acknowledge these types of faulty premised 'black men or no man' articles as very valid discussions. I find the whole thing very unnerving and have started to think seriously about carrying my tin foil hat with me to any 'black meetings', so that the 'rays' of whatever idiocy inducing mind control at work doesnt take me in to.

Notice how that women who are all about up 'black unity' display amazingly low levels of intellectual abilities, when you really engage them on the issue. You get a lot of ducking and diving key issues around the possibility of this black love/unity. I used to wonder why such women would suddenly seem dumb and not be able to add 1 an 1 to get 2. Even women with PHD's and etc would suddenly start struggling over obvious issues or try to meander round critical questions about how possible this black love-unity thing is. Clearly in order to believe all this black unity tripe you have to suspend your intellect and power down your critical abilities, because thinking critically is not conducive for holding unto the 'black uplift' blind belief. Indeed you cannot use your brain too keenly if you are a 'black unity' proponent or else you would see clearly how the numbers dont add up and the fundamentals for achieving so called black unity (principally the committment of black men) dont exist to make it possible. Thus being all about black unity means you must depend on strong emotions to carry you through the inherent inconsistencies and glaring gaps of the pro-black unity position. You must switch off/down your brain activity to a level for this black unity spiel to make sense in the light of how things are. Which brings us right back to the cause of foolishness among black writers.

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Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

The Results are in

2009-08-10T10:35:00.010+01:00
From www.divorcereform.org/black.html

"Today the number of children born into a black marriage averages less than 0.9 children per marriage (less than one per family). "The birthrates of black married women have fallen so sharply that absent out-of-wedlock childbearing, the African American population would not only fail to reproduce itself, but would rapidly die off."

Thanks Felicia for locating this information, what would we do without your research!

Now if this doesnt remove the rose colored glasses from the eyes of black unity aggitators I wonder what will. Indeed, do folks understand what is being said here? In case you missed it, black marriages and the children they produce, can no longer sustain the black community numbers as we have them. The marriage numbers of black folk and the resultant children have so bottomed out, that left to this group alone, we are looking at the so called black community (which essentially and really means the black head count) dying off in who knows, say as little as 3-4 generations.

So to the rescue have come single black women, taking up the task of supplying and topping up the numbers of black folk born. I remember reading Mitchelle Wallace's book years ago where she said that black women see themselves as responsible for birthing the black army. I rolled my eyes at that one, but I can now see how this underlying meme, could be informing the actions of black women, who looking around and seeing the gross disinterest in black men over the fate of the black community, decide to just 'keep things going' for black people, to just keep birthing black children without support, and do this so at least black people do not physically disappear if ever black people should rise up.

All of us know of women who have said, 'Well now that there is no black man come for me, I'll just have kids.' This is all part of it.

Indeed if for black women, it was just about having children and not the political act of 'topping up' black numbers, then black women would be willing to explore other options for fathering these kids not just black men. Indeed if it was just about black women loving the OOW lifestyle then they would have as many OOW for all races of men, white, black, Asian, Native American. Instead you see that black womens OOW status is significantly confined within the race.

Women of every group have offspring, that is what they do, it is a fact of life. However it is the men of the group that decide wether these women will be having these children within the confines of a marriage relationship or not. I repeat,
women of child bearing age will have children one way or another. It is the men who decide wether these childen will be born in or out of wedluck.

I indeed hear arguments blaming black women for opening their legs to irresponsible men, but do the folks who speak so realize that they have these single black mothers to thank for sustaining the numbers of black people existing in this country. Are they willing to now say that black women should not have children OOW even if this sets blacks on a clear path to extinction. hmmm...

Black women are simply displaying their utter commitment to having black children even without any support because as I said above, at the end of the day, if this was simply about ‘promiscuity and getting paid and whatever, black women would be doing the OOW dance across the board and with white, black and Mexican etc (and particularly with better odds of some support from other men). Yep those who blame black women for having OOW please note that without OOW there would be almost no black population for the future.

By the way and for clarification, I am not in favour of black women 'doing it alone.' I am simply pointing out that the whole idea that black men have the will and inclination to build a black community is false and black women waiting for and relying on black men is sadly misguided as a result. The high OOW of black women points clearly to black women wanting to continue the black agenda in the absense of black male participation!

Black women Well and Truly punked!

And I got this one off Khadija's Blog (please see the sidebar link to The Mind Workout) and all thanks to the commentor Beverly for these stats.

While 42 percent of Black men were now married, just 31 percent of Black women were married when Census 2000 was taken. The LOWEST PROPORTION FOR WOMEN OF ANY RACE or origin groups. The 10 percentage-point difference in the percentage of Black men and Black women who were now married was the largest difference between men and women in any of the groups.

(source: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-30.pdf)

So while y'all were sitting at home waiting patiently for your black prince to come for you, they were out there cranking up their own marriage numbers till now they give you an eleven point lead. Wow! And you can imagine what the numbers are today 9 years later. Jesus take the wheel!

Even though on a whole, men are supposed to have rates of marriage slightly more elevated than women(because of the higher numbers of women to men), it is a big shame on women of any group to have men more married than them at such a greater rate. It underscores once again that black women have lost sight of self-care.

All I can say again is 'Black women, wake up'. 'People are laughing at you not with you'!

Halima is on Break

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What is the required spirit for these times?

2009-08-02T10:24:00.006+01:00

When Sojourner Truth spoke about working the fields as hard as any man, about ploughing planting and gathering into barns, when you read about her showing her powerful muscles to her audience, you just know that strong (physically) black women had to be the rule not the exception in her days. There were no two ways about it, she was a creation and necessity of her times.

But are we still in the age of the strong black woman? Do people even realize that a different type is required for a different epoch?

These two questions above actually underscore what should be general understanding (an understanding that I dont sense many black folk have) that, you first of all observe that there has been an era change and then the tools, skills and attitudes, even approach needs to change to keep pace.

In bible times, blessings were reserved for those who had the ability to observe the changing times. We see repeated in the scriptures, the theme of seasons, times, watching, observing, etc with some of the most revered of society being the prophets and seers.

It was so important to keep in touch with the times and know what the season was in the broad sense of the word.

Yesterday was 'Emancipation Day' (celerated by certain countries of the world), and I went along to a 'black' function. I was struck by how stuck in a bygone era some factions of the black political movement are. A lot of the stuff being proposed bordered on irrelevant, things that were effective 50 years ago. A kind of turning totally inwards tends to produce this 'out of touch-ness' among many black folks.

Anyway, back to my point;
For those who have been attentive and can observe, we are in new times, times which require a new type of black woman with a new type of spirit girding her, enabling her to do what needs to be done in her situation.

I believe that the spirit required for black women now, is the spirit of courage.

Courage is required to admit hard things, heartbreaking things, things that quake the spirit and knock the knees. Courage to mourn and cry yet get on with the task at hand, the task of forging a new path and indeed starting over.

Yes there are things one would rather ignore or try to wish away, things you would prefer they be different than they are, and courage is required to realize that a reevaluation of principles, a change of plans and surrendering of closely held concepts and idea has to take place, in some cases, until you are 180 right around.

Courage is in its own way strength but it's essence is quite different from that underlying 'strong woman' which is about being able to take anything and put up with anything.

Black women need courage to admit they have been dupped and used by those they trusted and burnt bridges for, they need courage to admit that they can no longer remain in denial or keep pretending or keep holding out and hoping things will sort themselves out on their own, so they can continue along the path that was decided years ago. They need courage to admit that there has to be a change of framework, plans, actions, courage to relearn and retrain themselves in new ways of being and relating to the world, courage to forge new networks, family links and comfort zones. They need courage to take on the spirit of humilty required to re-establish contact with the rest of society and courage to get on with it now, and while they still can!

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©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Give it up or Embrace the fruits thereof...(updates in green!)

2009-07-27T07:32:00.008+01:00

"I hate white men so much,
I'd sign up to be used and abused by black men If it will help them in their quest to rise above white men"

Do you know how farmers in indonesia catch monkeys ?

They build little wooden cages and put peanuts inside and set them down in the middle of the forest where monkeys are known to inhabit.

The farmers are so sure of the effectiveness of their plan, that they then return home for the night. Anyway, no sooner have they left the vicinity that monkeys descend from the trees where they have been hidding, to investigate the cages. They are chattering excitedly and when they see the peanuts, they are even more excited. Each monkey makes for the cages containing the peanut. The monkeys have to hold their hands up and straight (in the manner you would hold out your hand for a handshake) to fit into the cage spaces. They pick up the nuts easily enough but then comes the snag. They try to pull out their 'bunched round the peanut' hand and it is not happening. Their bunched fists are bigger than the cage spaces. They keep trying to force their hands back out but to no avail.

As soon as they flatten their fists and thus let go of the peanuts, they can extract their hands from the cage with ease. But they want the peanuts, they refuse to let go of it, so they keep trying to pull out the peanuts contained within the bunched fist.

So bent on having the peanuts are these monkeys, that the farmers still find them at the task of trying to get their bunched hands out of the cage the next day. They haul as many as they can off to sell or for captivity.

Attention: Attention: Young black woman? Looking to talk about empowernment? See

A few days ago I highlighted in a discussion that black women have a deep resentment towards white men, which they refuse to give up. A commentor also gave an example of an incident were a black woman threatened to 'cut up' a white man who brushed past her. That incident reminded me of a similar experince I had, when I got unto a bus to discover a black woman and white man having this most hate filled exchange. You could feel the deep well of hatred there, and that it wasnt just whatever had just transpired that was the issue here. I agree with Felicia and have indeed written in my book (see below) that black women blame white men for the failure of black men and the mess of the community and this is one of the key causes of this deep well of hatred and anger against white men. And it is so easy to trigger these feelings and get black women going in this hatred. I see black men press the button to charge up hate in black women so frequently. In fact yesterday I was at a meeting and a black man started going on about 'the man,' immediately black women in the audience started giving the 'amen', 'thats right,' and got all side tracked in their white folks blame session. The truth was that this man had been under pressure to account for something and he immediately wiggled out by redirecting the focus.

Black women will never win if people can wind up their emotions at will and when they can get them side tracked so easily. Folks understand black women's psychology well and it is all down to the fact that we have refused to be sensible and reasonable and to value comonsense and wisdom. That's it simply, we are so predictable in our hangup and hates. And even if white man do not know whats up, they still sense the deep resentment festering.

But not just that black women have a hatred of white men, they do not want this anger resolved. They are sworn to an eternal feud with white men. Even if this hatred is costing them greatly, they cling to it and wont give it up. In fact there is a part of their identity that is built on it and they believe that they would be lost without this 'centering' hatred of white men. Yep what is a black woman without this hate and anger at white men to ruminate on!

See everyone else have learnt or is learning to get along, even white men and black men. Visit London and you will see how many black men and white men go out to the pubs and are in deep freindships. Even criminal gangs are known to be integrated. I was shocked to open a paper one day with an article stating that gangs had learnt their way around the police by using their stereotypes against them ie white man in the getaway car etc.

So indeed while everyone has managed to or is making great strides in being sensible about others so they can get along and function effectively in a multicultural environment, black women have instead chained themselves to railings of their bitterness and anger particularly at white men.

Thats often why bw are going round and round in circles over their dating options. Sometime some of us think we are talking to black women who we can help, what we dont recognize is that it is this hate that is in the way of them being free to consider other men (yes other non-black men apart from white get entangled in this hate). Indeed and more importantly these women are struggling because the issue is about them giving up their dearly beloved need to retain this right to hate white men. Anyone with half a brain can see that interracial dating is the way out for loads of black women, so why is this option skirted and avoided or down played (indeed whole conferences are held where black women never even talk about this option staring them in the face). In truth it is the hatred of white men holding black women hostage. plain and simple!

And dont be fooled with the protestations of 'I just want to honor my race and I love my brothas etc', very few black women are motivated by just this sentiment. This overwhelming 'love' of all things black is twined up with bitterness and hatred for white males. No matter how they try to slice it, this is about black women saying, 'The White man has done black people wrong, he must remain my eternal foe.' 'I will never let go of my anger, I will stew in my bitterness and I will never do anything that could resolve it, and if it costs me my chance at happiness, companionship, children, so be it!'

continued....

After years of churning on these feelings, a black woman can become attached to it and fearful of loosing her hate because she believes that it undergirds her committment to her race. 'White male focussed hate', now stands on a sacred altar which can never be taken down, no matter how hard it makes life's journey.

My advice to black women is, 'LET IT GO'.

Pour away the hate!

You are not bound nor obliged to continue ancient feuds and to sacrifice your life for them. Give it up, it is not worth your limited and restricted life. You might think this, but no one requires you to hold the torch for the race in this way. I know some of you think, 'Some of us must keep alive this hate for white men, our race requires it'.

We have let our lives be poisoned and restricted unncessarily. Yes I am firmly convinced that black men dont even have as much hate and resentment towards white men as we do, which is probably not suprising given that black women always get to carry the heavier load and this case encouraged to continue to carry the most toxic load that will poison them and sabotage their lives!

If you must pray, fast or go for counselling or perform a 'pouring away' ritual, to let go of white male hate, then do so, so you can move forward with your life and stop being trapped in negative feelings.

Let it go.

But for others who do not feel they can let go of these feelings and that it is important to despise white men as a symbolic gesture for the race, then I want you to embrace it, feel comfortable with it and with the fruits it will yield. Stop running back and forth and being of double mind. Dont be all over the place, ie one day on IR blogs and then the other, at websites that encourage these hateful feelings. Be grounded and settled in your decision to continue in your negative perspective.

I am saying this because a number of you are vacillating; today one position, tomorrow another. Today 'maybe interracial dating', tomorrow, 'maybe not'. And you have yo yoed like this for years, its not just a thing of a few months. Come to the understanding that it is your need to hang on to your negative emotions against white men that is causing you to be unsettled, and then, just embrace your resentment of white men and be done with it.

Tell yourself 'I want to retain this anger, it is useful to me to have it and it is very essential for my world view'. Make peace with this position and commit to whatever it brings, it will be a much healthier approach than bouncing all over the place.
.....................................................................................

'Mommy of my Kids'

I just wanted to point out something that struck me recently folks.

Did you notice that when Michael Jackson wanted to beget offspring, in all the cases where this was highly possible, he choose to put himself in with white women (Lisa-Marie, Debbie Rowe and the other unknown woman who is more than likely to have been white).

But when MJ suddenly needs a Mammy, to do the hard bit of raising, the choice became all to clear. Indeed look at the first and second, in fact only choices he made on that matter.

'Mammy of my Kids'

Now some folks will be saying, 'Its just coincidence etc etc.' Sure it is.

Not once, twice but thrice did MJ choose a white women to bear his kids or potentially do so as in the case of Lisa-Marie but not once but twice did MJ nominate black women to be the carers (Katherine Jackson and Diana Ross) now that he has passed. If you have also kept an eye out for these things, you will notice that Michael Jackson consistently choose black nannies for his children (who were very aggressive in their roles of protecting them from outsiders).

Now Black women lend me your ears cause I wanna tell you something:
You need to be very careful of black men because many are assigning you your roles and status based on the 'Handbook of White Supremacy'.

Yes I can agree that it might not even be a conscious thought in their minds, but this makes it all the more dangerous; uncritical black men who mimic and model racist thinking and racist practices.

Do not even bother to try to open their eyes to the pattern of their unconscious thinking or 'educate' them, as I heard someone took it upon themselves to do with the man who put together the 'light skin only' party. Any black man who has to be told, informed or made aware of his own racist actions, is already lost.

Let the drift wood float away!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

When you are in your 20's...

2009-07-22T11:20:00.009+01:00
...You can afford to play around and mess about with crucial and critical issues around the reality of black women and the condition of the so called 'Black Community.' Indeed in my last post, it was revealed that it was an 18 year old that decided to 'bless' us with her broad knowledge of the world and lecture us on how things should be, that is before scuttling back to, 'Y'all are grown ass women' when we decided to engage her on the points she raised.

I feel sorry for a host of black women who are taking notes from women under 25 on these critical issues as raised on these blogs. Now I have nothing against young black women giving advice, but a 24 year old black woman and a 34 year old black woman are in a different place, they are in different seasons requiring different priorities and with different opportuntities available to them. Do you know where you are on the time/priorities spectrum?

Yes I was doing my trawl round blogsphere and came across the comments of a black woman who said that now she was in her thirties, she could 'see' the sense in a lot of the stuff that Black women IR/Black women empowernment bloggers had been saying all along.

See it wasnt that we were not making sense, it was that we didnt need to make sense to her at a time before now. She could afford to dismiss the key issues we were raising, for a few more rounds on the merry go round before she realized that it was time to get off and face reality. But you can imagine all the women she must have given 'bad' advice to based on where she was (at a place of not needing to get real or take these issues seriously) in the past. Some of you are lapping up advice from women who are either so very ok with being self-sacrificing mules or who can afford a few more years of joking about with critical issues. Some of you are taking directions from such ones, looking at their content and happy faces on the merry-go-round and deciding, 'well if CC is unperturbed then maybe I shouldnt, there must be some hope.'

I am sorry but I cannot teach black women comonsense. I know that black women have had their comonsense and survival instincts screwed with, to make them better 'zombies' working for others, but black women have to find a way to come up with some kind of framework within which they can sort themselves out and stop being 'used' and conned by others so easily.

At anything from 18-30 black women can afford to 'blast' IR and Empowernment bloggers and the critical issues they are trying to get black women to confront. The problem comes when some of you who are at an age where these issues are critical, listen to such ones and base your decisions or put off your decisions because of what they are saying.

Deep down I think some of you do not want to survive and to achieve what you want from life, if you did, some of these things would need no spelling out. You would already know what kinds of actions and philosophies would get you where you want to be and not just that, you would have the courage to step out and do what is needed.

Maybe all this confusion and 'headlessness' is because black people in the West are no longer proverb-telling cultures. Jesus taught so much with proverbs and sayings, and I think these proverbs caused people to both think rather than operate on auto pilot, but it also had a way of by-passing human psychological guards and the rebellion against being told what to do.

There is a Nigerian proverb I learnt that says:

When the Lizard and the Mouse go out to play in the rain, the Lizard comes back and is dry in no time, while the Mouse is still wet and cold.

Now according to an aunt, this proverb is used to tell children and adults that they must be aware of their particular circumstances before they go along with everyone or anyone else because it might not turn out for them the way it will for others. In this case the Mouse did not take into consideration that it had a furry coat as opposed to the leather skin of the Lizard which lent itself to rapid drying.

Black women are a diverse group across age, beliefs in their worth and in what they think they are due and what treatment think they deserve. They generate ideas, view points and critiques based on these different positions, therefore it behoves you to determine where each black woman is across a range of key issues before you jump into their car and ride off with them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
An update on a previous post...

When any black man will do!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

A reponse that deserves a comment

2009-07-14T16:29:00.016+01:00

An anonymous commentor left the following response on one of my past articles. It didnt quite fit in so I decided to make it a post on its own and one that will give an opportunity to address a few issues raised by black women who can be largely defined by the term 'race women'.

Interesting post. I find it interesting that you assume so much about the mentality of black women who openly prefer black men over other races and are not very open to IR dating. I can't speak for all these women but I will speak for myself.

I never have nor do I think I ever will date a white man, ever. This has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to remain loyal to black men or boost their egos and has everything to do with my personal beliefs and my goals. I am very "racially conscious" and I make a point to discuss race-related issues whenever I get a chance to because I am aware that racism is still very rampid and across the globes blacks are not equal to whites. I cannot imagine walking the path I have laid out for myself with a white man by my side. It simply would not work. I would be a walking representation of everything that has gone wrong in my community. In addition to this I do not believe a white man could ever fully understand my struggle as a black woman. I do not think a black man could fully understand it either being that he is a man and I am woman but as a child of a black woman and having grown up in black skin he can gain a pretty decent understanding of my vision and my life. I do not want to have to educate my partner on things I think are so obvious. And when it comes down to it I am not attracted to white men. Physically they are not appealing to me and do absolutely nothing for me.

That being said, I am not against IR relationships. I have family members who are biracial or involved in IR relationships and I have no problem with it and think love is a beautiful thing no matter the color of the two people but you must recognize that IR relationships are not for everyone.

Personally I am open to dating Latinos and Asian men but I still prefer black men.

I think most people simply prefer dating people they have things in common with and as a black woman I have a lot more in common with black men than men of any other race.

I was never made to feel guilty for being attracted to men of other races. I actually wish I was more attracted to men of other races because then it would probably be easier to find a guy I'm interested in.

The first thing I need to say to the anonymous (and by extension all other women who feel similarly), is, live your life the way you choose! However I have a right to speak about the attitudes and activities of black women ('race women')in the same way that you can comment on black women who refuse the mantle of living for the sole purpose of advancing the race.

Also for me comes the realization, that there are black women at this point that are at the crossroads and I am morally obliged to point out as many holes as I see in the whole 'suffer for the race' approach which is prevelant among black women.

All in all, you havent laid down any new revelations on what drives black women to be race women. I just needed to point that out because you did seem to me to be trying to school me, and show me the 'logic' for your frame of mind. I already understand the logic, but no matter how many times it is repeated, I do not find it a sensible and viable way of thinking and living in this day and age, and even you yourself have admitted that you are having a hard time of it.

See further response in blue...
Interesting post. I find it interesting that you assume so much about the mentality of black women who openly prefer black men over other races and are not very open to IR dating. I can't speak for all these women but I will speak for myself.

As a bw myself, I think I reserve the right to make comments about the mentality of black women, don’t you think?

I never have nor do I think I ever will date a white man, ever. This has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to remain loyal to black men or boost their egos and has everything to do with my personal beliefs and my goals.

You are not bringing a new revelation here. I have addressed the issue of black women seeing themselves as some sort of infrasture and equipment for advancing the race (I glean this from what you are saying further down). Yes many black women do see themselves as bulldozers, cranes, trucks and other assorted earth moving equipment for and on behalf of the race.

Now if this is what you want to be and have reached this position from giving the issue thought, then please feel free to be who and what you want. However I find I have a moral duty and obligation to other black women out there, who are just following the crowd into a position that could potentially leave them hurt and bitter. Many have not thought through their position to any great extent nor followed the path they are on to its logical conclussion in their minds, to grasp the fact that there might be consequences that they are NOT going to be ok with.

At least if black women are to martyr themselves for the race, let them do so knowing the full arguments and what is at stake. ‘Uninformed martyrdom’ is what many black women are headed towards at this point.

Similar black women online writers like myself have already addressed and continue to address the issue of black women being in the mind frame of ‘saving alla people’ and as a result feeling duty bound to restrict themselves in their dating options. So nothing new here.

I am very "racially conscious" and I make a point to discuss race-related issues whenever I get a chance to because I am aware that racism is still very rampid and across the globes blacks are not equal to whites.

The common description is that you are a ‘race woman’. I do not encourage black women to be ‘race woman’, who are constantly talking about and focussed on race. You can affirm your race without being obsessive. However if this is your choice then go for it.

I cannot imagine walking the path I have laid out for myself with a white man by my side. It simply would not work. I would be a walking representation of everything that has gone wrong in my community.

Your response is stepped in 'in-group symbolism' which you hold tight to and feel should have profound meaning to everyone. Its one of those statements/comments that black women put out there and think that they are so profound but really they say nothing if you look past the reverence they are supposed to generate in us. Indeed, their power lies only in the fact that the person spouting them expects the listener to bow their heads in deep reverence to the sacred symbols of the race contained. I mean really, what does it mean that you and a white man 'would be the walking representation of everything that has gone wrong with the race'? I know that black women are suppose to read these statements within an 'altered' state of religious fervor for our race and get the deeper menaings, but without being assisted by altered state, such statements really have no inherent sense and are not as self-explanatory as you think!

As for it not working with white men, well duh! Of course it is not going to work when you clearly dont want it to. It is not going to work in your particular case but it works fine with thousands of black women who are married to or in relationships with white men. So this is about you and the relationship not being able to work in your specific case not the inability of such relationships to work on the whole.

Many black women and a growing number, do not subscribe to the idea that they cannot be racially conscious being with a white man. If you choose to see it this way, so be it, but it isn’t a universal truth because you hold it to be true.

In addition to this I do not believe a white man could ever fully understand my struggle as a black woman. I do not think a black man could fully understand it either being that he is a man and I am woman but as a child of a black woman and having grown up in black skin he can gain a pretty decent understanding of my vision and my life. I do not want to have to educate my partner on things I think are so obvious.

Indeed black men do not understand what it means to be a woman, which begs the question, ‘do men really have to understand what it means to be a woman before they can be adequate lovers and partners to women?' There is a key discussion about what it really takes to be an adequate companion but to cut a long story short, no one needs to 'live in the body' of the other person in order to be adequate companions or else we would all have to be in relationships with the same sex.

For you, just racial understanding is key. To me this is just very narrow. You can imagine how many things a woman can be which have little to do with race, and even if they do at points intersect with the reality of race, it is not exactly that frequent.

A woman can be a botanist, who likes rock and reads John Grisham and Maya Angelou. She can come from a large family and be a mother of two. She might have a long term illness, attend the methodist church, be a size 10 and be a vegan and she is also black. Now in this just very simplified picture of all that a woman can be, I see a dozen areas for 'understanding' and awareness arising for any prospective partner, areas where race doesnt even come into it.

In addition, you seem to be saying that it is impossible for white people to develop race understanding.

Your comments also lie on the bed of the assumption that understanding another racially means automatic commitment to working with them. But what of those who pretty much understand the black woman’s life but it doesn’t make them anymore caring towards her or make them want to lighten her load (ask the average black woman if she recieves help from her black male counterpart) or worst, what of a situation where that understanding becomes a ready weapon in the hands of others.

Some things to think about....

And when it comes down to it I am not attracted to white men. Physically they are not appealing to me and do absolutely nothing for me.

I am not surprised you do not find them attractive after everything you feel. Ruminating on the negative of any group will block out any possible attraction (basic psychology which doesnt require any pavlovian experiment).

You are indeed no different from white men who have issues with dating black women from negative stereotypes and racist reasons, though I daresay you will rationalize your own sentiments by using some black moral justification.

That being said, I am not against IR relationships. I have family members who are biracial or involved in IR relationships and I have no problem with it and think love is a beautiful thing no matter the color of the two people but you must recognize that IR relationships are not for everyone.

I am not trying to convert you trust me.

Personally I am open to dating Latinos and Asian men but I still prefer black men.

I think most people simply prefer dating people they have things in common with and as a black woman I have a lot more in common with black men than men of any other race.

So I see that you have now undercut your own 'poetic' arguments above about not dating white men because of them, as you put it, 'not being born of black women' or being in black skin. You cant seem to remain consistent, and that is because your developed argument is just a manufactured cover.

You hate white men but are trying to manufacture some plausible theory as cover.

I think it is high time many black women stopped being dishonest with themselves and everyone else and just admit and own the fact that they have a burning anger and resentment of white men, and they want to keep this anger going. They want to continue to revel in their hatred of white men and this 'lovely and comforting' feeling of hate towards white men would have to be given up for relationships with them.

It is more freeing to be honest.

Yes black women hate white men more so than even black men, but this is kept quiet. This is why black women see an obvious solution to their current dating crisis and decide to turn right round and stay in their massive disadvantage. They do not want to give up their hate and eternal feud with white men, this is the block. Keeping this anger to them is more important than companionship, the loss of opportunity to have kids etc etc. The posture of disdain towards white males (characterised by an anti reconciliation attitude) is a core part of who they have become.

It took me a while to see this white male-hate as a key hindrance to black women forming relationships with white men. Before then, I used to think it was all about society restraining her and the inculcated fears she had etc. The hatred for white men is the fourth binding cord.

But if you want to dismiss white men, please feel free, but just be honest (at least to yourself) and there is no need to manufacture some long winding theory to justify your decided negative feeling towards them.

I was never made to feel guilty for being attracted to men of other races. I actually wish I was more attracted to men of other races because then it would probably be easier to find a guy I'm interested in.

Trust me no one is loosing sleep over the fact that you are committed to not being interested in white men so don’t worry too much about it.

All in all, whatever floats one's boat….

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Fending for themselves among Wolves

2009-07-06T08:46:00.007+01:00

Sometime in 2006 I wrote an article about the 'wall of shame' created by some black girls in Brown University to shame their black male counterparts for their preference for non black women and possibly with the intention of getting these males to come back. This incident I believe happened in 1996 and garnered media attention. These young women ended up looking bad on so many levels as you can imagine.

In the article I talked about being shocked that these girls were willing to lay down their self respect in a bid for black men, an attempt which failed. I was also suprised that they recieved no counsel against doing something that would not only convey the idea that they had no inherent attractive features and so needed to compel the men by shaming, but also that their activities lent to the notion of white beauty as superior. Those were indeed the days when black women would abandon self-pride in their most often futile attempts to get black men (it still continues to today, but a lot more black women employ some sense and self-awareness). I talked about how full of pride and big headed white girls were likely to be after the incident.

I am looking at this issue again. You see, even in articles written back in the 80s, there are clear descriptions of this same phenomenum; the rejection of black girls by black boys in school for their non-black counterparts, even today it is a widespread and well known practice. So why is it that each new batch of black girls goes to school unaware and unsuspecting and thus has to have their confidence crushed? Why did these Brown young women seem ambushed by this phenominum such that they had this reaction, when we all know that it happens and has for years?

Why are our young women still being sent off to schools and colleges naïve in the idea that black men will be theirs and embracing the idea that they must continue to reserve themselves for black boys/men and this is somehow a viable idea?

How is it that big sisters, aunts and mothers have decided to leave their daughters unprepared for something they themselves know and experienced. I question if they do indeed have good intentions towards our young black girls or are they so eager to see them hurt and demoralized as they were. Indeed, is this some necessary rite of passage for our girls.

We have and continue to do our young black girls a terrible wrong. Yes this does speak to the fact that the tradition of care and 'big sistershood' towards the next generation of black women has been eroded, if it isnt non existent altogether.

These black women at Brown are forever enshrined as the ugly ducklings because no one prepared them for the reality which we all knew would confront them on campus.

Sometime ago I was having this discussion with a freind who has two young girls. I said to her that she would have to prepare her daughters for the dating reality of today. She responded in a way that showed she was resistant to the idea. To me she was somehow willing for her daughters to persist in the 'fantasy' that black men would come for them regardless of the damage this obsolete idea would have. In truth, she appeared not to want to process this painful idea and join the dots of what she knew deep down(the recurring theme of black female lack of courage and burying their heads in the sand around this particular issue). I told her to remember her experinces in school of being taunted for being dark and asked her why she wanted her girls to experince all that unprepared. I told her if I had anything to do with it, the young ladies would be well prepared.

This whole incident underscores for me the fact that black women’s naivity is a tool used by black people and in particular pro self-sacrificing black women to continue to keep alive the non sustainable 'black unity' idea. To them the pain and self-doubt that will result for black women is a small price to pay as long as the black unity dream can be kept alive for a little longer. Naivety is a tool used to lock black girls into a life of sacrifice which they get trapped and groomed into before they know what the deal is.

What many folks seem unable process is that black unity cannot be sustained beyond this generation by only black women.

Yes you would have thought that by now, this understanding of how black boys behave would have entered into and been incorporated into the general 'intelligence' passed to young girls to enable them negotiate school life and their youth effectively. Yet black women who have gone before them somehow see passing on this crucial bit of information unimportant. The question is, are older black women looking out for the younger ones? It doesnt appears so.

Perharps failure to recall their experinces and pass on knowledge is because they are blocking out their own painfull experinces and trying to minimizing it for their mental health, however our young girls are being damaged and for their sake we must confront this issue and shore up their self esteem before it gets shot to pieces.

Indeed I cannot believe that here we are in 2009 with the issue covered over and when we do talk about it, it is in fits and starts, as if it is something new and something not widespread. We mention it in passing and speak about it as if it is just an anomally with limited occurrence when it has been with us for decades. We mention it as a side issue as if it is irrelevant to the mental-well-being of black girls.

But the rejection of black girls at school is now an entrenched culture from all observation. Can you imagine your young sisters, nieces and daughter being in that atmosphere, going through that esteem destroying experince everyday, with no protection, no mental armour given them by those who know the deal. Can you imagine the damage to their esteem and sense of self as a women. You hear all sorts of disturbing stories about black girls sitting huddled in the corner at prom parties, while the white girls are dancing with every type of color.

Can you imagine the distorted image of black women generated in the mind of white girls, and the inflated sense of self and ego they will always carry towards black women.

Why are we then suprised when our young women begin to normalize the idea of being alone and the notion that they are just not the ones to get men, or that they should be grateful for any attention, setting the stage for later acceptance of singleness and defective selection patterns.

Many of you are quick to extend compassion and consideration when bad things happen to non-black young women, but see black girls as being able to take whatever, strong women that we are supposed to be. We do not realize that these are not women with the experince and developed skills to be resilient, but our young vulnerable girls. Why do we cast them as those who ‘can take anything’ as if strongness is magically inherited by black females. And then we get shocked when they crack under the load.

This active devaluing of black women among their peers means black women are increasingly finding it hard to relate to wider society and even other women on an equal footing and with a sense of pride and confidence. Rather they are forced to carry a sense of personal shame and fear and a sense of not meeting the mark. Indeed black women become destabilized in their relationship with the rest of the world.

We must fight back!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Some 1st Week July thoughts

2009-07-03T00:41:00.002+01:00

About 'black unity'

'Black Unity' is a failed concept.

This might sound harsh and intolerable for some, but this is a simple, practical and realistic assessment of the situation.

Black unity will remain a failed concept because the critical ingredients to bring it to pass have not been obtained and they remain out of reach. Women running around trying to keep the idea alive and singlehandedly so, will not bring it about. All the fervent and heartfelt desire to see it happen will not do it.

When black women accost me with the black unity question, I ask them to do two things. I first ask them to explain to me what 'black unity' looks like in their minds.

Usually they come up with a picture that is a cross between life in Botswanna (like in the No 1 Ladies detective agency series) and something out of the Civil Rights era in unity of purpose. I then ask them to list all the key ingredients that they feel will be necessary to make this vision of black unity become a reality (and here I ask for a specific list, not the usual and vague 'Black people should do this, and, Black people should do that').

When this process has been completed, I then ask them, how many of the things listed are 'to hand' at present? (and this includes a shared idea of this vision of black unity and a general committment to the idea of building it, if they have left this off the list). The facial responses of these women to the last question is very telling.

The other day, I had reason to ask a woman if she thought black mens's participation was instrumental to achieveing 'black unity.' She said yes. I asked again, if she felt that black men are indeed 'co-pilots' in the endeavour. Another nod(emphatic). I further asked, 'at what point should the co-pilots be onboard, at 'take off' or after we have crossed the atlantic?' Silence.

In order for black unity to be possible (however defined) there needs to be commensurate effort (and effort that is applied all at the same time) from the key participants.

What continues to happen is black women continue to get a 'promise' that black men will be active participants at some point in time. But even black women who try to avoid confronting the sad truth, know that they are essentially carrying black men on their backs, all the way towards 'back unity'.

At the most basic level of committment and interest that these men can be involved, which is caring for and resourcing their families, you cant even get them. This tells you everything you need to know.

About bashing black men

Apparently pointing out the activities of black men which negatively impact black women is the new definition of 'bashing'. Someone switched the definitions while we were not watching, and it appears that black men are to be exempt mention. They must never be brought up in any conversation whatsoever, even if they play the key role in the state of affairs.

Dictionary.com has a definition for bashing which is:

'To engage in harsh, accusatory, threatening criticism.'

Thats just to clarify what bashing is for some of us who run scared anytime we get accused of this when we are simply engaging in the 'mapping' of our situation as black women, including the role played by various parties.

Always check the defintion.

I am unpeturbed about accusations of 'bashing black men', that get thrown about willy nilly. It is simply an attempt to shut down the growing consciousness that black women are experiencing regarding their general situation.

These false accusations are aimed at limiting our analysis of the situation we face, so that we and other black women do not gain insight into the battle that is before us, and locate who and what is the enemy against us. If we cave in to these crafty accusations, the result will clearly be that the solution we seek will be elusive. That is what happens when you dont know what you are facing. You end up not knowing how to address it.

Yes for some of us black women, the accusation of wrong doing even from wrong doers, is enough to make us drop our resolve and committment to liberating black women from the hell many are in. It should not be so. Toughen up!

This is all to say, I dont care if folks think I am bashing black men. I am very sure they will get over it!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Black media as Mindguards

2009-06-22T12:53:00.014+01:00

...........................Genius leaves the building...........................

Now some of you are worried about the demise of black magazines and periodicals, paricularly as a few well known ones have announced that they are on the brink. We have indeed lost a few in recent months, I know that a black newspaper round my neck of the woods recently went into adminstration as they say.

However unlike many of you I actually celebrate the passing of a number of black publications. I wish that a few more would crumble.

'Why?' you ask. Well because for over a decade now, many of these publications have set themselves up as 'mind guards', preventing and disallowing necessary and even critical understanding of what ails us particularly us as black women. These newspapers and magazines would rather push a lie that B is the problem when it is plain to see that A is the critical issue that needs to be addressed. I have talked about how they keep us locked in old conversations here or of my particular experience with a black editor, who guaging the 'liberating' effect of what I was reasoning for black women, decided to ensure their 'fetters' remained firmly in place by ignoring the discussion for something less threatening to the status quo.

Yes it remains important for these folks that black women continue operating in the belief that they have to scramble for black men. You see, many if not most of these magazines are diametrically opposed to our real freedom as black women, so they suppress any information (or doctor them and take away their potency) that would cause eyes to open and cause black women to reach for all they can have. Indeed these folks that are loudly lamenting about how whites are denying them opportuntities and vital information are the same one, only too happy to set limits on the minds of their fellow black people. How they can live with the sheer hypocricy is shocking to me. Indeed some of you are talking about white folks hiding critical information from black people, well I tell you now, that they can be taught a thing or two by the master obscurants that are the black media!

It is black newspapers and magazines that dig past glaring and obvious problems for some manufactured or non-critical side issues which they send black women after. The result is confusion, with many folks doubting and afraid to voice pure and simple and effective comonsense solutions around the issues afflicting black folk because an atmosphere has been created, where comonsense is no longer seen as such.

They have also spread this disengenious way of approaching issues in the 'Black community', so that today, you can actually have seminars and conventions where black issues are discussed and there is deliberate meandering round the the huge elephant in the room and people go home feeling valid dialogue has taken place. Not just that, these 'avoidance discourses' are now the dialogue style of choice for the majority who have become practiced in chasing after imaginary or statistically insignificant problems than face squarely the key issues that are staring us in the face. Yep the big elephant goes undressed while the focus becomes some imaginery or side issue at best.

(too bad I couldnt get an all black version of this picture)

So why would I want such publications to continue to exist.

So called black media have become stepped in and characterized by blatant disengeniousness and feigning ignorance of the real issue, skirting real solutions for non solutions, refusal to highlight real solutions because they fall outside endorsed black activities, solutions and parameters. These rags have serenaded black women in the face of danger and have sold false hope and false security that has kept many black women sitting ducks. They have betrayed the trust of black women who depend on these journals to tell them the truth about what is really going on around them. The best thing these magazines have done is provide a place for black women to complain and blow off steam and then get back to drudgery. They deem this as 'doing something concrete'. On their watch, Aids became a epidemic without check among black women, singleness soared and no real suggestions on a solution is forth coming from them. Catastrophic failure I would say!

So tell me again, why I would want such publications to continue to exist.

And so there was an article in Roots about black women learning from Michelle. Same ol formula; black women are the ones always in need of some adjustment or other, while black men somehow magically remain untouched while living within the same conditions that result in black women needing corrective adjustments. It is indeed amazing isnt it, how black women's character seems to have undergone change but magically black men remain unaltered and unaffected by the same situations that have left black women in need of major preaching and attitude 'adjustment,' well according to these articles that is.

It is clear that many of these publications do not give black women the credit of having complete brains, either that or they feel they can bait and toy with black women without repercussion at this point. I know communtities that would reward such constant disengenuos commentary with 'survival threatening' subscription cancellation.

Yes, this is all deliberate, this is deliberate substituiting of the clear and apparent causes for some drummed up issue. Indeed if these editors and writers can get black women to think that maybe the reason why there is high singleness among their ranks, is because of the 2% of black women who reject nerds, then maybe they can keep them jogging on the spot long enough for some change in winds to headoff the inevitable broadening of black women's relationship search beyond just black men.

Remember this is the objective. This is about sending black women on a wild-goose chase, a stalling tactic keeping black women back from focussing on the real causes and thus from realizing the need to find solutions beyond just black men(clearly the next step open to those serious about relationships and marriage). Yep, this is about at least holding them back long enough in hope that a change will somehow 'magically' occur to prevent them resorting to non-black options.

So indeed, why should these magazines (online and off) that are playing cruel games on black women, continue to enjoy our patronage. This is simply paying to be insulted. I would much rather let these magazines fade away, so that those that have solutions and are willing to honestly deal with black women's issues have a chance to emerge. We need 'truth telling' magazines and newspapers. Being black is just not going to cut it anymore.

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

In love with being downtrodden

2009-06-15T23:59:00.010+01:00
Black women are downtrodden
Black women are despised
Every theory there is, shows that we are the lowest of the low, so what’s the use in trying to get a relationship

Possibly in all our the history in the West, black women have never been so without hope. So many are melancholic even depressed about the situation, and they are this way with myriads of opportunities around them. Well many don’t seem to think so, apparently.

Listen to black women talk, and you will pick up this sense of ‘there is no use.’ And with them thinking this way, you can be sure that they will never fire their creative synapsis to ensure they do get themselves out of their dire situation. Indeed the ‘can do‘ and ‘go getting‘ part of their brains shut down with such pessimism.

‘The statistics prove that no one wants us and there is no use in trying’

Some black women are angry at those of us who say there are opportunities to be had. They say this is giving out false hope. Many are now perversely reveling in being the underdog and the down throdden. It seems that ’low and down’ has become a key part of their identity and one which they jealously guard and hold in a death-grip. In fact some are so comfortable with discussions of black women’s ‘low status‘, they sigh with great relief to see articles and discussions highlighting this. Like a good old friend, they see it and say, ’where have you been’, ’we’ve been getting pretty uncomfortable with all this optimistic talk’.

Black women, we do love jeremiads, and of course resist any message of hope or optimism, in fact many black women are resentful of those who want to pull the plug on pity parties.

I was once involved in a discussion where a group of black women staged a virtual walkout because others refused to accept that it was all so totally bleak and desolate for black women in the dating arena. They took great offence at what they said was ‘people trying to deny them their voice' even when these people were only sharing from their own real life experiences, experiences which did not reflect the ‘gloom and doom' these women insisted was the only legitimate reality of black women. They wanted to glory in being despised and recjected, it was too much to bear that they were not allowed to roll in the mud of their rejection and call attention to their pitiable plight among other women.

In the future there will be reasons for lines of seperation among black women and one of these reasons will be that we notice this need in some to dwell on and indeed 'exult' in their lowly position. Now dont get me wrong here, I dont mean that we should not recognize the challenges that black women face in society, I mean that for some of us, we love to focus on this purely (and to jolly in it) without a mind to finding a solution. Some of you will need to seperate out from those who love to highight and talk about how forlorn we are as women. Yep we will distinguish ourselves from them just as we have seen a need to seperate from black women who enslave themselves to black men and their interests.

I want to point out that all this pessimism and disbelief has a lot to do with the fact that for years we have sacrificed our self-esteem and anything that could have improved our self-esteem, on the altar of service to black men. Along the way, black women embraced a self-denying service to their idol black men and the results are with us now.

We decided that an eroded self-esteem for black women would serve to shore up the masculinity of black men. We decided that we would sacrifice any suggestion of our wider appeal to other men, for the sake of inflating the black male ego, which we deemed as suffering under racism. Well guess what, we have been massively succesful, their egos are now grotesquely inflated and out of control. Now some of you cant say nothing to black men that they will 'hear'. Each day brings new demands for catering, coddling and more sacrifices and adoration.

Indeed, black women refused to allow themselves to acknowledge their ‘wider appeal’ for the sake of making black men less threatened and utterly sure of their superior masculinity (which held ‘their’ women utterly captive). We joined in spreading lies and fables about how black masculinity is superiority to that of all other men.

The thing that confounds me is the shock some women are now exhibiting that black male egos are out of control, I mean, how did you all think you could continue to exalt them and bow down to them figurately speaking and their heads would not swell and they become out of control? I guess this is the 'suspended comonsense' black thinking in action again.

Black women made to feel guilty, decided that they owed black males a depreciated sense of their own feminine appeal. The result is that now even they are convinced in the lie that we as black women have no widely appealing feminine attributes and that even to get black men to appreciate us, we must remind them of their race duty and obligation to be with us. Such indignity!!

Many black women do secretly wonder how the creator could have got it so wrong as to design a female who would have no female appeal. Trust me, this is the sentiment, despite the protestation that they have never been in doubt that black women attract men, and the citing white men’s actions during slavery as proof.

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Speaking about the plight of black women, while studying physics in high school, I remember being told, how that at one point in a room that was full of sound, all sound cancels itself out. I am still trying to come up with the term for this phenomenum, but it was so fascinating to imagine that at one spot, even in a heavy metal concert, there is absolute silence. Wow!

The fact is that the net effect of forces and factors operating in any give locality equals zero at one point. Black women need to look at the world like that, and realise that there are always gaps, footholds and opportunities even in a system that seems without weakness (and lord knows any oppressive system desgined by humans has multiple points of weakness). Always look out for gaps in the system (that many feel are so heavily weighed against us), with a foothold you can go ahead to change a whole system. Optimists will always see and take hold of the opppotunities around, so in essence, this is a mentality issue!

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On another note, I have noticed that some black women have a desperate need to get at white males, to get our hands round their necks and sink claws into their jugulars when a chance arises. When there are conversations and discussions which race comes up and there is a clear shot to be taken at white men, they go for it like a missle! Indeed black women can be all about reconciliation and interracial dating etc, but a little opening appears to aim at white men and they just cant help themselves.

What’s up with that?

Do you know that we black females are the only group of people prepped to ‘self-sabotage’ our interracial options with our continuous racial resentment? Some of you need to realise this and begin to reign in your white male bloodlust. Folks are laughing at you not with you!

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

'I think you glorify white men and make them out as saviours'

2009-06-03T09:54:00.006+01:00
Gloria and the late TRex

Would you not say you lift white men up as saviours?

I would say that that speaks more to the fact that the person making such a comment, has been carefully trained to see any positive discussion of white men as worship. You see, when people have been indoctrinated to dwell on the evils of white men and never see or say anything good about them, then even speaking of them in the most nuetral of terms, brings on charges of ‘white worship’.

We cannot deny the following:

White men are the largest group of men available to women in the western hemisphere therefore it is logical that they be the main focus of any attempts of black women to expand their traditional dating options.

White men at present ‘recommend’ themselves in terms of a range of social indicators. Pointing out their positive scorings on these indicators is not worshipping it is simply noting the facts.

White men occupy a negative position in the overall black narrative, pointing out the positives of white men or pointing out that there are ‘created’ myths about white men in black narratives particularly aimed at keeping black women negative about them, is not worshipping, rather it is actually balancing out an unfair and negative picture that works more to the detriment of black women.

I repeat, we (particularly black women), have been carefully taught that saying anything even slightly positive about white men, is tantamount to worship. In the mindset of ‘white men are so evil and the source of everything evil', even acknowledging a white man's good golf swing amounts to ultimate worship. This is the kind of perceptional calibration we are dealing with.

The instructions for black women are clear, ‘See nothing good in white men’, ‘Only see and talk on the evil and negative in the actions of white men’, ‘If you observe any good in a white man then that means you are in alignment with white supremacy‘.

Women who obey these injunctions are the ones who have such a knee jerk reaction to anyone saying anything slightly positive about a white male. They rush to annihilate any black woman who didn’t get the memo about how they ought to be speaking about white males.

In addition, in popular black discourses and narratives, you sense that just like a see-saw, the elevating of black men has been carefully tied and secured to the downing of white men.

So up white man (or anything interpreted as upping white man) automatically means downing black man. And this is the notion that black people are responding to when they ‘knee-jerk’ into accusing others of worshipping white men.

We must not forget also how black women are expected not to mention their positive experiences with white men, and how this is seen as doing white male obeisance. If black women want to talk about their real and positive experiences here, they feel compelled to doctor their statements to show they are not saying that all white men are wonderful, yet anyone with a smatering of comonsense should already know that this is not what is being said. Why then do black women feel a need to qualify and make certain of things which should be comonsense?

Many black women take pains to down play any white-male positive comments or introduce a range of caveats or weave round and round just to make a straightforward comment. For an instance and instead of saying ‘He (white man), is the best boyfriend I ever had’, the acceptable version of events is:

‘There are good and bad in every race, it so happens I found a white man who loves me and treats me right’.

I am yet to see equal desperation in black women to similarly ‘qualify’ their good experiences with black men by saying perhaps, ‘It so happens I found a black man who treats me right’. On the contrary, black women are under strain to convey that there a hordes and hordes of ‘do right’ brothas out there for black women.

Let me mention here that I do not think IR bloggers claim that there is a mainstream white male stampede for black women. Instead there is the realisation of an existence of a sub section of white men who can and do provide appropriate and satisfactory partnering prospects for black women and there are good odds and in some cases, even better odds of dating these than dating black men. We have also pointed out that some of the believed ideas about white men's taste, and habits and preferences are indeed ‘political stories’ used to put black women 'off' white men.

Yes there is racism which has implications for the chances and choices that are available to black women, but good prospects are to be found particularly by black women who take advantage of their full range of dating opportunities.

Get clued up about interracial dating, read the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Sheeeeeeeeeee's Back!

2009-06-01T14:48:00.004+01:00
The Difference between DBR white Nazi male & DBR black male

You would never see a white supremacist type white male go after Seal and Heidi Klum's daughter... Let alone prefer her and consider her to be "the epitome of beauty" Compare and contrast the dbr black male vs. the dbr nazi white male; At least with the dbr white Nazi white male, his argument or so-called "cause" is always consistent!

My question is, if black males where really concerned about this so-called "black love" wouldn't they PREFER the women who come from these unions, instead of chasing white men's, Hispanic men's and Asian men's daughters?

read the rest here!

Breeding for the greater good lol! I learn a new term everyday.

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Get clued up about interracial dating with the Interracial Dating E-Book
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Assumptions can imprison dont let it cage you

2009-02-11T17:20:00.010Z

There are things that tend to be unquestioned, for instance, 'a mothers love'.
These are things which you are never supposed to doubt, and if you have ever been in a situation were you are actually questioning something which the whole world does not, you know how difficult it is. In fact, if there be any scars after the experience, many will likely be the scars of not being believed.

Take a child abuse case for instance; before the ever dependable, 'mothers's love' or 'parent care' was ever questioned in society (as it can easily be done today), many child abuse victims suffered turmoil as they tried to convince themselves first, that they were really experincing what they were, and then they had a job getting others to believe them.

I was in a situation years ago where I had to let go of a generally held assumption; a 'given', so as to hold onto my sanity.

I had just started a new job with a person I believed was very capable because she had the 'qualifications', and the public endorsement and essentially, she was in a managment position. I spent months going absolutely out of my mind and utterly confused about how the job was going, blaming myself and 'trouble shooting' myself. Finally I had to admit what I had kept suppressed because it just didnt fit in with the most basic, everyday assumption I had and I am sure most people have, that anyone in a managerial position is capable.

When I finally gave in to my instinct's reading and inner assesment of the situation (rather than an assumption based on general belief), that this was not the case with my manager, it was such a relief, a weight off my shoulders. I was able to initiate a plan of action that kept me from being dismissed for no fault of mine (because that is often what it gets round to in such situations). I was also able to filter her instructions through the helpful notion that, 'she might possibly not know what she was doing etc' this enabled me to double check things etc and with this helpful response in place, I was able to avoid disaster on a couple of cases were she had actually misdirected me.

I know many of you reading this have had reason to reassess their base line assumptions, distrust the usual protocol or set aside a belief and it paid off. Maybe it was that your freind wasnt really a friend, or your doctor wasnt giving you the best advice. Imagine if you had chosen to instead go with the general and thus easy assumption of 'a freind is a freind', or 'the doctor knows best' despite your niggling doubt. A friend of mine hassled her doctor repeatedly over a lump in her breast. A repeat biopsy proved she was right to have insisted!

But trusting your instinct even if it is sending a clear message can be frightening, particularly if you are up against the prevailing doctrine.

The very first time black women are confronted with the notion that they might do well to not hold complete and utter trust in any assumption that 'a black man will come for them', 'always treat them right', 'value them as black women', 'marry them' etc etc in fact do any of the things that black men are suppose to do because they are automatically working within the premises of black brotherhood, many have an immediate resistance, partly because these assumptions are gleaned from the sacred belief in 'black overcoming', that many of us are desperate to cleave to and around which many have built part of their identity.

However if there is lingering doubt, and unresolved tension and you dont have peace in what you have been told to believe there is a reason for it. What is your inner assesment telling you about the accepted assumptions?

More Interracial Blogger's Key Assumptions

About the popular analytical Frameworks
Interracial Bloggers work extends beyond simply pointing black women to broader choices. We are involved in helping black women better understand their social situation to become fully empowered in all areas of life.

We recognise that current frameworks and popular models for conceptualising social oppression and the general analysis on oppression be it race or gender, even the current discussions on same, have never served or been crafted to serve the black female situation either by design or default. Since these frameworks and tools used to offer an understanding of society do not serve black womens liberation needs, black women must make concerted efforts to construct and draw up an analysis for themselves and one that serves their situation and the purpose of their total empowernment. They must construct robust models that highlight comprehensively what the issues are for them and their social and situational realities and thus arrive at appropraite and effective solutions for the problems that they face.

Black women can only construct their own analysis by freeing themselves to engage in broad and ranging discussions and conversations about their experinces so as to join the dots on their situation, discover patterns and trends and ultimately come up with the full picture. This is the key reason why we as Interracial Bloggers do not make a habit of gagging black women and preventing them from speaking freely. We are willing to look beyond the few intemperate words or language, to the deeper meaning trying to emerge. We do not get stuck on the fact that black women have not laid out their arguments using the acceptable practice or approved guidelines or used a few less than choice words to state their case.

Black women must not yield to self-censorship, or force themselves to fit in with the dictates of established and accepted discourses, orthodoxies or methodolgies, which obscure how things really stand for black women. They must teach themselves to not care whose ox is gored as they enagage in an analysis of their situation, and shake off the need to manouver their conversations to 'protect' sacred cows or to avoid labels by those who use this tactic to silence and shut down black women's attempts at full empowernment.

We realise that it is for each group to try to shape the general analysis in a way to give themselves leeways, privileges and concessions or to corner some rescources or rescource accruing terminology, and to try to embed this as the acceptable discourse. However it is not for black women to subscribe to any such analysis which results in a deficit for themselves neither should they accept any 'understanding' that does not fully apprehend the black female situation, in the name of acquiesing or being agreeable in order to prevent manipulative labelling.

It is for others to claim not to understand, or see the legitimacy of the black female complaints and claims, it is not for black women to second guess themselves and their everyday experiences because of these calculated attempts to shut them up or down. If other interest groups can make a case based on their experinces and daily observations than black women should not feel they have to bring out the ruler and calipers to provide 'hard stats', about things they see, and know in their daily experinces, to prove they have a legitimate case.

In short, black women must not be afraid of challenging mainstream tools and analysis and of broadening same to make them robust and responsive and if need be do away with them altogether.

Get clued up about interracial dating with the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Are Black Women ready to join hands?

2009-02-22T14:11:00.010Z

I have been thinking about the relationship black women have with each other a lot lately and how it impacts our working together to pull ourselves out from a deep hole. I was a naive one to believe that black women were and are invested in having open and honest discussions with each other about our current crisis as black women and I am talking particularly about the 'intellectuals' and well versed among us. I thought that at least I could count on black women being upfront with each other and not hiding critical knowledge. I used to think that those who prided themselves as being intellectuals would be too conflicted internally at the idea of employing intellectual dishonesty in conversation with fellow sisters and would not put forward arguments they didnt believe deep down.

I used to think that the vigorous defences many of these black women mount on behalf of black men are real and because they are convinced. I have discovered however that many are doing so without conviction and with huge doubts about the men they are defending and asking fellow black women to go on trusting and holding out for. Some argue this way knowing of more evidence to suggest an even more dire situation than is presently understood, and many are indeed sitting on information and analysis and insight that could be useful in 'liberating' their fellow black women!

The level of dishonesty was illuminated for me when a woman I knew to be a proponent of 'black unity' and equally a vigorous black male defender, was having a crisis of faith. She talked about how she had always stuck up for black men and she was now seeing that rather than return the favour, they were so deeply selfish and self serving. She more or less admitted that she did what she thought she needed to do for brothers. I shook my head because it had all been a 'routine' for her. In her zeal to serve black men she had lost sight of the critical fact that many black women would have been lulled into complacency by her actions.

But then I guess this undescores how that black women get their 'sisterhood' from the relationship they have with black men quite unlike white women who define 'sisterhood' through their relationship with other women.

Her whole dilemma by the way, reminds me of that Mary J Blige song 'Not Gon Cry' where she sings, 'All the time that I was loving you, you were busy loving yourself'. Its a real deep song that spells out perfectly the one way relationship black women have been having with black men.

Anyway I was taken aback at this revelation because I always believed her to be speaking from a place of conviction when defending black men. I guess I was in a way projecting on her, the ethics that I abide by, and the fact that I alway bother to give a damn and to be genuine with fellow black woman. I never present an argument that I dont believe in or one that I have deep doubts about. That to me is deceitful. But I am learning, that for many black women 'playing dutiful black woman' and 'defending black men', takes precedence over all sorts of critical things and even the truth and what they know to be right and comonsense.

One key reason why many black women are in utter confusion at this point; not knowing what to believe and what to do, is because they have made a practice of overriding internal honesty particu;arly in service of black men. Not just that, this black woman thought that this 'dishonest defence' was appropraite among her fellow women; not white people or outsiders but among black women who she should have been able to drop the mask with (once again underscoring that many black women have more loyalty towards men than women).

And then she realised that this was not a fair deal.

It reminds me of plea bargins people accept when they see they have been duped. Before then, most refuse to be moral and honest or consider the victims and those who have suffered as a result of the actions of the persons they are trying to protect!

Get clued up about interracial dating with the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Short and Sharp Lesson

2009-03-08T10:29:00.009Z

A couple of months ago, I was seeking a plane ticket to travel out of the country. I did my research and discovered that there were competitive rates given by just a few companies to that destination. Anyway I phoned around to about 5 agents, and couldnt get a flight for the specific date I had in mind, 23rd of April. I was still insistent on finding a flight for the specific date though, that I phoned another travel agent on the off chance.

After being on the phone for 3 minutes, the man on the other end, told me that he would have to go into an 'advanced stage search' because he hadnt been able to get me the date I wanted. Again I was on hold for 3 minutes.

Just as I was about to give it all up and sign off, he said aha....

When I droped the phone twenty minutes later, I was kicking myself for two things; for spending 20 mins and still not having a ticket to show.

How was I strung along by a person who knew in the first 30 seconds, that they didnt have a ticket for the date I wanted?

In the analysis of it, it is quite clear to see that I was roped along because of my desperate desire for a ticket for the 23rd.

The way travel agencies work over here is that they are all interlinked (not just being owned by same families or parent companies or even person!), they are also working with the same airlines, so they all pretty much have the same dates available though you can get a few 'quid' knocked off the final price depending on which Agency you go with. So the variation is on price and hardly ever on travel dates. AND I KNEW THIS.

After the first four minutes I knew I wasnt going to get the ticket because I had previously phoned 5-6 agents and they didnt have any, but I kept on the phone, because I was so invested in that ticket on the 23rd and the dangled carrot in front of me that it might just be possible.

Not only that, the man on the other end was a skilled manipulator. Something in my voice must have communicated that I was desperate and that means ripe for stringing along. Humans are intuitive and just at any point he sensed I was about to give my quest for a ticket up, either by my breathing change or my beginning a sentence to that effect, he would make the appropraite comments to keep me hanging on. He said things like 'now here we go ..., annnnnnd..., just two seconds here and I'll.... .

A combination of black women's desperate desire to keep alive the dream of a coming black utopia (built by black men and women) combined with the understanding that this desperation can be capitalized on for personal gain, by those who wouldnt be too worried if 'black love' and 'black unity' happened or not (largely the black male section of the black community), and you have this situation where black women are continually strung along, misused and exploited by the dangeled promise of utopia coming to pass. And this is exactly what is happening, people whisper in your ear at the appropraite times that they need to, to keep you on course, and then they sit back and enjoy the fruits of your dedication and toil towards the dream. For some, the gain is purely psychological and is the fact that you will always be around as a safety net if they ever need you or the knowledge that you are sitting at home yearning for a black man and the huge ego boost this gives them.

But guess what, just as it was my money clocking up on that phone by that unscrupulous agent who refused to let go of my custom even though he knew he wasnt going to give me the ticket afterall, it is your biological clock ticking as you wait in hope of 'black love' and 'black marriage' etc spurred on by the appropraitely timed responses of a casual male friend with priviledges, even other black women who cannot imagine not working towards 'black utopia'.

Yes as clear as it was in that situation, you are the one paying for this quest, therefore you need to be the one with more sense to call it a day. If the other party has nothing to lose either way and most importantly is investing minimally and is able to gain more from the situation, they will continue to keep it going.

I dare you to have the courage to drop the phone!

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Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

Keeping black women in an unproductive conversation loop

2009-03-25T07:43:00.008Z
Once again the issue of interracial dating made an appearance in one of the local black papers around where I live. When I picked up the paper, I felt transported back in time. This magazine was still recycling the old conversations we had had in the 20th century. The article on interracial dating and other related reporting were once again focussed on interracial dating as 'something black men do and black women complain about'. Black women were positioned again as trying to bring black men back to the fold and griping about loosing out to other women while black men were positioned as the cynosure of all female eyes.

I asked myself then, 'Why are they still stuck in the 1985 conversation?'. You see this set format dictates the ensuing script, the one which requires a black man talking about how lovely his nonblack partner is, and a black women bitterly complaining about black men abandoning black women for white women.

I observe this same 'stuck in a time warp' format over and over in mainstream TV. When Jerry or Ricki or any of the other daytime talk show hosts want to do a show on interracial dating they ask black women to file into the 'complainers' corner and ask white women and black men to go over to the defense. As I explained in 'Supposing I wanted to date a White Guy...?', this effectively 'traps' black women's image in the forlorn, discarded, unattractive loser category, and places her white female in the sought after, universally attractive category. A reluctance to move this script on denotes a comfort with the roles assigned to each and the fact that dividends accrue to other groups from black women being low positioned.

Indeed, the fact that after many years, it doesnt occur to folks that things have moved on and we need new stories and new view points, testifies to the fact that there is a 'status quo' need to keep black women's image in the unattractive category. This is also in line with the general media theme of presenting an unappealing image of black women.

So what about black media, and why do black women get kept in the 'forever bleating over black man' loop. Well its simple really, this 'framing' keeps black women looking at interracial dating as something wrong, something for black men, and something they have to fight to win black men back from. Trapped within this loop of thinking means black women never get out of seeing interracial dating as a negative thing, and indeed shunning it in their personal choices to remain consistent (yes black women show themselves to be very worried and particular about being moral and consistent in their belief systems and this is often used to secure them in place). Job done!

So it has been identified that best way to keep black women from getting any ideas about interracial dating is to keep the focus and framing and the age old conversations going.

Also black female journalists continue to be unthinking, framing their writings and journalistic investigations to fit in with this formula (never bothering to analyze what effect keeping things the way they are has on black women). But this is no suprise really as many continue to believe that the black female's only preoccupation should be serving the fight for the black community, and this should be the only organising precept for black women's lives, actions and choices.

Years ago I met one of the black newspaper editors in a book signing event and spoke to him at length about the book etc. He nodeded in agreement at the points I made and as we were about to part company, he said to me, 'I suppose you want a mention in my column'. I said 'Yes of course please do'. I must add here that I dont believe that black men can be fairminded in this respect. I believe that most are self serving, and out for themselves. I believe that they have been so spoilt and catered to within the black movement that now, the average black man continues to view issues in terms of all he can get out of it, and is unfit for considering anything beyond himself particularly anything as far removed from his immediate gratification as 'black uplift'.

And guess what, this editor proved me correct because after waiting for weeks for him to honor his promise, the article he finally trotted out months later was still the same old drivel centering on black men and their choices with the necessary accompanying picture of a black male in a romantic clinch with a white female. Once again it was about focussing black women on black men and their interracial activities and thus getting black women all caught up in the whole unproductive discussion about, 'Why do black men date white women' and 'How do we get our black men back'. These folks have been succesfully 'mind guarding' black women from a productive consideration of interracial dating particularly as something for them also.

See the aim here is not to somehow find a solution or bring about dialogue, it is about keeping black women occupied in fruitless concerns so they dont move on or off with their lives. Indeed most of these male editors are sitting on necessary conversations and ideas just to keep the status quo in place, and I am not just talking about the area of relationships. Many of us are wondering why the black community is going down the drain. It is indeed going down because the class of black people in charge of communicating life saving information are either trying to maintain the big fish in a little pond situation and are thinking, 'If I release this information or this finding etc, things will move on and out from my domination and control'.

And to add, I feel very sad for black women who invest the level of trust and hope they do in the black man being fair and considerate towards them. If they really knew how these men operate and that the only thought in the vast majority of these men is 'getting theirs', many of these women would have a heart attack. I can never trust black men with moving the interest of black women on, even if they get themselves a sex change. Selfishness and opportunism have become the key features of black male politics and it is as clear as day to observe, that is apart from those desperate not to see!

Get clued up about interracial dating with the Interracial Dating E-Book

Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
©Halima Anderson Author, "Supposing I wanted to Date a White Guy"

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Give it up Part II

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Short and Sharp Lesson

Keeping black women in an unproductive conversation loop

My advice to black women is, 'LET IT GO'.

Pour away the hate!