Last year I came across an article in a local paper about a black couple who had had been out to lunch and when they requested their bill, someone had written, ’The black couple’ on it. I don’t think there was any malicious intent behind the writing, just that the waiter or whoever had just seized the most obvious thing about them to classify them rather than maybe use table number etc. Anyway, what got my attention was the picture of the couple used. While the black man was snapped with a slightly bemused and hurt expression, the black woman was snapped looking menacing!
I kid you not, she looked like she was about to aim a karate kick, her face was ducked and low and all that and she was standing behind the black man. Wow! Talk about role reversal.
I don’t know if she had been coached or they just snapped her at a ‘moment’ but the picture made me think about the discussions we have been having for a while now about a general move to de-feminize black women and make them out to be not worth any mans attention in fact to deny them the Curtsey, Concern, Consideration and Concessions readily extended to other women. Indeed we live in a situation of patriarchy, we are not yet a society of gender equality and therefore a female has 'currency' if she can elicit the CCCC response.
It made me also reflect on how black women, mostly unknowingly, have begun to cooperate with this dynamic to push them out of the female category, with the attendant benefits which come under the terms of patriarchy, mostly because of being blind to the situation and to the intentions to push them out of a profitable category.
Anyway I was talking the other day about how nervous I get around young black girls in my local area. Whenever I hear a blood curdling scream in the morning on my way to work, I can be sure to look round and find black girls behaving uncouth in public. Every. Time.
I might have said this somewhere before but when I look at how black girls are being left to run wild and without manners in society, and how no one is taking the time to pass on instructions about how to conduct themselves like ladies, I have my suspicions that they are being prepared for their roles as the servant girls and milk maids of society. Lowly roles for coarse women.
When you look at the care and polishing that goes into raising princesses and even women who parents want to occupy pride of places in society, you will understand why I feel that society is simply conveyor-belting black girls into the lowliest places of all, with their parents/mothers blisfully unaware as usual.
Indeed that’s what a racist system does, it makes for the worst outcomes for black women and it is only those who are aware and watchful and understand and read the signs, and see things for what they are, that can provide effective manouvers against the ‘will’ of the system.
The most important thing a family can do is to provide an effective barrier to the railroading of their black children towards becoming fodder for the system, by putting strategies in place, but with what I am seeing around me, I can tell that hardly any of the black parents around even gets it, not to mention putting together some semblance of a strategy towards preventing the likely negative outcome that is sure to be the case if there is no intervention. All they do is supply food, clothes and housing and think this is all their children will need, that is until they receive a knock on the door from the police or hospital. Even among the Africans who still have some sort of family units intact, I see this happening again and again.
Cooperating with the system out for you…
I was also on a public bus a few days ago and two black girls starting talking about their friend, mentioning loudly that she was a lesbian even calling her by her name etc etc and then they started on about ‘eating’! This was on a public bus with over forty people seated. No one else was talking and these girls (young mums) felt very comfortable talking very explicitly all under the guise of being morally superior to ‘the lesbian‘.
To detour a bit, you see, in addition to other issues we as black women have, I believe one of our greatest downfalls comes from a need to cling to self-righteousness, piousness and ‘moral rectitude’ as a way of being. Usually it’s all cover up and I suspect born out of feelings of lowliness and not being good enough and a need to strive for approval however I think it also provides black women a good cover for their need to brutally tear down other women in the guise of talking about them not being upright black women.
(The constant need for moral rectitude is indeed revealed to me in that fact that it is almost always only black woman who are handing out tracks or preaching on trains and what have you-another talk for another day.)
I also notice in these situations how that black women reserve their ire for other black women, who they are always picking apart and denouncing of course having bought into the general disdain being shown towards black women currently. They talk about their fellow women not the men who for sure have a catalogue of issues from which they can pick to talk about.
What I found very bothersome was the total lack of shame in discussing sexual issues and believing somehow they had a right to talk about such issues in public (act of social interractional vandalism) . I am very sure they saw some unconfortable looks because the black man at my side was shooting them disapproving glances, but you see in the peversity that has befallen many black women, they actually enjoy luridness and the fact that they are making others uncomfortable, but they will be the first to talk about how white folks are racist! I admit that even I felt racist that day because when another set of black girls came on the bus I started praying for deliverance. Let us not pretend that we do not know how some folks develop their prejudices against us. To me its almost like many black women have become perverse that they actually enjoy bringing down upon themselves the repercussios that will likely result from their activities eg social shunning, limited social range. Its almost like sticking a finger to themselves.
I agree with the discussion that happened a while back at http://sojournerspassport.com/ that black women who want to thrive, must begin to set themselves apart from such self-spiters and black women who revel in being uncouth and doing damage to their general image. I know some black women are of the belief that, all our fates are tied together and thus we must interrupt our onward journey to help push forward and bring into line others. The truth is that some are just too far off and going back to rescue them will cost you greatly. I know we all feel strongly about standing with our fellow women and this is a build on the whole concept strongly held by black folks of standing in solidarity with other blacks, however the new winning strategy for black women must be 'dissociate from those that can tarnish', let it be known that you are a different 'class' a different breed, that you uphold decency, by your actions, a carefully dropped hint or statement, rejecting their forced teaming when they do come around to display that they have 'links' with you.
I can tell you as someone who has only just completed a project on which I was the only black person, that when it counts towards career progression, social status etc etc, you can quite easily make a good impression for yourself or overturn a preexising negative one!
You can gain insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, and find out more about the Interracial Option, read the IR E-book
Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Pavlovian Responses and Old Wine Skins (updates!)
I want to thank Khadija of Sojouners Passport for fleshing out fully, a concept that I alluded to in my last post.
Thats the beauty of a network exchanging ideas. You build up a kernel of an idea into a fuller picture and you join the dots for each other till you have a deeper nuanced analysis.
Indeed Khadija used the right term for what I was trying to express; that is that black women have pavlovian responses around certain triggers. As soon as they sense the situation, they respond in the ways they have been coached/conditioned to.
Folk understand how black women operate even if they dont know it by its correct term, and they use these triggers (be they situations, narratives and words) to elicit the desired reaction. I can tell you now that the first set of triggers that are used to 'puppet' black women are the words, 'our men', brothers, slavery, black community, Queen, 'the white man'.
I will say that in my estimation, the strongest of these is the term 'our men'. You only need to insert this term in some scatter brained argument and you can get black women to do just about anything; sign cheques of a million pounds and what have you. Arguments that have two hundred holes can pass, without even a whimper, just by introducing the words, 'white man' somewhere in the mix. Indeed in one of my previous posts I talked about how a black male panelist wriggled his way out of a critical question by going on the ususal trip of 'what white men did during slavery'. Indeed as soon as he started his 'chat' which made no sense whatsoever he got the desired amens and alleluias ringing from the black women in the crowd and he was able to succesfully redirect the discussion. As soon as he inserted, 'they (understood meaning: the white man), took family away from us' these women immediately fell for his tripe even when it made very little sense. This situation also highlights that there are also pavlovian settings, as I will talk about shortly!
Indeed I have in the past summarised that...
Many black people are deft appliers of this code and like a puppet master, many have learnt to pull the right strings on black women’s emotions almost at will by enlisting the use of certain phrases and words imbued with so much emotional meaning by a Black thought System (BTS). They move black women emotionally with words like, ‘Our men’, ‘Queen’, ‘black unity’. These phrases and words have the power to disengage black women from any sort of critical thinking and comonsense over the rest of what goes after the word is applied, open hearts, open checks books and open whatever else is the result!
Indeed critical thinking should make black women realize that black people who destroy their communities by their actions, are not suppose to be in receipt of any kind of protection. Yet using the word ‘brother’ or ‘our men’ and couching the discussion in terms of 'this is an attack by an ‘external’ on black people,' it is enough to make black women 'close ranks' to protect even those whose activities are far more injurious to them, than that of any external and therefore they concentrate lethal damage and destruction within the black territory.
In the above you can see that the pavlovian response results in them being used as agents of destruction of their own situation and interest, something which anyone in their rightful mind would guard against doing!
Again:
As soon as these folks want black women galvanized into action, it is 'our men', as soon as they want black women to step back and relinquish any right to reciprocity and claim on the resources they have by their efforts enabled black men achieve, it becomes, 'men' as in 'men will always want access to different women'. Note how the frames change from 'our men' (responsibility of black women), to 'men' (general, no recirocity, black women have no claim here!).
As I mentioned above, there are Pavlovian settings for black women as well, that is, places and settings where black women behave in conditioned ways as they know they should, eg black unity meetings, church gatherings, state of black people kind events, where black women dare not question or point out foolish arguments with dozens of holes, where they are supposed to 'maintain' a notion of togetherness and 'the enemy is external', and 'our only option is black men' limits on discussions, or pretend 'brother is speaking so much wisdom' when he is speaking utter foolishness. As soon as black women come into such settings, their thinking and behaviour adapts to be in accordance with black community approved black-female ways of being and acting. This is one reason why black women with strong black conditioning/indoctrination need to avoid these settings until they can unlearn their pavlovian responses...
CONTINUED
The pull of the 'Old Wine Skin' approach
I firmly believe that there was a key reason why Jesus Christ talked about getting total rid of old wine skins (approaches/frameworks) and getting new ones (new ways of being and doing). When you want to fit a 'new way', into an old way, it is either not very successful or can destroy the new and even old.
I believe in clean breaks from the old way of being and doing. At the point in time of Jesus manifestation he was trying to communicate a new way of being, but there was a tendency to try to fit his philosophy into the old ways as a kind of 'upgrade'/'update' on an old philosophy (most times the status quo moves to absorb and intrinsically change the newer philosohy and make it a component of itself), and so Jesus talked about new wine skins (doctrine frames, ideological pillars etc) for new wine to prevent the destruction of the new way (spilling of the new wine).
Many black women want to 'BF empowernment' work to somehow feed into the agenda for overall black community uplift. I have seen strange ways in which some black women want to amalgamate IR with the overall agenda for black progress.
The pull of the current black progress agenda, is so very strong with some black women, even when it does not 'mesh' with what we are about. I see black women come up with problems over and over as they try to stream line both black women looking after their situation with black uplift.
Some black women for instance want to use 'IR' to bring black men to their senses. Or they are using IR in the meantime till something happens for black people.
Black women who want to move forward must totally give up 'being of the mind of black community'. Yes that is a hardline one but it is the crux of the matter I see for many black women. You must now proceed as an individual and forget about being preoccupied with 'community getting theirs,' or participating in uplift of black people as a group.
The 'mind for the black community' mentality is holding many black women back, for instance, do you think that if black women werent 'of the mind of community', by now they wouldnt have figured out that black men are uninterested in community and building together with them, and would have stopped looking to black men to make some sort of sense in these regards. Do you think they wouldnt have figured out that 'giving back' is not something to engage in when you are barely with your head above water! There are a lot of bizzare things that black women are getting up to and involved in, simply because they are 'of the mind of the black community'.
Now let me say something here, there is nothing morally wrong with the idea of black progress. Note however the shapping and formating of how this work must be done and how it leads black women into a pit. Because it has been entrenched that it must happen in X Y Z manner and proceed in XYZ way and because black women are trying to follow and remain loyal these laid down methods and approaches, that results in black women's heartaches. I do not think black women can rewrite the script for black uplift. We all know that any black woman who wants to get involved in uplift of 'her people' must do it under terms of self destruction. Indeed we all can observe that the acceptable way of involving in black uplift for black women is one of self-sacrificing, putting up with things they shouldnt, limititng themselves, waititng on black men etc etc and we as black women know these rules (no one need bother spell them out) and we get sucked into that way of life simply by agreeing to be in on the uplift effort!
So it is the attendant programs and routeins that come with the whole idea of 'black community' uplift, which as I said is not in itself an idea that is ignoble, that produces problems for black women trying to get into the effort.
The Black community mindset comes with it's attendant mini philosophies and ideas which keeps black women going round in circles. Like a main computer program like microsoft comes with a dozen or more 'add ons' and sub programmes, the fact that the whole agenda of 'black progress' has 'add on' programs of self-sacrifice and forebearing evil and devaluing self etc means deinstallation of the main 'mind for black community' mindset takes with it, its devaluation of black womanhood 5.01 and Putting up with BS 8.5.
I was about to buy a new program for my computer the other day, and was told that the new package was not a legacy supporting package, meaning it was a total break from the old one. The explanation was that by not supporting the 'old application' the new program could chart new Territories and do things the old package with its settings would not allow it to do. For me it meant the inconvinence of 'reading the manual' and getting into how this current one works, but after this orginal outlay, I could do more and fascinating things with the new program which I wouldnt even have dreamed with the old one.
Black women need to unintsall the 'being for black community' mindset (which hopefull would uninstall the other add-on which it comes with, if not then going into 'set up' and doing it manually), and install the 'proceeding as an individual black woman', program.
Black Women you can gain insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, and find out more about the Interracial Option, read the IR E-book
Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com
Thats the beauty of a network exchanging ideas. You build up a kernel of an idea into a fuller picture and you join the dots for each other till you have a deeper nuanced analysis.
Indeed Khadija used the right term for what I was trying to express; that is that black women have pavlovian responses around certain triggers. As soon as they sense the situation, they respond in the ways they have been coached/conditioned to.
Folk understand how black women operate even if they dont know it by its correct term, and they use these triggers (be they situations, narratives and words) to elicit the desired reaction. I can tell you now that the first set of triggers that are used to 'puppet' black women are the words, 'our men', brothers, slavery, black community, Queen, 'the white man'.
I will say that in my estimation, the strongest of these is the term 'our men'. You only need to insert this term in some scatter brained argument and you can get black women to do just about anything; sign cheques of a million pounds and what have you. Arguments that have two hundred holes can pass, without even a whimper, just by introducing the words, 'white man' somewhere in the mix. Indeed in one of my previous posts I talked about how a black male panelist wriggled his way out of a critical question by going on the ususal trip of 'what white men did during slavery'. Indeed as soon as he started his 'chat' which made no sense whatsoever he got the desired amens and alleluias ringing from the black women in the crowd and he was able to succesfully redirect the discussion. As soon as he inserted, 'they (understood meaning: the white man), took family away from us' these women immediately fell for his tripe even when it made very little sense. This situation also highlights that there are also pavlovian settings, as I will talk about shortly!
Indeed I have in the past summarised that...
Many black people are deft appliers of this code and like a puppet master, many have learnt to pull the right strings on black women’s emotions almost at will by enlisting the use of certain phrases and words imbued with so much emotional meaning by a Black thought System (BTS). They move black women emotionally with words like, ‘Our men’, ‘Queen’, ‘black unity’. These phrases and words have the power to disengage black women from any sort of critical thinking and comonsense over the rest of what goes after the word is applied, open hearts, open checks books and open whatever else is the result!
Indeed critical thinking should make black women realize that black people who destroy their communities by their actions, are not suppose to be in receipt of any kind of protection. Yet using the word ‘brother’ or ‘our men’ and couching the discussion in terms of 'this is an attack by an ‘external’ on black people,' it is enough to make black women 'close ranks' to protect even those whose activities are far more injurious to them, than that of any external and therefore they concentrate lethal damage and destruction within the black territory.
In the above you can see that the pavlovian response results in them being used as agents of destruction of their own situation and interest, something which anyone in their rightful mind would guard against doing!
Again:
As soon as these folks want black women galvanized into action, it is 'our men', as soon as they want black women to step back and relinquish any right to reciprocity and claim on the resources they have by their efforts enabled black men achieve, it becomes, 'men' as in 'men will always want access to different women'. Note how the frames change from 'our men' (responsibility of black women), to 'men' (general, no recirocity, black women have no claim here!).
As I mentioned above, there are Pavlovian settings for black women as well, that is, places and settings where black women behave in conditioned ways as they know they should, eg black unity meetings, church gatherings, state of black people kind events, where black women dare not question or point out foolish arguments with dozens of holes, where they are supposed to 'maintain' a notion of togetherness and 'the enemy is external', and 'our only option is black men' limits on discussions, or pretend 'brother is speaking so much wisdom' when he is speaking utter foolishness. As soon as black women come into such settings, their thinking and behaviour adapts to be in accordance with black community approved black-female ways of being and acting. This is one reason why black women with strong black conditioning/indoctrination need to avoid these settings until they can unlearn their pavlovian responses...
CONTINUED
The pull of the 'Old Wine Skin' approach
I firmly believe that there was a key reason why Jesus Christ talked about getting total rid of old wine skins (approaches/frameworks) and getting new ones (new ways of being and doing). When you want to fit a 'new way', into an old way, it is either not very successful or can destroy the new and even old.
I believe in clean breaks from the old way of being and doing. At the point in time of Jesus manifestation he was trying to communicate a new way of being, but there was a tendency to try to fit his philosophy into the old ways as a kind of 'upgrade'/'update' on an old philosophy (most times the status quo moves to absorb and intrinsically change the newer philosohy and make it a component of itself), and so Jesus talked about new wine skins (doctrine frames, ideological pillars etc) for new wine to prevent the destruction of the new way (spilling of the new wine).
Many black women want to 'BF empowernment' work to somehow feed into the agenda for overall black community uplift. I have seen strange ways in which some black women want to amalgamate IR with the overall agenda for black progress.
The pull of the current black progress agenda, is so very strong with some black women, even when it does not 'mesh' with what we are about. I see black women come up with problems over and over as they try to stream line both black women looking after their situation with black uplift.
Some black women for instance want to use 'IR' to bring black men to their senses. Or they are using IR in the meantime till something happens for black people.
Black women who want to move forward must totally give up 'being of the mind of black community'. Yes that is a hardline one but it is the crux of the matter I see for many black women. You must now proceed as an individual and forget about being preoccupied with 'community getting theirs,' or participating in uplift of black people as a group.
The 'mind for the black community' mentality is holding many black women back, for instance, do you think that if black women werent 'of the mind of community', by now they wouldnt have figured out that black men are uninterested in community and building together with them, and would have stopped looking to black men to make some sort of sense in these regards. Do you think they wouldnt have figured out that 'giving back' is not something to engage in when you are barely with your head above water! There are a lot of bizzare things that black women are getting up to and involved in, simply because they are 'of the mind of the black community'.
Now let me say something here, there is nothing morally wrong with the idea of black progress. Note however the shapping and formating of how this work must be done and how it leads black women into a pit. Because it has been entrenched that it must happen in X Y Z manner and proceed in XYZ way and because black women are trying to follow and remain loyal these laid down methods and approaches, that results in black women's heartaches. I do not think black women can rewrite the script for black uplift. We all know that any black woman who wants to get involved in uplift of 'her people' must do it under terms of self destruction. Indeed we all can observe that the acceptable way of involving in black uplift for black women is one of self-sacrificing, putting up with things they shouldnt, limititng themselves, waititng on black men etc etc and we as black women know these rules (no one need bother spell them out) and we get sucked into that way of life simply by agreeing to be in on the uplift effort!
So it is the attendant programs and routeins that come with the whole idea of 'black community' uplift, which as I said is not in itself an idea that is ignoble, that produces problems for black women trying to get into the effort.
The Black community mindset comes with it's attendant mini philosophies and ideas which keeps black women going round in circles. Like a main computer program like microsoft comes with a dozen or more 'add ons' and sub programmes, the fact that the whole agenda of 'black progress' has 'add on' programs of self-sacrifice and forebearing evil and devaluing self etc means deinstallation of the main 'mind for black community' mindset takes with it, its devaluation of black womanhood 5.01 and Putting up with BS 8.5.
I was about to buy a new program for my computer the other day, and was told that the new package was not a legacy supporting package, meaning it was a total break from the old one. The explanation was that by not supporting the 'old application' the new program could chart new Territories and do things the old package with its settings would not allow it to do. For me it meant the inconvinence of 'reading the manual' and getting into how this current one works, but after this orginal outlay, I could do more and fascinating things with the new program which I wouldnt even have dreamed with the old one.
Black women need to unintsall the 'being for black community' mindset (which hopefull would uninstall the other add-on which it comes with, if not then going into 'set up' and doing it manually), and install the 'proceeding as an individual black woman', program.
Black Women you can gain insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, and find out more about the Interracial Option, read the IR E-book
Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com
Monday, March 08, 2010
What, 'I have a preference for black men', really means
When black women say they have a preference for black men, I take it all with a whole big pinch of salt, because, you really cannot say you have a ‘preference’ unless you have dated different types (e.g. white men, asian men, arab men etc etc), over a period of time and have come to the conclusion that your favourite is one of these groups.
Black women make me laugh when they trot out the ol’ ‘I have a preference for black men’. How come then black men don’t share indeed show any evidence of this same strong, vocalized preference for black women and you can quite easily observe they don’t. Indeed if your ‘preference’ is something real and hardwired and innate, as some of you like to protest it is (this whole black just want to be with black etc etc) then everyone/every group would share similar patterns of ‘preferring’ those who prefer them, or else one group would risk becoming extinct, if it’s strong preference is not returned.
All in all, the term preference suggests a comparison has been made. If I prefer potatoes to any other ‘root’ food, then it suggests that I have had occasions to taste a variety of these other foods e.g. yams, swedes, sweet potatoes etc etc and over time realized that really my taste buds favour potatoes.
So all these women who haven’t even shared a cup of coffee with a white man, deciding they have a preference for only black men are just confused about what they are saying really. Remember folks, to have a preference for one thing, you must have had a chance to try/taste other things in its category more than once hopefully before you come out with that definite conclusion.
Something else is really afoot when black women answer with the usual knee-jerk ‘I have a preference for black men’. In my view there is a dynamic at play here that really isn’t about preference. They are not really answering the direct question, ‘who do you prefer’ (which if you note is never really asked they just offer the information about their preference unprompted). What they are actually doing is responding to the ‘subtext’ of the discussion or debate at hand, which they have processed and immediately heard that distinct call to stick up for their race. When black women answer in this manner, they have heard in the debate or conversation something that requires them to come out swinging for their race, they hear a call to show how ‘wonderful’ their race is and how black people are not 'all up into' white skin and all that other stuff that we as black women are always trying to guard against being or doing. This is about hyper vigilance for race.
I call this particular reaction, ‘responding to the subtext discussion’ which is about defending the race/race totems, sometimes resulting in black women making a whole issue out to be something it isn’t about. You see a clear example of how this ‘making an issue about what it is not’, happens on the programme Oprah Winfrey did about the high rates of singleness among black women. If you find a copy of that program on Youtube etc, you will see how that as soon as Oprah said the opening words about 70% singleness, one black woman in the audience immediately got her hand up and started going on about how black men are good and this and that. This was before Oprah even mentioned anything about black men!
The woman came out fighting because she heard the subtext negative suggestion about black men (real or imagined), and immediately a discussion about black women and dating suddenly required a ‘coming to the defence of black men’ .
Other ways black women make a discussion about something it is not
When black women hear any discussion, they start scanning it for any underling implication that their black race is being demeaned, and quite often as is the case when one is hyper vigilant the alarm gets set off and they hear, ‘this is that situation you were warned to be prepared to say something in favour of your people.’ They come out swinging hard for the race.
Outsiders hear ‘protestations’ of undying love for black men and claims of strong preference and read it as proof of how black women have this amazing ‘attachment’ to black men rather than see this as black women responding to a call to ‘defend’ their race.
‘I have a preference for black men’ then can be translated ‘I have to show you/the world that we are sooooo enamoured with our race and we love it so much as to not be really interested in others’. It is showing the world that 'we are not self haters', 'we love our race' (symbolically through being totally enamoured with black man), 'we are not looking to run away from our blackness', 'are not looking to be white' etc etc.
Any wonder then that the more black men ‘display’ a non-preference for black women the louder the protestations of ‘black male preference’ grows. It all makes sense in the context of black women trying hard to counter the suggestions that their race is not good enough etc as being reinforced by black men’s actions.
Black Women you can gain insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, and find out more about the Interracial Option, read the IR E-book
Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com
Black women make me laugh when they trot out the ol’ ‘I have a preference for black men’. How come then black men don’t share indeed show any evidence of this same strong, vocalized preference for black women and you can quite easily observe they don’t. Indeed if your ‘preference’ is something real and hardwired and innate, as some of you like to protest it is (this whole black just want to be with black etc etc) then everyone/every group would share similar patterns of ‘preferring’ those who prefer them, or else one group would risk becoming extinct, if it’s strong preference is not returned.
All in all, the term preference suggests a comparison has been made. If I prefer potatoes to any other ‘root’ food, then it suggests that I have had occasions to taste a variety of these other foods e.g. yams, swedes, sweet potatoes etc etc and over time realized that really my taste buds favour potatoes.
So all these women who haven’t even shared a cup of coffee with a white man, deciding they have a preference for only black men are just confused about what they are saying really. Remember folks, to have a preference for one thing, you must have had a chance to try/taste other things in its category more than once hopefully before you come out with that definite conclusion.
Something else is really afoot when black women answer with the usual knee-jerk ‘I have a preference for black men’. In my view there is a dynamic at play here that really isn’t about preference. They are not really answering the direct question, ‘who do you prefer’ (which if you note is never really asked they just offer the information about their preference unprompted). What they are actually doing is responding to the ‘subtext’ of the discussion or debate at hand, which they have processed and immediately heard that distinct call to stick up for their race. When black women answer in this manner, they have heard in the debate or conversation something that requires them to come out swinging for their race, they hear a call to show how ‘wonderful’ their race is and how black people are not 'all up into' white skin and all that other stuff that we as black women are always trying to guard against being or doing. This is about hyper vigilance for race.
I call this particular reaction, ‘responding to the subtext discussion’ which is about defending the race/race totems, sometimes resulting in black women making a whole issue out to be something it isn’t about. You see a clear example of how this ‘making an issue about what it is not’, happens on the programme Oprah Winfrey did about the high rates of singleness among black women. If you find a copy of that program on Youtube etc, you will see how that as soon as Oprah said the opening words about 70% singleness, one black woman in the audience immediately got her hand up and started going on about how black men are good and this and that. This was before Oprah even mentioned anything about black men!
The woman came out fighting because she heard the subtext negative suggestion about black men (real or imagined), and immediately a discussion about black women and dating suddenly required a ‘coming to the defence of black men’ .
Other ways black women make a discussion about something it is not
- Finding personal love and happiness becomes an issue about saving black community
- Protecting our young black girls from DBR predators side tracks into an issue of how not to send a brother to jail
- Finding a good man to love becomes an issue of never giving up on ‘brotas’
When black women hear any discussion, they start scanning it for any underling implication that their black race is being demeaned, and quite often as is the case when one is hyper vigilant the alarm gets set off and they hear, ‘this is that situation you were warned to be prepared to say something in favour of your people.’ They come out swinging hard for the race.
Outsiders hear ‘protestations’ of undying love for black men and claims of strong preference and read it as proof of how black women have this amazing ‘attachment’ to black men rather than see this as black women responding to a call to ‘defend’ their race.
‘I have a preference for black men’ then can be translated ‘I have to show you/the world that we are sooooo enamoured with our race and we love it so much as to not be really interested in others’. It is showing the world that 'we are not self haters', 'we love our race' (symbolically through being totally enamoured with black man), 'we are not looking to run away from our blackness', 'are not looking to be white' etc etc.
Any wonder then that the more black men ‘display’ a non-preference for black women the louder the protestations of ‘black male preference’ grows. It all makes sense in the context of black women trying hard to counter the suggestions that their race is not good enough etc as being reinforced by black men’s actions.
Black Women you can gain insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, and find out more about the Interracial Option, read the IR E-book
Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com
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