Black/White

I think I've come to the end of my tether here folks. For months now I've been trying to keep what is inevitable from happening. I am this close to loosing my top over some ignorant shit (excuse my French).
So, this year I have been charged with the punishment of making a whole entire new set of friends from whom I'll choose those who will know me for the rest of my life. Sounds fun doesn't it? I finds myself having difficulty in making that initial connection that ignites enough spark for it to last the test of time. Might I give you a scenario:


I met this individual (names withheld for obvious reasons) with whom I immediately "bonded" over our similar desire to "date outside our race". It was funny really, wouldn't it be cool if we each introduced the other into our circle of friends? Not something I was entirely keen of at the moment, but sitting there giggling over the hypothetical "what-ifs" was great amusement in its own right.
I had no intention of taking this up seriously, and no knowledge that they might actually consider this to be an effective way to "break through the other side". Whatever the case, this became the foundation of my very first "failed friendship" this year. In hindsight, I should have participated less in those base conversations, because I must have given off the impression that interracial dating was at the forefront of my mind.


Might I point out, before I go further, that I have absolutely no stance on who anybody decides to date. I feel about the same amount of emotion when I look at a LGBT relationship as I do when looking at a straight mixed or otherwise nonracial relationship. Bottom line, two (or more in some cases) parties are expressing and acting on their unified intimate feelings for one another, and that is beautiful. I do, however have a problem when humans extend this affection to their pets/animals and bestiality is called into question...that's just sick. Other than that, if you want to fall in love with a doll, a chair, a guy a girl...someone from your race or someone outside it...do your thing Booboo. Its your life after all!


Back to the issue at hand, this friendship I seem to have cultivated turned into something I was not anticipating. All of a sudden I had been levitated to Pimp Status, arranging dates and discussing my friends as though I had some sort of farm with bulls to sell. I must admit, out of curiosity, I threw in a few that I knew were not up to the standard of the "Prime Bulls" I was parading and to my surprise they received no rejection either! So here I was standing face-to-face with a classic case of what I like to call Black Skin  Fetish.
Everyone has their own "type" I suppose, and as I have come to learn this past Summer, this does include color but I guess what really hurt was the reality that this individual (who prides themselves with being pro-Africanism) might have very well made friends with me over just that issue: my skin color. More than once did I mistreat them purposely, and more than once did they brush it off as a natural default of being "African".
Perhaps I should have said something, made it known to them that their dismissal of my negative behaviors as being a direct result of my ethnic background hurt. Instead I laid out the sarcasm and begun to inwardly build a folder of all the reasons why I hated them to death, make inferences of their every word and secretly laugh inside at how short they were selling themselves just to be with a person of the opposite race.


Don't get me wrong, I did feel guilt, many times. At which point I would swoop in a dish some very much needed advice, and try and make this person realize the reality of their actions...but more times than that did I just sit there and let them be. Its almost as if I, myself saw their color as one of the reasons as to why I had to "protect" my kind form "their" kinds stupidity.
At some point I was convinced that only those with insecurity and self esteem issues gravitated towards my race. The one's well rooted in their being, confident in their purpose in life and "proper" (for lack of a better word) saw no interest in crossing over- and I guess the reverse is true too.


So then where did that leave me? Constantly doubting my secret desire to engage in an interracial relationship. I did not, and still do not identify myself with any of the above issues. I have no reason to feel internalized racsim, self-hate or want to be of another race. I really do love myself in all totality (flaws and all)...I guess I just want to see what its like to date outside my race, experience an entirely different culture from my own (even though, by now, I know I do not entirely agree with a lot of things) and participate in an intimacy that functions quite differently than the one I have grown accustomed to.
Mind you, I know that what I'm asking for has its own set of problems. I'll always be the "Exotic" girlfriend from "Africa"...the benchmark in his list of exes (unless he has dedicated his affections to specifically my race, in which matter I will probably not date him anyway...I am not some sort of label) whom all his friends and family will crowd over to examine. I'll always be the girl that either he decided to experiment with (with no REAL intentions of taking that relationship anywhere) or accidentally fell in love with: the one that stands out.
On the reverse side, whatever is going through his mind at this point, I cannot quite comment on. What if he thinks just like I do: suspicious of the girl who wants to engage in some sort of relationship with him. "What is she looking to establish? How does it reflect on me? What am I looking for? Why must there even be these kinds of questions running through my mind?!"


Sigh. It really was a little more than I was prepared to deal with and it resulted into me absolutely feeling ill towards my "friend". I was also rudely slapped in the face with the realization that I am in fact very African. Where as they would have probably attacked this problem head on, I moved out of their way. Preferring to keep the peace rather than really tell them what I thought about their little escapades.
I guess my friend's insights taught me well though. I would have never had the opportunity to look in on the issue from this standpoint. Of course now, I have had more time to come up correct inferences about the whole interracial dating thing. It has nothing to do with the degree of one's intellect (that's just my temper getting the best of me), but more-so with own free personal choice. Maybe it is a type. Maybe its not. I've learnt that in all of this, I can only walk out with the fact that I still want to see whats on the other side, and until I do so, well...I won't know!


Till later,


xx Me xx