The ethnic provincials among us might be disturbed to see a growing number of black women dating white men. One sees them at sporting events, at museums, at movie houses, restaurants and walking along seemingly swept up in the luminous net of romance.
Lord, Lord, Lord: the black woman and the white man.
Some will bitterly recall that terrorist period in Southern history when white men had all the money, all the power and could join a mob intent on killing a Negro for the forbidden act of "recklessly eyeballing" a white woman.
Now, as the song goes, things ain't what they used to be.
For a number of decades, black men in the urban North have crossed the romantic color line for a variety of reasons. Yet black women have almost always remained inside of the group.
Why are these women now coupling up with white men? Are they rejecting black men? Have they been caught worshiping whiteness out of a feeling of inferiority? Do they think they become white women by proxy if they date white men?
Given the nature of the human species, I assume there are some black women who are with white men for all the "wrong" reasons. But I think what we now see is the inevitable result of a problem that has been growing for years: a man shortage.
There are 2 million more adult black women than black men. Black men live far shorter lives and have greater health problems than black women, and far more black women than men graduate from college.
The numerical gap between black men and black women is the result of murder, AIDS, diseases like high blood pressure, heart failure and poor health care. Part of the medical care burden is imposed by backward attitudes toward doctors.
Illnesses that could be treated are much worse by the time most Negro men show up to find out about their health. I even know a country Negro from Florida who lives in Harlem, is 63 and fears going to the doctor for a checkup.
All this means that, when incarceration is factored in, there are far from enough men to go around. But even if murder, prison and irresponsible attitudes about health did not reduce the pool of men, negative attitudes toward schooling and higher education would mean all these educated black women would still find themselves roving in pursuit of partners equal to them in intellectual development.
That is a big change. In the past, it was not uncommon for black men to explain their white lovers by claiming they could not find black women sufficiently sophisticated to "understand" them. Now the black goose is catching up to the ebony gander.
I am not opposed to interracial relationships or marriages. What bothers me is that we have a tragic set of circumstances imposed by violent environments, poor attitudes toward education and perhaps the worst problem of all: a lack of intellectual engagement and a fear of doctors.
These problems are far from intractable. But the time for new strategies and new attitudes is not tomorrow; it is right now.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 46 } Location: Soon to be in Europe
Posted: Wed 11 May 2005 19:47 Post subject:
The article by Stanley Crouch contains nearly zero information aside from letting the reader know that Crouch is fearful of the possibility of a greater percentage of "black" women dating "outside of the ' race' ".
Years ago I saw a grade "B" movie called "Iron Eagle II". The movie contained an "East/West" romance as the USAF flyboy hit on his Russian female Soviet Air Force counterpart. The cultural chasms inherent in such a romance mirror so many of the actual marriages occuring in this day an age, as the U.S. (an immigrant society, after all) tends to its business of being a heterogeneous society.
Yet, if double-digit I.Q. types like Crouch were to have seen Iron Eagle II, they would more than likely have continued to munch their popcorn, oblivious of the blatant contradiction of accepted matrimony between culturally divergent persons and disapproved matrimony between "black" and "white" North Americans (whatever their sex or cultural affiliation).
Earth to Crouch:
"Black" women do not belong to you, anymore than Italian women belong to Dean Martin or Latino women belong to me. "Black" women are not your property and they can marry whom they please. It occurred to me that, with "black" women being in work, educational and military situations with increasingly diverse associations with different peoples, they might choose a non "black" mate for positive reasons, something that Crouch was slow to consider.
Speaking for myself, the plight of those afflicted with AIDS, the murder & high incarceration rates of some black males, and the other problems Crouch mentions don't really enter my mind, (unless I'm watching a television program regarding these problems) simply because these issues do not directly affect me, my family, friends, and close associates.
I mean no callousness, but it is not my world.
How then, could these issues have played a part when I fell in love with and married my husband?
Crouch is assuming all black (and I'm sure he is including biracial women under the black label as well) women are bemoaning the so called "shortage of good black men". It's simply not the case.
But see, he obviously NEEDS some reason (other than whatever draws men & women of any "race" together) to explain this "new" (is this man historically ignorant or what?) phenomenon.
Some reason that does not "threaten his black manhood".
My feeling is, if you are secure within yourself, and your ability to attract who you want, why should you even trip about the color of someone ELSE'S man or woman?
The women of color I know (myself included) who are married to white men married because of love and compatibility pure and simple.
Just like anyone else.
Not because we're trying to be "white" women (as if this were possible or desirable), worship "whiteness", or because we hate or wish to reject black men.
What utter bull sh-t.
This man needs to get a life seriously, and stay out of the lives of women and men he does not know.
Posted: Tue 07 Jun 2005 22:42 Post subject: Crouch is a doofus
Crouch really is a closed-minded bigot. People should marry whomever they love. Crouch's article reflects his own insecurities and prejudices. Really, why should he care who marries whom. How does it affect him and his little world.
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