Ain't I a Woman?

Good morning All!
After being away for a couple weekends, I am looking forward to just being at home and relaxing with my 3 favorite F’s…family, friends & FOOD! Not necessarily in the that order either, I think you can tell which one was on my mind more at the time of writing. Seriously though, I’ve been getting a lot of travel in this summer. I’ve had an opportunity to teach Chicago Steppin’ in Cleveland and Dallas as most of you know I have dance fever and have progress a great deal in the 3 years that I’ve been dancing. I just came back from a girlfriends trip to Vegas where it was over 100 degrees and I learned just how tired I really was when I crashed on Saturday evening and didn’t wake up until Sunday morning. I know who does that in Vegas especially when you’re a P.Y.T. ;)

Anyway, today’s message is inspired by the many interracial couples I’ve seen in the last few weeks during my travels as well as the recent news that Zoe Saldana (Avatar) was recently engage to her white boyfriend of 10 years. I have not completed any formal research (maybe something to consider) and can’t say that the number of couples have increased or that based on my findings which percentage of mixed couples were black men/ other female or black women/ other male but what I can say is that there were many more black men with females of ethnic backgrounds other than their own. I can honestly say that it does not make me angry or upset, but I must admit that I was feeling something. After talking it over with some of my friends, I have come to accept that seeing so many black men with non-black women is causing me to perceive that there is a message being sent that I don’t need to hold out a preference for black men when searching for a mate. You may ask why it is that I no longer believe that I need to hold a preference for them or you may question why I was doing so in the first place. Well, I no longer believe it is necessary because it has become more and more obvious to me that more people in general are finding happiness with others from different backgrounds than themselves and my pickin’s within my own culture seems to be slimmer and slimmer as I meet more men. So while I feel I am waiting for my dark, brown, chocolate, caramel, dark/light-skinned-ded-ded (lol, you fill in the blank) brother to discover and choose this delicate flower waiting for him in the garden, I am discovering that the gardener does not even look in the yard where I am growing.

So, I’m not angry or upset…I just haven’t figured out what this means if it means anything. My first thoughts have been that I will and should expand my horizons. Now don’t get me wrong I’ve always been an equal opportunity kinda girl I mean my first real crush was on a white boy named John in pre-school and who wasn’t fantasizing about Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), but I’ve just never been seriously presented with the opportunity. So what should I do? Where should I go? After watching Something New, I decided I will need to change up my routine which means changing where I hang out and maybe even expanding my circle of friends. Taking my colleagues up on their invitations to hang out in places I don’t typically frequent with my girlfriends. I decided that process was gonna take time and without announcing to them my planned strategy it could take weeks/months. So I decided to just see what’s out there in cyber land. After quickly setting up a shared profile on 2 cites I’ve discovered that not only are my “brothas” not checking for me, men of other races are also leaving the “African-American/Black” box unchecked when selecting their preferences for a mate. Hmmm, I find that quite interesting. I mean, I saw some who checked every option available but the black girl option. What’s up with that? One guy even checked “other.” Is that the category I fall into…the I’ll take anything that I can get category? So I begin weeding through the “suggested matches” and began questioning why these matchmakers thought this person would make a good match for me when I am not on his list of ethnicities at all?

Where am I going with this? My point is that I can handle black men casting wider nets in order to maximize on their experiences and chance for happiness and they should. Women of all races are knocking down walls, doors and us to get to them. They see everything that I see in them, but I can’t ignore the feeling of not being valued as a black woman by men in general. I know that someone loves us because they are marrying us (I can list quite a few black women with men of different races), but are they just happening upon us or are they looking at us as potential mates and lifelong partners? I must say that I have gained some wonderful family members and friends which are the result of truly allowing love to be color blind and that this is not a question of the validity of their connection but a question of the value placed on black women. Something I am gonna continue to chew the fat on…shout back, let me know how you feel…

Peace, Detroit Luv & Soooooul!
Daniella

"We affirm that our stories, our experiences, our impressions and opinions are
important enough to be saved." --Marcia Ann Gillespie