Jungle Perspective

I went out w/a white guy...once...as in the first and only one. We weren't in love and living together like the daughter in Guess Who; whatever it was we had didn't make it past a few dates. I didn't take him to meet my family or anything like that and I never met any of his, but I have to admit that somewhere in a remote place in my mind, a part of me considered the possibility of things going there.

I'd met him at a dinner a former roommate of mine had w/some of her friends. I found him quite attractive (and that is no easy feat for a caucasian, as my standards are ridiculously high---and in no way a diss to my brothas, cuz believe me when I say I can appreciate dmn near ALL of you---so, as you can imagine, there must've been something to his looks. His being a teacher won my admiration, and had pretty much cinched the deal. Not to mean the whole "racial consciousness/awareness-empathetic point of view" thing he had going on. Oh, and then there was the French...ahhh...the oui, oui mon cheri...parlez-vous francaise? And he was fluent.

Two, maybe three of my friends knew about him. I'd really liked him (a lot), and wanted to share this phenomena w/them. One of them was like, Go for it, girl! If the brothas can date outside of our race, then so can we...equal opportunity! Another was like, Are you sure about this? Is this really what you want? If you believe he's genuine, then all that matters is your happiness.

When she asked me if a relationship w/a white man was really what I wanted, instead of no, my answer was more like, I'd prefer to have the "ideal" black family (strong black man, strong black me and a few beautiful black children), but if this develops into something, then so be it. I'm willing to explore that. I had my reservations, of course, but I was willing to take it there.

Looking back on that experience, I've realized that while I may be equipped w/the tenacity and endurance to handle, even attack racial issues in defense of my people, I was nowhere nearly that confident if it came down to me defending my choosing a white man. 100% white, at that. Naw, I wasn't ready to do that and in my heart didn't want to have to deal w/that in addition to the burden that comes with being born Black...particularly Black in America.

This was solidified when we'd go to establishments in Harlem and brothas and sistas would stare and glare. What a novel experience for me, but so not in a good way. I felt like I was under a microscrope, under extreme examination and scrutiny. I felt that they looked at me as if I were a traitor when I knew I hadn't done anything wrong...or had I? I felt as if I had broken some kind of code of honor and that I was disgraced by having this white guy with me.