Preference or Prejudice?
After all the time that I’ve spent in the past year standing firmly on my racial soap box, I was recently challenged with a question. “What if the husband that God has chosen just for you was not tall, DARK and handsome?” Hmmm…
Now that I am starting over, including the possibility of future relationships, I have had to start thinking about what I want in a partner. I’ve had many conversations with friends and in every attribute that I have described, I never had a certain look in mind, but it never dawned on me for a moment that my future soulmate could be someone other than a black man. Dating outside of my race was something that I honestly never considered, but when she posed the question, it required me to examine my belief system on that subject.
In the moment, of course my answer was and still is, “I’d welcome whomever God has chosen for me…” but there was a silent BUT! After that conversation, I woke up the next day with that question still on my mind and my spirit was increasingly agitated. In full transparency, it may seem silly that I gave it this much mental/emotional attention, but I struggled for several days and I took it as an opportunity for personal growth since God wouldn’t seem to let me let it go.
So, I asked God to give me clarity and here’s what He said. “How can I use you to be a voice and an example for racial reconciliation if you still have areas of prejudice in your own heart?” Ouch! “But I’m not prejudice. I treat people from all races well,” I thought. Then several memories were revealed to me in ways that made it easy to understand.
First let’s be clear, there is a difference between having prejudices/biases and being racist. Racism is defined as the scientifically false belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. Therefore, to be racist, you must be in a position where superiority can be perceived and/or imposed as power over another person of a different race or ethnic group. However, prejudice is defined as a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience or the development of biases based on such preconceived opinions.
A few days later, I saw a sermon by Bishop TD Jakes that talked about an issue that tends to hold us back, particularly in the black community described as “faulty belief systems”. I’ve had many conversations with non-black people where I’ve shared racist experiences and I was instantly offended when they would ask, “but how do you know that was racist?” In most cases my response was, when you’ve experienced it enough there are things you just “know”. I still believe that to be true, but regarding prejudices and biases that we all have, I decided to try to trace back where I got the information that formed the beliefs that I have lived by thus far.
I also recall, recently watching an episode of the Red Table Talk, where the ladies brought up the tension between the black community and the Asian community. I was able to watch objectively because I didn’t grow up in urban/minority communities where there were many Asian business owners, so to an extent I was blissfully ignorant of the extent of the tensions between the two communities. That is a whole different conversation, but it equipped me to examine my own experiences and belief systems in a new way to see where I could have my own blind spots.
Where are you going with this, Kim? Just land the plane. Okay fine!!!!! As far back as I can remember, I have had a problem with interracial couples. I have interracial couples in my family, and I love them all, but in theory and particularly as it relates to black men with white women, my initial default reaction has always been to assume that he must not respect or value black women, or that black women weren’t beautiful enough for him to have chosen a partner outside of his race. I’m sure that admission is making many people’s blood boil because on one side, there are a million and five “Amens” and on the other side, a million more of “I can only imagine”. But let’s take a deep dive into that theory. Where did that belief come from? It’s been a hot topic within the black community for as long as I’ve been alive.
The standard of beauty that has been glorified in our society and used to devalue women of color since the beginning of time as we know it, is that thin, white women with blond hair and blue eyes is the standard that everyone else is judged against. True or false? If you believe it is false, then why is the beauty industry a multi-billion-dollar industry, made mostly from the sales of wigs, weaves, extensions, dye, chemical straightening products and cosmetics to make women have long silky hair down to their butts, with colored contacts and so much make up that they are often unrecognizable without their full face on? Believe it or not, I’ve had strangers touch my hair to ask if it was real because the new norm is store bought hair. I have never cut my hair shorter than shoulder length because I’ve been in relationships that I was told I couldn’t cut my hair, as if having long hair is what defined my beauty or lack thereof. How ridiculous is that? I’m not knocking the creativity that has transpired out of the variety of products out there to enhance women’s beauty, but as a baseline it is a REAL THING that informs the belief systems of many women of color. We have been taught that white women are stealing the good black men and that’s what I grew up believing.
Generation after generation, women of color have had to hold it down for their families, often as single mothers, masking the pain of generational oppression, their childhood wounds and personal heartbreak ALONE. Which unfortunately comes at a great cost. We have historically sacrificed our own emotional needs and gentleness to be tough and get the job done for everyone else. The consequence is that we think is being strong is often perceived to be aggressive, unapproachable, and controlling, which is a turn off to some black men.
Malcolm X wrote: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” Statistically, we have been disproportionately abused (sexually, physically, and emotionally) and disregarded more than any other demographic in the country. As sad as that is, my personal experience finds that statement to be true for me, but we all know that “our truth, is not always THE TRUTH”.
THE TRUTH is that these three factors (although all based in truth) have formed my belief system that for a black male or female to choose to date or marry outside of his/her race that it is in some way a rejection of his/her identity. That has been so deeply engrained in my mind that I have sadly had conversations with my son’s, believing that if they chose a mate that wasn’t black that it must mean that they don’t love or respect me. I finally hear how ridiculous that sounds and I understand that it is rooted in a spirit of rejection.
Growing up in a predominately white community and school, I wasn’t attractive to boys/men of other races. I was always the one black girl that was everyone’s friend because I wasn’t thin, blonde, or blue eyed. I was also raped in high school by a white male that told me that, that’s what I deserved. Therefore, the combination of what I was taught, and those experiences fed that demon telling me that the belief system about the authenticity of interracial relationships must also be true.
Well although I never shared that belief out loud, today I am publicly apologizing and acknowledging that I no longer believe that to be true. The bottom line is that if two people’s spirits are attracted to one another, fully aware of their differences both physically and socially, and they are prepared for the criticism that comes with it, who am I to judge their relationships or the motives behind their connection. Furthermore, why would I possibly reject the man of my dreams if he is not in a tall, DARK, and handsome package?
It is my hope that I have successfully demonstrated the deconstruction of a faulty belief system. If you examine a belief system that starts with, “They say…” you need to tell “They” to SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP, then dig into God’s word, the source of THE TRUTH because there is nothing new under the sun.
The takeaways for today are:
Black people, if we want things to change for ourselves and future generations, we have work to do on our own faulty belief systems to open ourselves to the possibility of full racial reconciliation.
We ALL need to stop making assumptions about other people’s motives; and
ALL OF US, black, white, brown, and purple need to check ourselves on the things that we have conveniently called preferences that are secretly forms of prejudice.
Our relationships, how we do our jobs and how we show up in the world for each other are all at stake.
Until next time…
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