Posted on 07/13/2002 4:41:51 PM PDT by NativeNewYorker
"No, she didn't. . . ."
Natasha Bailey hears the whispered scorn. She spots the dirty looks on the streets. She listens to the lectures from her friends.
The 23-year-old Bailey is an ebony-hued woman with dreads, a baby doll voice and a love of African culture so strong that she joined a West African rites of passage society.
But she's a traitor to some because she's dating Jason Walker, a 22-year-old white man. How could she, her friends ask, given how white men have treated black people.
"I'm the first one to say, OK, let's look at the history," the Atlanta resident says. "But to take that and put that on a person that's right here and now, I can't do that. That's unfair to that person. I judge them as they come."
Bailey represents a quiet revolution taking place among some black women. For years, they've complained about the shortage of eligible black men. Now they're no longer content to vent on "Oprah." If Mr. Right happens to be white, more are willing to cross the color line.
"I'm not going to sit on a porch in a rocking chair, all alone at 80 years old because of color," says Wanda Dunn, a 37-year-old Stone Mountain Web designer. "I don't see it as a turning away from black men but as expanding my options."
When it comes to interracial dating, people have traditionally focused on the taboo nature of black men dating white women. Yet statistics show that more black women are becoming involved with white men.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of black female/white male marriages remained relatively static between 1960 and 1980, increasing from 26,000 to 27,000. But by 2000, the number had jumped to 80,000.
Images of black women pairing with white men are now common in popular culture as well. Commercials and music videos are full of such couples. Halle Berry recently won an Oscar for her controversial role in "Monster's Ball," a film in which she plays a waitress who becomes involved with a white man. Berry also played the girlfriend of a white man in another film, "Swordfish." And Angela Basset played the girlfriend of Robert De Niro in "The Score."
Changing the script
The reasons driving black women to flip the dating script are varied. Some of it is simple exposure. Social divisions along color lines remain, but they aren't as rigid. Black women find themselves more in contact with white men in school, at the office and in social settings.
Janice Flowers is the Atlanta coordinator with Pre-Dating Events, a national company that schedules mixers for professionals. She says more black women are telling her that they're willing to date white men.
"Because we're so used to seeing them in social situations, it's becoming less of a taboo," she says.
The reason most often cited, though, for the change in dating attitudes is demographics. A disproportionate number of black men are in jail, or are murder victims. One in every 20 black men older than 18 is in prison, the 2000 Human Rights Watch report concluded. Black teenage males are seven times more likely to be murdered than white teenage males, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
The result is that black women face a marriage squeeze. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, the percentage of black women who are married declined from 62 percent in 1950 to 36 percent in 2000.
Melanie Robinson, 29, says many black men know the numbers favor them so they have less incentive to treat a black woman well.
"They have their options, so they can pick and choose," the Marietta resident says. "I've just found that there is a lack of appreciation of black women in Atlanta. We come a dime a dozen here."
Robinson, who has dated three white men, says they're more romantic and willing to go on dates like walking in the park or visiting a museum.
"I haven't found any black men trying to take me to the museum," she says. "I wish they would make an effort other than, 'Let's go and have a drink' or 'Let's go to the Red Lobster for all-you-can-eat crab legs on Monday.' "
Another complaint about black men involves insecurity. Black beauty-shop conversations ring with the same complaints from black women who say many black men can't handle an independent, professional black woman who often has more formal education than they do.
At least 60 percent of blacks who get awarded college degrees are women, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Flowers, the Atlanta coordinator with Pre-Dating Events, says a black man backed out of a relationship with her after she purchased a home and he learned that she had a college degree, something he had not earned.
"He said I didn't need him," she says. "It blew me away. I never could get him to see that [his lack of a college degree] was not a hindrance to me."
Black men have traditionally shrugged off these criticisms from black women, saying they are too demanding or obsessed with status and money.
"Even though the numbers may be in Atlanta men's favor, that doesn't make black women in Atlanta any less choosy," says Keith Aikens, a 36-year-old single black man. "Men still have to do a lot to prove themselves worthy."
Aikens, of College Park, says he sympathizes with black women who complain black men don't take them on cultural outings, such as to a museum.
"On the other hand," he says, "how many women are suggesting a museum instead of simply giving in and moving on to the next guy?"
Not an easy road
Once black women begin dating white men, though, hurdles remain. Many of them are internal.
Some wonder if a white man can really understand them, and the effects of racism. Will they draw a blank stare at the first mention of P-funk, nappy hair and playing the dozens?
Bailey has sifted through those fears with Walker and concluded they're overrated. She's had in-depth discussions about slavery, the light skin vs. dark skin caste system among blacks -- all with Walker, a white man.
"I've dated a lot of black men and they don't understand me, either," says Bailey, who is a published writer and a temp worker. "It's all about what you've read, what you've studied. I've dated people who have no understanding of the Middle Passage, colorism, any sort of understanding of the black experience. And they were black."
Sometimes, Bailey added, the fact that a white man is an outsider can be an asset. Often black men succumb to European ideas of beauty, but not her boyfriend. Once, she says, Walker turned to her while she was reading and said, "Your hair looks so beautiful."
"He pierced through my fears and my issues that have to do with blackness," she says. "From my past dealings with brothers, Jason has been more willing and open to see that I am beautiful as is."
Despite the harassment they sometimes get, Bailey says most people don't give her a problem when she accompanies her boyfriend in public.
"We'll get an occasional nasty look, but for the next two looks we get like that, we get a lot of those, 'Oh, look, a happy couple,' " Bailey says.
Yet Robinson, the Marietta resident, voices a fear that black women often have with dating white men. They wonder if white men's interest in dating is driven by sexual curiosity.
"White guys find us exotic," she says. "They want to know how we [have sex], but they aren't going to take us home."
Bailey, however, doesn't worry about those sexual stereotypes driving her relationship with Walker.
"The gist of it is, if we remove sex, we still work," she says about their relationship.
Walker, a computer programmer, says that dating a black woman has made him more sensitive. He often attends reggae clubs with Bailey where he is the only white person in the room.
"It's different being the odd man out," he says. "Actually, what goes through my mind is, I wonder if that's what it's like for her being on the other side of the table."
Even after black women have taken the big step and married a white man, some still wrestle with a residue of guilt. Nicole Smith, a Los Angeles actress, has been married to a white man since 1999. She and her husband, Geoff Cunningham, made a movie about interracial dating, "Rocky Road."
Smith says her sister threatened to never speak to her again after she heard about the marriage. Now her sister has changed after seeing how well her marriage works.
"My sister said that she dreams of having a relationship like ours," Smith says. "That was huge."
Still, Smith sometimes questions if she's being true to her black identity. "I question how much of a conscious black woman I am," she says. "I always keep that dialogue going."
Bailey doesn't appear to have those questions now. She's in love. She says she's decided that compatibility, not color, is what's ultimately important in her relationship.
"I've always understood that you can love your heritage and live your heritage," she says. "But that doesn't mean you close off the rest of the world, especially when you're dealing with matters of love."
I once had the pleasure of spending a week in Ft. Lauderdale in the same hotel with a Brazilian women's team (Can't remember if soccer or vollyball). Wow.. Plenty of a-s on those ladies...
It didn't take long for us guys to learn their routine of showering in the afternoon (about 3 to a room) and then liberaly applying body lotion after getting out totally nude and never bothering to draw the curtians. Lot's of guys were hanging out on the balconies in the late afternoons.
I did make friends with one or two that week! ;-)
You also assume that black women have babies out of wedlock in a sort of cold-blooded calculation. They do not.
2. On your second point, I agree now, as my post did, with your statement that they DO not look upon this with cool calculation, but that is just the point! I am suggesting that they START doing so!
Right after I got married, I bought a new SAAB. Shortly after that we drove from DC (where we lived at the time) to Gary, then to Crossville, TN, back up to Dayton, then to Atlanta, and finally back to DC. I got a number of stares, and was stopped more than once.
Finally someone in a restaurant asked me, "What's a young fella like you doin' with such a fancy car? What do you do?"
"I work with computers."
"Oh," came the reply. I presume that answered everything. This was in '88, and I was in my mid 20's.
Suppose that bodes well for their future breeding prospects!
Mind you, I had dated a Jewish girl fairly recently at that point, along with several Hispanics and an Oriental or two. I was pursuing/being pursued by a Redskins cheerleader at that point (which case was true depended on who you talked to...).
After a bit of thought, I finally took a sip of my beer and said "I like WOMEN."
The guys continued to badger me. "But what kind, Mike?"
"I only have two qualifications: She's gotta be good looking and she's gotta be smart enough to carry on a reasonably intellectual conversation with me."
I tell my wife to this day, that one of the early things that caught my attention was the fact that she was one of the few women who would actually argue coherently with me.
The operative term is "High Maintenance."
Agreed.
If we worked from within to change and get rid of those black criminals who end up joining the ranks of those within the legal system, then a lot of the issue will be solved.
But we're left with the "chicken eatin' poverty pimps" masquerading as preachers trying to tell everyone that it's society's fault, instead of demanding some personal accountability for one's actions.
I've been out of the dating scene for a while (marriage, you know) but go on photo assignments with a black woman who's about twenty years younger than me, 6 inches taller than me, and very attractive. We get some strange looks, but I've never noticed any hostility. A couple of old codgers have given me the old double raised eyebrows and a wink, but nothing hostile. I do have to admit that it's a little flattering that people think an old geezer like me is running around with this bright, witty attractive woman.
Huzzah!
If you're a black pro athlete who owns a sweet ride and lives in a ritzy neighborhood in this country, chances are good you've been busted for DWB.
Driving While Black.
"It happens to me all the time, especially in Tampa," says Atlanta Braves outfielder Gary Sheffield, who grew up in Tampa. "I go home to see old friends, and I get stopped. Or if I'm driving slow, looking at my old neighborhood, I get stopped. It never happens in my truck, just in my nice cars."
Denver Broncos defensive tackle Trevor Pryce says an officer followed him home once, pulled him over and said, "I don't think this is your car." And Pryce replied, "Why, because I'm black and driving a Corvette?" Pryce has been pulled over for DWB so many times he has a new strategy. "I pull up right next to cops," he says, "roll down my windows and play my music as loud as I can. Nobody would do that driving a stolen car, right?"
"It's happened to me eight or nine times," says Miami Heat guard Jim Jackson. "I asked one cop in Dallas why he pulled me over, and he goes, 'Oh, we're just doing random checks.' Right. Random checks of black men in nice cars."
When comedian Chris Rock was pulled over on a DWB, he jokes, "It scared me so bad, I thought I had stolen my car!"
Three times this summer, Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams says, Fort Lauderdale police have stopped or hassled him for nothing more than the color of his skin.
"One cop pulled me over for no other reason than I was a black man driving an expensive car [a Hummer]," says Williams, the former Heisman Trophy winner who moved to south Florida after being traded to the Dolphins in March. "They said later it was because my tags were expired. But it was a handwritten temporary license they couldn't possibly have been able to see. For that they call the drug dogs and I get handcuffed?" The stop and search lasted an hour and a half, Williams says, and then he was ticketed for expired tags and for not having his driver's license and proof of insurance in his possession.
Twice cops have knocked on his front door to tell him his garage was open, Williams says, and then asked him for proof that he owned his cars. They questioned him about what he did for a living and how much he paid for the cars. It's the kind of frustration that white athletes never have to deal with.
Williams has started taking the long way to work so he doesn't have to drive past a police station. Other guys just give up and drive crappy cars. Sometimes these guys don't even have to be in a car.
"You go into a Tiffany's in the mall," says Jackson, "and right away you notice the lights [brighten]. Then the clerk follows you around, pretending she's just cleaning up. I came out of a restaurant once and the valet goes, 'Man, what did you do to get a car like this?' I was like, 'I got a job, that's what I did!'"
The dreadlocked Williams says that when he flies first class, more times than not attendants ask to see his ticket, assuming he's in the wrong seat. Houston Rockets forward Glen Rice wasn't allowed to check into a five-star hotel by a woman behind the desk who insisted, "I know what you're about."
"What am I about?" asked Rice, who refused to leave until he was given a room. The desk clerk called police, who recognized Rice and advised the woman to give him a room. That's when Rice said no thanks and walked out.
Says Jackson, "I don't think most of white America understands how it feels. You work hard to be successful, to get some nice things, and people treat you like you stole them."
"I guess cops think we're drug dealers," says Latrell Sprewell, the New York Knicks guard. "It pisses you off, but what pisses you off more is that when they see who you are, they suddenly change it to, 'Uh, I pulled you over to, uh, can I have your autograph?'"
When you mix cops with young men who feel persecuted, things can get volatile. "I feel myself boiling over," says Jackson. "But if I started yelling at the cops, next thing you know, I'd be in jail." Or worse. Remember the four young unarmed black men on their way to a basketball tryout who were profiled by troopers and stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, then had 11 shots fired into their van, wounding three of them?
Williams was so frustrated by his treatment after one DWB stop that he started to walk home in protest, got a block and a half, then sat down on a curb and cried. "It hurts your feelings," he says. "Nobody likes to be treated like a criminal."
And we wonder why so many black athletes are angry.
A fair number do, but Reilly is just an ass from the word go. (He's just as bad in person, too) This is one of his milder columns.
Give me Frank Deford any day.
Wow, that's an interesting argument I haven't specifically come across before. Turns it into a chicken-or-the-egg question. Are more blacks stopped because proportionately blacks commit more crime, or are more blacks caught for crime because more blacks are stopped?
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