Ahem. Moving right along. In this week's issue of "Black and Jewish relations--emphasis on relations," I discuss my hatred of the white she-devil, spawn of Yacub, and Jeff chants "Death to the Goyim! But especially the shiksa!!"
JG: You know, nowadays, in liberal Jewish circles, it's considered a little odiferous to mention that you'd rather have people stay in than go out. I can't imagine it's the same in liberal black circles, but is it? Do you get pushback when you talk about the importance of this kind of solidarity?And so on...
TC: It depends what circles. In New York, you can't really say that. In Atlanta you can. In D.C. you probably can. In L.A., I bet you can't. The thing is the higher you go up - at least in New York - for whatever reason shit gets more integrated. In Atlanta and D.C., there are worlds filled with high-level people and all of them are black, and interracial marriage is rare. It is just not the case here. Even in Harlem.
JG: It's funny how quickly things turn - a generation ago in the Jewish community, especially in New York, it was just assumed that you'd marry in, and people who didn't do so were looked at as outliers - not Malcolm Gladwell outliers, outliers like "Why'd you do that?" outliers. I remember meeting a couple of kids in school who were the products of intermarriages, and, particularly in my ethnically-charged New York environment, they seemed to be sort of homeless. But now it's rude, in many circles, to even advocate for in-marriage. And by the way, just so you understand, I'm not for in-marriage - if that's what you call it - because I'm prejudiced against everyone but Jews. (Actually, there's a lot of Jews who think I am especially prejudiced against Jews - you should read my mail). This has nothing to do with outsiders; this is only about self-preservation. We've been around for a long time, and my suspicion is that there's a reason for this. I'm not diving into theology here, but I have this feeling that peoples don't survive the way the Jews have survived for nothing. That said, intermarriage has in some ways revitalized the Jewish community - converts, everyone knows, make the best Jews. And the byproducts of intermarriage - well, all I have to say is Scarlet Johannson. (You didn't know, did you?) Black-Jewish marriage, of course, has brought us Joshua Redman, Lisa Bonet, Lenny Kravitz, Slash, and Sophie Okenedo. As Adam Sandler would say, not too shabby. I know a lot of Jews who say that if Jews are going to marry out, they might as well marry African-Americans. I know this sounds strange (it certainly would have sounded crazy to my grandmother) but at least when you marry an African-American, you're getting someone who already understands Passover.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
It's really fascinating to read Goldberg's take on Jewish women dating/marrying "out" because it really does mirror many black folks' take on the same subject.
I wish you would explain your pride in being with a dark-skinned woman, tho. I guess I was raised in a very insular bubble by two people who grew up in "if you're light you're all right" societies and who were determined not to let their kid be colorstruck. It wasn't 'til I got to HU that I started seeing colorism in action. This may be a privilege of being on the lighter end of the spectrum, but I've always been of the mind that black is black is black, and I don't see color.
OMG. Wait a sec. Is this how white people feel??
I dated a woman for two years who was the product of a mixed marriage (her father was white, her mother was black) and so it was certainly not strange for her. As for me, she was just a beautiful woman that I loved quite a bit. What other considerations should there be?
shani-o
.
I don't know about Coates but I can speak to my own experience. I was high yella in my younger days before I started playing sports. Now I am what most black folks would call red. Now most of my father's side of the family is light skinned, most of my mother's is dark skinned. My big brother was not charcoal black but he was dark skinned compared to the rest of us and I could just tell from being around extended family members on my father's side how there was not the same kind of treatment of him as opposed to me. The same thing with the girls in our family. Skin tone and the grade of hair made a noticeable difference in how they were doted on. This made a big impression on me because at first I was of course happy to have all the praise and attention but after awhile when I could see the difference it actually sickened me. So then I started reading up on how historically the fairer skinned blacks were lifted up by others in our race and the dark skinned folks were made fun of and derided. That sent me on a mission to find the darkest chick I could find to somehow prove that I wasn't like everybody else. Then the movie "School Daze" came out and it touched on how getting the darkest girl on campus to prove your own blackness was pretty wack. I mean its good to love a dark skinned woman if you love them but not if it is just to prove a point. Thats just my opinion. So from then on I just judged women for whatever kind of beauty they exhibited no matter size height or shade of brown. But I do know this, when a star black athlete or entertainer breaks the stereotype and marries or dates a dark skinned black woman instead of a light skinned one there is still some pride from me in seeing it for some odd reason.
"This has nothing to do with outsiders; this is only about self-preservation. We've been around for a long time, and my suspicion is that there's a reason for this."
A question, relating to the above paragraph.
Why is it considered a good thing for Jews, as a separate category of people, to "survive"? By this I mean to ask why a future with 10 million jews in it is preferable to a future with 10 million non-jewish descendents of jews who are equally happy, but not jewish?
If Jews are the happiest people, it would make sense to convert as many people as possible to Judaism. But does anyone make such a claim?
Personally, I think there is a logical fallacy at work here. I think people might be attributing to the group the rights held by it's individual members. Basically, survival of individual jew X is being conflated with the continued existence of jewishness as a subgroup of humanity.
Can anyone who holds such views explain this?
(Note: replace Jewish with any other ethnic group, if you wish. I'm just using jews as an example because the author did.)
I remember only once my mother expressing regret about "marrying out". At time her own mother was slipping into Alzheimer's, and my mom was doing her best to preserve her family history. In pulling together photos and letters from the holocaust-extinguish old country branch of the family, I guess it hit her that she was "the last of the mohicans" for the American branch, and by her choice of spouse had made her own little contribution to the extinction of her people.
sgwhite- thanks for the rundown. I was raised across the country from both sides of my family, so it was always just me, my mom, dad, and sister, and we're all the same exact light-medium brown. I never spent enough time around other black ppl to see the effects of color on relationships until I was in college, and by then, I just kind of looked at people crazy when they would make comments about skin color. Like, that's the *least* of our problems, you know? But I get what you're saying.
I've never gotten the skin color thing personally. Most of my family is fairly dark (or medium dark, whatever), with a few exceptions and I never noticed any difference in treatment. This could be because by the time I was old enough for that kind of thing to register I was doing my own thing and not spending all that much time with the fam. But I do remember the first time the skin color thing was brought to my attention was when my cousin was telling me about how his mother questioned him on how light or dark some girl he was dating was. As I remember it, she left him alone once he said "she's darker than you."
You know how when parents and older generations tell you things to do, but don't give any detailed rational explanation, and then you grow up and begin to analyze and question these teachings(well, some of us get to this point). This is evolution and change, so when younger generations begin to see life and love more than just with a "race" lens this could be referred to as transcendence. How to get rid of racism: everyone must enter into an interracial marriage.
Wow - please, please don't encourage Goldberg like this! There's nothing he'd like better than think his comfortable LI Jewish upbringing was "really a lot like" growing up black in Baltimore. Oh the frightful specter of assimilation!! How Goldberg had to bravely resist being sublimated into Protestant American while at UPenn!
So interesting to read JG's comments about marrying black women. As I was growing up, my mother, who went to college in New York in the 70s, always expressed a firm conviction that Jewish men were the only white men who would marry black women. Others, she cautioned, would only use you as a fetish object.
As I became more educated and moved from ATL to other cities, my mother became convinced that I would marry out and although she hoped for a person of color for a son-in-law, she had prepared herself to accept a Jewish intellectual as well (it was implied, however, that other white men were Out Of The Question).
Turns out none of that prep was necessary as I'm "marrying in," but that's really just an accident of fate.
My grandmother was funny as hell. She was light-skinned, but was convinced that she was dark as hell. I think the lighter people in her family gifted her with some ridiculous color complex.
Anyway, my grandma often spoke of "just the right color." I think she meant cafe au lait brown. Anyway,one of my cousins is markedly darker than any of the rest of us. When the child was born my grandmother said, "at least she's pretty." Old people are something.
in terms of the jews' "survival," i find it essential to point out that one of the results of centuries of marrying "in" and breeding only with one's "own kind" has led to genetic mutations in Ashkenazi populations that produce often fatal diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Canavan, Niemann-Pick, Gaucher, Familial Dysautonomia, Bloom Syndrome, Fanconi anemia, Cystic Fibrosis and Mucolipidosis IV as well as multiple forms of cancer (the BRAC-1 and 2 mutations produce a nice one-two punch of breast and ovarian cancer) in rates FAR higher than in the general population. any discussion of the relative pros and cons of "marrying in" or intermarriage cannot ignore these kinds of consequences.
But not smart enough to remember to close our tags.
The best part about interracial dating is spotting other couples in public with the same combo (where we live, interracial dating isn't common but isn't completely rare either). There's a strange community/competition that develops, at least in mine and my girlfriend's experience. We never set out to do it, but nowadays we can't help but start talking about which couple would make the cutest biracial offspring--and we swear we see the couple at the table across from us doing the same.
I know a lot of Jews who say that if Jews are going to marry out, they might as well marry African-Americans. I know this sounds strange (it certainly would have sounded crazy to my grandmother) but at least when you marry an African-American, you're getting someone who already understands Passover.
I just found this to be hilarious. Tickled me to no end.
Coates,
this series is interesting and funny.
I guess I was raised in a very insular bubble by two people who grew up in "if you're light you're all right" societies and who were determined not to let their kid be colorstruck. It wasn't 'til I got to HU that I started seeing colorism in action. This may be a privilege of being on the lighter end of the spectrum, but I've always been of the mind that black is black is black, and I don't see color.
But, we are all Black.
I am light. One of my sisters is light. The other is dark chocolate and has worn an Afro of some sort since 1970.
Even though there is a 15 year age gap between us, I saw the difference in how people treated us, and it made me vigilant against colorism.
OMG. Wait a sec. Is this how white people feel??
LOL
Naw. When they say that, they're negating everything that makes you YOU, that was given to you by the Black community.
"This has nothing to do with outsiders; this is only about self-preservation. We've been around for a long time, and my suspicion is that there's a reason for this."
That's the same reason that Brahmins and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas are still around, and morally it's about as defensible. There may even be a historical connection, along with some other cultural traits.
The Greeks and the Chinese and lots of other groups have been around for a long time too, longer in those two particular cases, and they didn't do it by anti-miscengenation taboos. They did it by assimilating the spouses who married into the culture, but for that to work, you have to have a a cultural model attractive enough for people to want to adopt it. There was a time when this worked for Jews too; I saw an estimate that at one time something like a quarter of the population of the Roman Empire was in various stages of conversion to Judaism.
commenting on the marry-in thing for jews leading to genetic disorders - the benefit of marry-in goes both to the survival of the jewish people as well as likelihood of a successful marriage. there is testing available which can keep the incidents of these disorders to a minimum. my marriage as well as my child with ML4 is happy.
Actually, “I like to watch” when it comes to blogs, but I can’t help relating this tragicomic tale: my best friend is a pretty basically light-skinned black man who once had an interesting conversation with his mother, also light-skinned. She was talking about the historical rift between dark-skinned members of their extended family and the light-skinned members. My friend objected, on personal grounds. “I’ve never had anything against the dark-skinned members of the family!” he told her. She stopped him cold: “Son,” she replied, “We ARE the dark-skinned side of the family.”
If you look back at the past 50 years of Jewish history, there is really no logical reason for talk of "survival" or "preservation". We're completely assimilated into American society, we have our own rather prosperous country, life is good. However if you look at Jewish history prior to the past 50 year, it almost entirely consists of trying to survive under some rather hostile circumstances. So the survival instinct is strong, especially with the older generations and it's never going to entirely go away.
On a personal level, I think people should be with the person they love, regardless of race or religion. But I've always dated jewish girls, and it'd be silly to claim that I haven't internalized some sort of a desire to keep the tribe going. Not to say that shiksa appeal isn't strong :)
"if I'll discuss my hot Hebrew love-goddess fantasies...Wait. Oh yeah. That's next week."
If lusting for Sarah Silverman, Natalie Portman, and, since Mad Men, Maggie Siff, is part of "hot Hebrew love-goddess fantasies" then a LOT of us have "Hebrew Fever." ("Kosher Fever?")
I am muddy mutt myself and with the president himself making a similar reference - I hope this is not considered hijacking.
In a monumental victory against inbreeding... The BBC says it will not broadcast the Crufts Dog Show (the British equivalent of the American Kennel Club's Westminster Dog Show) next year, a decision based on the findings of a BBC documentary that suggested many purebreds suffer major health problems as a result of breeding practices designed to produce show-winning dogs.
Read more.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7779686.stm
I hope that the term breeding will soon become associated emotionally with terms like "murder" or "torture". Actually - when it comes to torture - one can apparently find arguments for it. With breeding - never.
I guess "in-marriage" and "out-marriage" are somewhat different. After all - we are not bonobos who do not understand sexual jealousy and group competition. We are more like chimpanzees - where we compete within our groups but also between groups. I find it very interesting to read up on cultural and natural differences regarding mating in apes. My favorite book regarding this is Demonic Males The Origin OF Human Violence. A must read for all.
PS: Vice President Biden got a German shepherd from a breeder for his grand-daughter. German shepherds are on the list of disputed breeds. Why would he support a pure, inbred "pedigree" over health and genetic sustainability? Please - anybody tell me. Why does Obama consider a mutt from a shelter?
I know that no one goes around worrying about whether what they have said is offensive to white men, but some of the elements of your discussion are very offensive.
Full disclosure: I am a white man married to a black woman who due to her particular background (African immigrant father, white mother) short circuits my issue with your discussion (while she considers herself “black” she does not consider herself to be part of the African American community as she wasn’t raised in it. She thinks of other black as “people like me” but not as “my people”). So my complaints don’t really apply to my own situation, but I’m close enough to get a little hot under the collar. And of course no one who sees us on the street knows the particulars of her background…
Frankly the notion that you two dudes (and since my wife is black- TNC I’m looking at you) feel comfortable giving the reasons that you do for why you are OK with black and Jewish women dating out is flabbergasting. You both essentially make the argument that these women are dating out because circumstance has driven them to it. That since black women have “given the neighborhood a shot” to no success they can look elsewhere. And that “there really is no doubt” that this is why most black women who end up with white guys do so. And that is what makes it OK?!
Essentially what you are saying is that black woman/white man (bw/wm) couples are OK only to the extent that the white man is a second choice. That he is for her a second class man who is acceptable only insofar as she is unable to find a black man and that the existence of such couples is based on the presumption that she has tried to go the black man route first and failed.
Even if this is not used as a justification for the bw/wm couple you are clearly wedded to the idea that this is the scenario that plays out in most cases. This position reeks of arrogance and presumption. Let me ask you TNC when you see a bw/wm couple on the street do you feel a twang of pity for the black woman because you think that you know she had to settle? Do you feel instinctively superior to the poor white guy who you just know isn’t really the man his woman wanted?
May I suggest the alternative possibility that these black women love that their husbands and boyfriends are white. Not as an isolated thing that happens to go on the pro rather than con list with these particular interracially paired black women. But rather as recognition that his whiteness is as integral a part of who he is as her blackness is part of herself and that he would not be the man she loves if he were not white. Not in a luke-warm “well if he was black then other things would be different and I don’t want to make that trade-off so on balance I guess I like that he’s white because it makes everything else about him possible”, but rather in a full throated “this man I love HAS to be white and part of what I love about him is that he is white”.
Someguy
Great discussion all around. Inter-marriage has been a question that I've come to over and over, and it's fun to think about it in relationship to "marrying out" of the black community. I'm especially glad that TNC brought the tribe into this conversation because, among other things, we're fun to hang out with!
Jeff mentioned self-preservation as a reason for Jews to marry each other, and I for one think it's certainly what leads to a lot of conversions (as is considering the imminent rage of your mother), but I think there's also another aspect of self-preservation that goes along with this that Jeff didn't address. That is, self-preservation of your own identity.
As a Jew, raised by Jews, I have a really well-tuned Jew-dar, not just for identifying Jews I see walking down the street and on TV, but also for identifying those Jewish things, mannerisms (call them neuroses if you must), and idiosyncrasies that make us who we are. While I'm not near marrying anybody regardless of her religious persuasion, I'm pretty sure that there are a ton of these Jewish things that my wife would really need to be a Jew to understand and empathize with.
In other words, it takes a Jew to live with a Jew.
It's difficult to identify specific situations, but I'd be interested to hear if black folks feel the same way at all, and of course if there are other Jews out there.
re: a different jg, i did not mean to comment on the relative happiness of your marriage or your child. yes, there is testing for whether or not you are carriers of many of these diseases (although in the cases of, say BRAC-1 and 2 your child has a 50% chance and no guarantees) but what it points to is the overall health value of mixing and mingling different gene pools vs. a closed system. as with dogs so with people. my sister and i both inherited BRAC-1 from our mother, FYI.
Whoa, someguy, you seem put out. Deep breath.
You seem to be reading things into this discussion. I wonder if we even read the same blog post.
Go back, reread. i think you will see that you have jumped to some conclusions.
@sgwhiteinfla
"But I do know this, when a star black athlete or entertainer breaks the stereotype and marries or dates a dark skinned black woman instead of a light skinned one there is still some pride from me in seeing it for some odd reason."
Absolutely. Only I'd amend that to read "a star black athlete or entertainer OR PRESIDENT-ELECT". Don't think for a minute that Michelle's particular shade of Black womanness, and the fact that Barack pursued and married HER, hasn't gone unnoticed or unappreciated by the Black women who voted for her -- er, I mean, him.
I don't think we should overlook the role of exposure, or the relative lack thereof, to people of other ethnicities and color and religions in our choices for a mate.
For much of my life, I was raised in a mostly middle-class, black neighborhood in Texas.
That meant in high school that I socialized almost exclusively with black folks. I just assumed that was the way it was supposed to be. Everyone in my family, with the exception of an uncle who was in the military, "stayed in." I always assumed I'd meet and marry someone like Lisa Turtle, you know?
But when I got to my PWI-college, I was one of a relative handful of brothers on campus and I had no choice but to rethink my childhood ideas of relationships. I finally started socializing with white folks and found that, "hey, some of them are ok." Everyone wasn't the spawn of Yacub, a blue-eyed devil, you know? And I'm glad that I came around, otherwise, I would have been forced to spend my Friday and Saturday nights alone in my dorm room.
After college, I found myself in a fairly serious, long-term relationship with a white woman that I met through work. After all those years of clowning those brothers who went all Flipper Purify, I had become one of them. It was terrifying and humbling and eye-opening.
Some of my family members and a few of my friends were really displeased with this. To some, I was a traitor. Not to mention to disapproving looks I got from scores of black women whenever I took my lily-white, red-haired girlfriend out on the town. Hell, I had to stop going to one of my favorite soul food joints.
I never really got comfortable with this, and in the end, the relationship ended for a number of reasons. One of them being that I figured life was hard enough without dealing with the external pressures associated with interracial relationships.
It had never occurred to me until then that some people would rather me be lonely than happy. I've changed some in this regard over the years - I dated a few more white, brown and yella women but ended up with a beautiful black woman. My real-life Lisa Turtle, I suppose. We're engaged now and, predictably, my family is much happier.
But in the end, I don't think people should cave in to that sort of cowardice and ignorance. People should feel free to go for theirs. Life is too short. And, honestly, one way to ensure you'll be unhappy or wind up with the wrong one is to limit your options.
I think you have to try all sorts of different things to figure out what it is that you really like. Or, at the least, for the sake of having a new experience. It's just part of the maturation process. I'm all for creating options for yourself.
This happened to me with sushi, jazz and P.T. Anderson flicks. Why should we expect any different when it comes to matters of the heart(Or other organs)?
Ninja Zombie, you ask what is I think a great question, one that I am not convinced of the answer to. (Although one quibble, if jews switch to intermarrying there will be twice as many families with a jewish component, so the number of partial jews should actually be higher than the number of jews in the first hypothetical).
At the level of individuals it hardly seems to matter whether one has 100,000 individuals who are jews, or an equivalent number of individuals who are not jews. The question is whether there would be a significant loss if the jewish culture, such as it is, is lost. Obviously at some level this kind of thing is already happening with some Indian tribes whose languages and practices are dying out. And I suspect it is what happened to the Hittites some time ago.
But for a jew who takes pride in being jewish because of certain characteristics that have historically been true of jews (Obviously this could vary from jew to jew but I suspect that for most jews the main characteristics would be the intellectual activity (even most historic bad ideas have jews behind them churning out theories, but so do the good ones) a history of fighting for the disadvantaged (when I was in college in the '80s campus republicans tried to argue that jews should be republicans because while it made sense for us to be jewish when we were poor, we aren't poor anymore. Jews have largely resisted such arguments) and perhaps to a lesser degree dominating the white comedian field).
Would the descendents of todays jews be as intellectually focused if they are not themselves jewish as they would be if they were? I don't know? And my children aren't jewish so you can tell which side I came down on in practice, but that may be wishful thinking on my part.
But as a general matter the question of whether t is bad to lose a class of people through intermarriage seems to come down to whether there are cultural aspects of that class that would be lost at a cost to society.
@Sara:
"My grandmother was funny as hell. She was light-skinned, but was convinced that she was dark as hell. I think the lighter people in her family gifted her with some ridiculous color complex.
Anyway, my grandma often spoke of "just the right color." I think she meant cafe au lait brown. Anyway,one of my cousins is markedly darker than any of the rest of us. When the child was born my grandmother said, "at least she's pretty." Old people are something."
I think your sentiment here is best encapsulated in a phrase my mother's (older, dark-skinned, and Southern) godmother used to use in reference to a light-skinned Black person who she thought was unattractive:
"Well, that's just yella gone to waste."
Lebecka,
Frankly I am a bit put out. But I am quit calm and don’t particularly need a deep breath. I also don’t think I am reading things into the discussion. I may have been focusing on one particular part of the discussion and perhaps my lack of brevity made me seem more worked up than I am, but I assure you it is there. Allow me to quote TNC…
“Heh, you just made the textbook black argument against interracial dating. I basically wrote a piece saying exactly this a few years back. I argued that black men should not date out, but that black women should do whatever. My sentiments were much like yours - there really is no doubt, that in most cases, black women are looking out after having at least given the neighborhood a shot. The same couldn't be said of the dudes, however.”
I don’t see how you can fail to reach the same conclusions as me given the above statement. It seems clear to me that TNC is saying that given the option, and all other things being equal, a black woman both should and would prefer a black man. However, given that things are not always equal and that she must look out for her own happiness, as a concession to practically then it is OK to consider white men.
That is what I take offense to, the suggestion that marriages like my own are a concession to black women not finding what they really wanted “in the neighborhood”, which is the right and proper place to look for those things. And that what makes looking out OK is the presumption that she initially looked in. I don’t know how white men are supposed to swallow this line of thinking without offense, and like I said, it hits pretty close to home for me.
Someguy
Sorry, someguy, this still seems to be somewhat of a personal reading for you. And tho you may _feel_ calm on the inside, on the outside you are coming off as somewhat out of control of your emotions.
I think TNC is just saying that black women tend to look closer to home for a guy before branching out, unlike black men, who tend to cast their eye further afield earlier on. Is his take on this right? i have no clue. However, as a person who is completely and utterly uninvolved in this area, i must say that here in my town (pittsburgh) there are many, many, many more black guy/white girl relationships than vice versa. What does that mean? Don't know.
However, I don;t really think anyone reading this blog thinks of your marriage as "second-best", or anything of the sort. Have a bit more faith in people than that. Most of us don't care one whit who each other is married to.
I don't understand the 'Passover' comment. Do black people celebrate Passover, or something? I'm not black or Jewish (or white or christian either) so frankly I have no idea what that means.
I don't think we should overlook the role of exposure, or the relative lack thereof, to people of other ethnicities and color and religions in our choices for a mate.
Oh, absolutely. I was one of two white kids in an urban junior high. My first boyfriend was black (as much as a couple of 12/13-year-olds can be said to be dating; our relationship consisted mostly of holding hands, watching TV, and playing Atari). We had known each other for a few years, he went to my chuch and was in my CCD classes. Race aside, it was the same "boy & girl from the neighborhood get together" story as any other. And it was no surprise to either set of parents.
I think what you said about giving in to cowardice and the "maturation process" is true as well. It would be interesting if your life had gone backwards -- i.e. you had dated black women in your college/20s and then met that white woman in your 30s. Do you think it would have turned out differently? I ask because now, in my early 40s, I've gotten to the age of (as Wanda Sykes says) I don't give a shit. If I had dated a black guy at 21 and gotten dirty looks, it might have messed with my head. Now at 41, I don't think I'd give a damn.
I also believe that physical chemistry trumps dating policy. Do women like short guys? Generally no, but I've totally fallen for men who are 5'5 and 5'4 (I'm 5'7). Do both genders like people with fit bodies? Sure, but one of my great unrequited loves was a guy who was 75-100 lbs overweight (picture a shorter version of John Goodman). Who the heck knows what package the gift who makes your heart flutter is going to come in?
Lebecka,
I have never denied that it is a personal reading or that I find TNC’s position offensive (an emotional response by definition). The reason for this is that I don’t think that he is “just” saying that black women look closer to home before branching out, unlike black men. He’s not simply making a statement of fact; he’s offering a justification as to why it is acceptable for black women to look out. It seems clear to me that his point is that what justifies a black woman looking out is that she looked in first.
“…black women are looking out after having at least given the neighborhood a shot.”
A black woman with a white man? Don’t hold it against her, “at least” she looked for a black man first.
Perhaps I’m getting hung up on a detail, but it is the details that delineate our positions. And I think that this particular detail renders TNC’s position pretty ugly.
Someguy
Someguy:
A few weeks ago, Ta-Nehisi talked about that piece he was referring to, and how it was one of those pieces he wrote in his youth without the life experience to back it up. And you seem to have totally skipped the sentence that follows what you just quoted, in which he quite clearly says that such hard-and-fast ideology doesn't really hold up in real-life, long-term relationships.
Shorter: his sentiments *were* that way. They aren't anymore.
I certainly don't "pity" a black woman who dates or marries out. But as an insider, I understand that she probably went through a process of dating black guys before she got into her interracial relationship. In other words, she tried, it didn't work, and she moved on to greener pastures. That's not second-choice, that's smart.
I don't understand the 'Passover' comment. Do black people celebrate Passover, or something? I'm not black or Jewish (or white or christian either) so frankly I have no idea what that means.
During the passover feast Jews remember their ancestors that were slaves in Egypt and celebrate their emancipation. Goldberg is alluding to the fact that African-Americans also have ancestral experience with slavery and emancipation.
peep,
Thank you! I didn't realize what Passover was about.
shani-o,
I was unaware of the post several weeks ago refuting that position, thank you for pointing it out, I’ll look it up. However, while he may have disavowed that position in the previous post you allude to, I don’t think that anything in the sentence following what I quoted does that. He’s making concessions to practicality (as he does in the segment I quoted) and the day-to day things that make or break a relationship. But he concludes with, “So when you have the chance to build a stable black family, the idea is you've got to do it.” If you’ve got to do it then building any other kind of family is only OK insofar as the chance to build a black one is absent. Back to square one it seems to me.
I certainly recognize that most black women who end up with white guys probably dated a series of black ones first. But it is very different to state that as a simple matter of factual life history as opposed to as a necessary precursor to dating white guys, without which dating them would be frowned upon. I only dated white women before meeting my wife for the simple reason that they were most of the women around me. However if someone had suggested to me after meeting my wife that our relationship was acceptable on the condition that I had already made a good faith attempt to find a white spouse I would have gone ballistic.
I apologize to the extent that I’ve been arguing with a straw-man as TNC’s position that I so disliked is apparently out of date.
Now I’m off to find that old post…
Someguy
@SV and peep
Passover rules by the way.
Sorry, Someguy -- Shanni-O is on to something.
Certainly no one can -- or would want to -- speak to any one individual's relationship. But speaking in general it's true that most black American women who date white men do so after "giving up" on finding a black man. I'm one of them; so are at least four of my friends.
We love our husbands/partners, no doubt. But when we dreamed of romance long ago, it was with a brother. (And, yes, my lover knows this. We've talked about it. Life is funny and unpredictable and only a stupid person gets stuck with an idea when love is staring you in the face. Still, there is a loss, as well as a gain.)
There's a history here that cannot be compared on the other side -- it simply can't.
Essentially what you are saying is that black woman/white man (bw/wm) couples are OK only to the extent that the white man is a second choice. That he is for her a second class man who is acceptable only insofar as she is unable to find a black man and that the existence of such couples is based on the presumption that she has tried to go the black man route first and failed.
It's not that he's a second class man. But, I'll be blunt: he probably is second choice.
I'm an educated Black woman, who went through a 'process' to open myself up to the possibility of dating interracially. Every educated Black woman in my circle, who has dated interracially, went through the same ' process'.
There is a reason why Black women are the LEAST LIKELY to marry outsidie of their race. It's not natural for us, and it sure in hell isn't an easy choice.
Before I was 30, I wouldn't even consider giving a White man the time of day. But, as you get older, and your biological clock begins to tick, in the end, you just want a family of your own, and the hassles of an interracial relationship, you just factor into it all.
That's the reason why I don't hassle Black women in interracial relationships. Sure, you have your female Clarence Thomas', but overall, I believe she's a Sista just like me - she went through the ' process'. She had to let the dream of her 'Black Prince' die and expanded her options. It doesn't mean that she's unhappy. It doesn't mean that she's looking around the corner for a Black man. It just means that she had to grieve for what she thought her life would be and accept that life threw her a different path.
And the thought that you'd go through all the bullshit that comes with interracial dating, and think it's 'settling'? Hell no. If anything, it makes you more determined to make sure that person is THE ONE. One does not go through all that hell for someone who is ' eh'.
There is a great discussion on interracial dating over at:
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/single-female-seeking-same-race-male/
The trend seems to be that women tend to prefer their own ethnicity for dating and marriage. The primary outliers are that black women strongly preferred black men, and Asian women showed the least amount of prejudice, especially concerning white men.
The idea that black women have a "racial duty" to prefer black husbands over those of other ethnic groups is both bigoted and problematic, given the issues black men as a whole face with crime and underemployment. The reality is, though, that a significant number of black females do have these feelings (as do all ethnic groups, though seemingly to a lesser extent).
Ta-Nehisi describes the black dating scene as he saw it:
He is referring to a comment Jeff made about feeling sorry for Jewish women "dating out" -- because he assumed they just couldn't cut it with the Jewish men they were originally interested in.
His assessment entirely squares with the data. What's more difficult to determine, is whether guys see the women in interethnic couples as "settling" for the men they are with.
Imagine if I told a black husband concerning his white wife: "Man she's a whole lotta woman. It's a good thing she met you because she was getting nowhere with the white guys in her neighborhood. They just not into a woman with a butt like that." Pretty ugly, even if not said in malice.
Anecdotally, I've noticed that black African immigrants (men and women) are the least likely to feel pressured about dating their own skin color, with somewhat greater xenophobia among West Indian blacks and the highest level among multi-generational African Americans. Perhaps because they don't have historical connection to slavery and Jim Crow, and therefore don't suffer from the "siege mentality".
rikyrah
Black woman here married to a White English guy.
I'd had six marriage proposals over the years before saying yes to my husband. My husband was not second choice, he was first choice out of a big field that varied in race and ethnicity.
I think that there are some Black women who are more likely to "marry out" for a whole host of reasons including the fact that they come from a racially mixed background.
When I was in college, I did meet up with a lot of women going through the process you describe, but I was not one of them. I started dating late in life and when I got to college I just helped myself to anything that looked fun and interesting. This carried over after college.
To me, the Black women I went to school with seemed to lack a taste for adventure and lived in a "small world." Sometimes I would feel sorry for them because they were content to keep chasing men who did not want them, while I was like a kid in a candy store sampling everything that interested me and making true connections based on shared interests and a shared philosopy of life.
I think true "freedom of choice" is scary for some folks. They want to stick with what they know, even if they are not particularly happy with the situation.
Following up on rikyrah's comments, I'd say this is one of those things that are changing rapidly. If you've passed thirty, sure, maybe your biological clock is ticking and you might be starting to consider "dating out." But if you're under thirty right now, chances are you've already been dating whoever you damn well please.
Thank god for progress.
Following up on rikyrah's comments, I'd say this is one of those things that are changing rapidly. If you've passed thirty, sure, maybe your biological clock is ticking and you might be starting to consider "dating out." But if you're under thirty right now, chances are you've already been dating whoever you damn well please.
I agree with this. My 21-year old niece dates whatever guy asks that she likes. Been this way since she started at 16. It's been like the U.N.
Ok, surely I cannot be the only Black person reading this who is more than slightly miffed at the bizarre parallel oppression discourse underlying the post. I've never really understood the view of Jews as a special kind of white folk, truly I don't; in the early and mid-twentieth century, European Jews in this country made their best efforts at assimilation and joining whiteness. Guess what? It worked. And while I understand that there is still a degree of cultural difference, I cannot see how it compares to being Black, whether for dating or for anything else. I cannot imagine dating a (white) Jew.
Yes, I'm one of those sistas who dates only Black (and indigenous) men (meaning Latinos who are descendants of the colonizing/slaveowning Spaniards are out, but those who are descended from the enslaved/colonized are in). I do this because there is no way around the power difference, and in a society where I cannot even freaking go to the karaoke bar to have a good time without having some white dudes sing "Brown Sugar" (the ode to the raping of my ancestors)...Just no. It's not merely a matter of preference. Whites have what they have and are what they are EXPLICITLY at our expense, and I cannot see loving anyone on that side of the fence.
I dislike the degradation of our people that is inherent in this idea that we have no right to maintain coherent cultural boundaries -- that we have no right to our own spaces.
Oh, and shameless plug: if anyone is interested, I keep a blog about Black love at searchingforblacklove.blogspot.com
M,
Just so you know, someone sings "Brown Sugar" at every Karaoke bar I have ever been to with or without the presence of black women in the bar.
And as for this statement, "I dislike the degradation of our people that is inherent in this idea that we have no right to maintain coherent cultural boundaries -- that we have no right to our own spaces."
I think you will find many whites who share this perspective, sadly they almost exclusively hail from the ranks of white supremacy organizations.
Someguy,
Ah, the familiar specious argument comparing Black Cultural Nationalism to white supremacy!
Seriously, think about it. These are not abstract concepts to be deconstructed into atoms of theoretical meaning, but rather ideas and ideologies very much situated in history and power. In what way can you compare my ideas with white supremacy when Black folks -- here, in the Caribbean, in Latin America, and yes, even back in Africa -- are and have been systemically denied the right to our own spaces for 500 years? Surely, you can acknowledge that the material realities of life make my ideology -- any liberation ideology -- markedly different.
As for the singing of "Brown Sugar," I wasn't necessarily saying that they were singing it to antagonize me directly. But the fact that this song is such a crucial part of the "American" cultural landscape goes a long way towards proving my earlier point, don't you think?
And the thought that you'd go through all the bullshit that comes with interracial dating, and think it's 'settling'? Hell no. If anything, it makes you more determined to make sure that person is THE ONE. One does not go through all that hell for someone who is 'eh'.
I agree. And I wonder if anyone has done a study on divorce statistics of marrying out vs. marrying in? Maybe marriage of "the two of us against the world" makes it stronger, or at least makes the parties less willing to give up on it?
"Whites have what they have and are what they are EXPLICITLY at our expense, and I cannot see loving anyone on that side of the fence."
You can't see yourself loving a white person? You sound like a really awful person. But good luck with that blog! I'm sure you'll have tons of hits!!
Latinos who are descendants of the colonizing/slaveowning Spaniards are out, but those who are descended from the enslaved/colonized are in.
Just so you know, if you ever DO decide to go "right with white" and continue this dating philosophy:
English guys are out. Irish guys are in.
It makes me awful to have a worldview in which individuals and their desires are not top priority, but rather community continuity and well-being is? Really? And ad hominem approaches prove what, exactly?
I get that you are insinuating that I am a troll, but I don't get why you fail to engage the point -- not only of my comment, but of the original post -- concerning the tensions between community well-being and individual experience/desire.
I certainly never accused you of being a troll. If you were only trolling, it would be amusing. The fact that you are serious is what makes you awful. And what's the point of engaging someone who claims they could never love a white person? You are silly. And your super-dignified persona comes off as childish.
Ok, surely I cannot be the only Black person reading this who is more than slightly miffed at the bizarre parallel oppression discourse underlying the post. I've never really understood the view of Jews as a special kind of white folk...
That's your opening. And that's not discussing the tensions between the preservation of community vs. happiness of individuals when it comes to intermarriage. That's hauling out the old, worn out gold-medal round Oppression Olympics: Jews vs. Blacks - Who's Had It Worse?
Meh. Dating or marrying out shouldn't be something you're FORCED into, and I've grown quite tired of hearing this line from both sides. If people are TRULY serious about finding love, they'll do what they have to in order to make it happen, which means that they'll rid themselves of all the bullshit preconceived notions of what The Perfect Mate will be and take a more realistic approach. It's really that simple.
I'm a straight, 20-something, Southern, anglo white man, so this discussion remains immensely fascinating and mostly inaccessible to me. My parents brought me up with good egalitarian principles (mostly to spite my redneck extended family, I think), so my gut inclination is that people ought to date and marry whoever they love, but it's pretty clear from reading this that there are all kinds of cultural forces at work here that I really don't understand.
I imagine that my outlook would be fairly different if I had the sense that my community was outnumbered or under seige. What i wonder is whether y'all think that white folks should just mind their own damn business here, or try to be more sensitive to the issue.
Although I should add that my family can make for a fun mental exercise: what ethnicity of girl would cause the largest meltdown at a family gathering? Is it a familiar but still hated black girl, or someone more exotic to people that have lived their whole lives in rural North Carolina? I keep going back and forth between a black girl and a Muslim, either of which would make for some fireworks, that's for sure.
M: "Whites have what they have and are what they are EXPLICITLY at our expense, and I cannot see loving anyone on that side of the fence."
When you make a broad categorical statement like that you're not going to get much engagement on this site. You just aren't. If you already have it all figured out, what's the point of engagement? You can be right all by yourself.
Zeke: "What i wonder is whether y'all think that white folks should just mind their own damn business here, or try to be more sensitive to the issue."
I'm not a fan of either strategy. The first is silly, and the second makes my skin crawl. "Sensitive" is a dodge for the weak and the guilty. We have no use for either. Better to keep exploring and asking questions with one thought always in the back of your mind: What would I do under similar circumstances?
'I think freedom of choice is scary for some folks. They want to stick w/ what they know , even if they are not particularly happy with the situation'
I don't find this comment to be a particularly fair assessment. Depending on where you live, dating outside your race might not even be an option that seems possible. I am from NC and when my little sister was in high school (not that long ago) she had crushes on guys of all races. The crushes she had on guys outside the race were usually unrequited eventhough she usually had more 'in common' with these guys (she was considered 'alternative' but she's just a cool girl). It wasn't until she got to college in northern CA that she ended up with a white boyfriend. Now she lives in NY & dates everybody. I dated outside the race but while the guy made it a point to stress how much he loved women of different races he had a really prejudiced outlook on things which required too much explaining on my part. And there was a process that I went through before I decided to date him.
I say all of this to say that sometimes people don't really see it as 'freedom of choice' b/c it doesn't seem like a viable option. And if you have ever had some one tell you 'you're awesome but I don't date black girls' you may not be too willing to put yourself out there again. And for some that may mean waiting on a black man to show up even if it looks pretty bleak.
TNC,
Thank you for your statement on the question of what white people should do? I consider myself supremely lucky to have a black American in my life that is willing to talk about race and her experience with race with me. Most white Americans are not nearly so lucky. I have come to the opinion that with regards to race the one absolute duty whites have to blacks on the subject of race is to listen with the attitude that their experiences related to race are absolutely real. It is so easy to miss that step and jump to arguments about whether opinions on racial issues are correct or wrong, whether the events in a particular anecdote constitute “racism” or something else, or whether ones particular theoretical framework is valid or not ("Whites have what they have and are what they are EXPLICITLY at our expense…”). These things can and should be discussed by interested parties, but the first step in any exchange should always be the recognition that when someone shares their experiences (which inform their opinions), those experiences are unassailable. It seems too obvious to say, but experiences are by definition authentic and true (it doesn’t make any sense to try to claim that someone else didn’t actual feel a certain way or perceive a particular thing). Does the lack of blacks in upper management provide evidence of racism in your corporation? I don’t know, but the experience of recognizing that people who look like you haven’t succeeded at the highest levels in your work place can be an isolating and disheartening experience. Did that clerk treat you like crap because of race or because of something else? I don’t know, but the experience of being singled out for poor treatment is an alienating and threatening experience where one should feel comfortable. (These are probably poor examples I admit)… Regardless of what is behind situations like these we owe it to people who don’t have the luxury of looking like everyone else around them to recognize the truth of their experience as the starting point for any further discussion.
I certainly know enough to never claim that I know what it is like to be a black American. But one of the great things about being this sort of animal we call “human” is that we have the ability use experiences we have had to gain some insight into experiences we have not had. Or as TNC said more succinctly, “…with one thought always in the back of your mind: What would I do under similar circumstances?”
dsp:
'I think freedom of choice is scary for some folks. They want to stick w/ what they know , even if they are not particularly happy with the situation'
I don't find this comment to be a particularly fair assessment.
You are right, it is not a particularly fair assessment. It was not meant to be fair. It is an observation. By the way, it is an observation of people in general not Black women in particular. I know many people of many races who married a person because other people thought they should. They relegated themselves to a small pool of potential partners because it was what they knew. They are not happy and their relationships with their partners are disappointing to them. But they stick it out. They do what they are "told" to do by their culture, group etc. It is comfortable and conforming. But conformity has a price too.
So, it's not really about B/W or Jew/not a Jew, but when I was in college, my serious boyfriend was a light-skinned Puerto Rican, who basically tried to pass as white (and Italian...what is it with New Yorker boys of a certain age and mobster movies?). One of his friends, who became one of my friends, was one of the most beautiful black women I've ever met. I used to dream for her skin color and bone structure. Add to which, she was smart, funny, and incredibly kind - IOW, pretty much a perfect woman in my book.
I asked him once if he'd ever considered dating her. He said he'd thought about it, but ultimately decided since he'd never marry her because she was black, what was the point? Ugh. It was then that I started to realize that a lot of his attraction for me was that he saw me as "marrying up" or giving him some sort of ability to pass for white (or worse yet, that his kids would "look white"). It also helped me contextualize why he had zero interest in sharing any of his cultural experiences with me - something that had always bugged me.
All that made me positive that this was not the guy for me. I needed someone who was comfortable with himself - whoever he was - and who would want to share himself, his heritage and his history with me and any kids we might have.
As always, TNC, you are witty and thoughtful. I'm glad I found my way here.
Just wanted to add my experience as a black woman. I grew up in the late 80s, early 90s in a "diverse" suburb, one of the few in my segregated city that embraced interracial marriage. However, the black girls knew what time is was: There were more black boy/white girl couplings than white boy/black girl ones. In my circle, it was assumed that white guys didn't find black girls attractive, per se. There was an occasional flash-in-the-plan mutual attraction (I even dated a couple of white guys in junior high and high school) but it wasn't until the mid-90s, my senior year, that white guys started approaching me and my friends with regularity. I don't know what prompted the change (Were we more confident and open? Was it the Lauryn Hill effect?), but after that when a white guy approached me it didn't seem so rare or surprising.
My point is, perhaps we'll see the trend of so few black women marrying out change as the years go on. At the time TNC wrote that piece about understanding why black women date outside of their race, I'd finally stopped doing a double-take if a white guy made a pass at me. Here's hoping that when it happens to the next generation of black girls, they'll just take it as a given.
So I'm in an interracial relationship, much to the dismay of my grandmother on one side who's most concerned about me marrying into my ethnic group and my grandmother on the other side who's most concerned about me marrying into my religion. And I have to say - I find this incredibly offensive and racist when coming from my grandparents. I'm shocked to hear this coming from TNC and JG.
kid,
I'd ask you to specifically point out what you find racist and why. "This" is very broad.