We’ve talked a lot about preferences vs. IR via serendipity. Some of us have always dated interracially and have a certain “type” that does it for us. Then there’s the majority of us, who took a chance to love in a different way and discovered it was amazing. We were opened up to new experiences, locales, culture, and maybe a different set of values we might have previously never known…and we liked it. A lot. So much so, that the preference isn’t necessarily about the color of the man, but the culture of the man.

Angel Ramirez-Jordan and I discussed this briefly on an interview yesterday, and you can hear it at about 52:00

Which leads me to examine the comment that some black women say on social media and in real life–“I don’t date black or mixed men, ever.”

Of course that’s an unfair exclusion on the surface. But I wonder how much is this about his melanin level, and how much is this about the culture the man is attached to that gives these women pause?

Let’s be honest:

• 73% of black children are born out of wedlock
• African Americans have the lowest marriage rates of all Americans, and the highest rates of divorce.
• Only 50% of American black men finish high school.
• Black entertainment is corrupted–from hip hop, comedy, movies, prime time television and reality television churns out the basest, more negative stereotypes about black people, and unfortunately, many of us internalize those stereotypes.
• Male/female dynamics are often skewed in favor of the male, and the female is expected to cook, clean, raise the kids, be a madonna and a whore, raise a man up like she raises a child, submit not just to husbands, but boyfriends. (Wait…submit to a boyfriend you’re raising up as a child?! Good Lord…)
• March, fight, march, fight, then go to work and come home and work some more
• We’re raised to ’embrace the struggle’ and wear it as a badge of honor

Nah…I think I’ll pass.

And even when the guy you’re dating isn’t at all like that, people don’t exist in a bubble. Who are his friends? Does he have a crazy Uncle Larry? Does he come from a broken home with half brothers and sisters peppered all over his hometown? Does he pump Lil Wayne every time you get in his car? Yeah…no.

Of course that same can be said about dating a white guy who’s really nice but his entire family runs a chapter of the Klu Klux Klan in the Appalachian Mountains. You’re saying, “He’s nice but…nah; I’ll pass.”

What say you? As you’ve broadened your horizons to embrace more positive things for a variety of outside cultures, is it the color of the man or the culture of the man that drives you?