It’s been my experience working in this space that one of the chief hesitancies black women have about dating interracially is a fear of rejection. A rejection of their every humanity and culture, both aspects they had no control over.

The fear often manifests itself by “protesting too much” about a distaste for dating white men. Black women who do this paint white men with a broad brush and attribute everything negative ever done to black people–from slavery, rape and segregation–on to all of them. They often don’t even know white people personally, but seem to know everything about what they think and do. They attack other black women in happy interracial relationships, and often parrot the negative monikers (e.g. bed wench, white man’s whore) bullying black people give to those they deem “traitorous.” They spend all day arguing with people they don’t know on social media, defending their positions and using every opportunity to proclaim their distaste for “swirlers.”

But in reality, all that bluster is more about their fear of being so disconnected from whites to be culturally incompatible in any romantic way. They bought into the LIE that only a black man really knows how to love and appreciate a black women, and the only reason a white man would be interested is to exploit them in some way. They fear that their full lips, kinky hair, curves and dark skin would repel a white man who didn’t have a fetish. After all, no “normal” white man could truly love a black woman, right?

They often side with those who directly work against their own romantic interests to discourage other black women from interracial dating. It’s all a mask to hide a true fear of inadequacy. They know there’s a shortage of eligible black men by the tune of 2 million. They know that black men marry interracially at twice the rate of black women, and the farther up the education and career ladder they go, the higher that number gets. They ignore the astounding out-of-wedlock statistics and low marriage and high divorce rates in the black community, or dismiss these realities as “fake news.”

They do this because they are terrified of being rejected by a group of people they have been taught from birth to be suspicious of. Not to say those suspicions are unwarranted and not well earned. Racism still exists, injustice persists. But to judge one as ALL is to do yourself an injustice. And for all their blustering, many of these women end up bitter, disillusioned and alone.

Have your secret feelings of rejection kept you from pursuing the man and life you want? You might not be as militant as these women of whom I speak, but perhaps you keep some residual or underlying fear of rejection that you’re projecting on a potential suitor that is holding you back from moving on to the next level. Overcoming weakness requires you to be honest and face what you fear. Only then can you be free to make proper choices that aren’t influenced on faulty information or unfair stereotypes.

We’ll be discussing this and many other topics on our upcoming series, The Pros and Cons: Dating White Men. Be sure to sign up on our mailing list to be alerted when the full series will be released and to get special insider pricing.

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