I wrote this on my Facebook status update yesterday:

I was hanging out with my friend, Jordan Harbinger in Hollywood yesterday. Black guys always assume that if you’re walking with a white guy you and he must be together. This dude, who I don’t know from Adam, said loud enough for me and Jordan to hear, “If you want the crown, you got to go brown.” Normally I ignore that crap but it got a rise out of me. I said, “What did you say?” He got sheepish real quickly as said “Oh I’m sorry that was a line from a movie.” I glared at him as said, “Uh huh.” Later Jordan said he should have retorted, “Well, she won the fight and married white!” LMAO. I’m really SICK of random black men thinking they OWN me. I marry and befriend whoever the PHUCK I want!

Yes, you read that right. People complain that sites like this diminish by continuing to talk about black men, but what’s a girl to do, guys like this are EVERYWHERE! Some guy on our fan page had the nerve to suggest that black women simply avoid places in which black men like this are. But here’s the problem: we were on Hollywood Boulevard, not Watts. What’s this guy think black chicks are supposed to do? Stay cloistered indoors for fear to engaging with disapproving black men?

Mind you that the “man” who heckled me was a tour bus operator. Jordan happens to know the owner of the company and could have swiftly had him fired. I was thinking to myself, what does this guy think I’m supposed to do? “Oh! What on EARTH was I thinking?! I have realized the error of my ways!” I will dump you, a successful business man, a lawyer, a man who speaks SIX LANGUAGES, to be with a BUS OPERATOR, just because he is black. GTFOOH!!”

Of course Jordan was a good sport, but his friendship with me has enlightened him about how hard it can be for black women who date out. He has become more sensitive to how the media has given us a bad rap that we as individuals have to struggle to overcome. Here’s what he had to say:

I can see how this would get annoying as hell if I were dating someone for a long period of time. I can just imagine walking down a street on her birthday after a nice dinner and someone makes a comment like “why don’t you get with a …” and just punctures a hole in the evening.

When stuff like the street harassment happened, I often wonder if some non-black men witness such occurrences and decided IRR with black women isn’t worth the trouble. The truth is, it could. But not with guys like Jordan.

In fact, it would make me want to prove to her that I didn’t care when people did that and that she was worth it. Then again, I’ve never had it happen to me consistently so I can’t say for sure.

Seems like only a total wuss would leave a girl he liked because some moron on the street made fun of them.

This is such a top topic that I dedicated an entire chapter to stares and verbal (even physical) confrontation in SWIRLING. In truth, I don’t recommend challenging these idiots, but I was just too through with that mess. Plus, there was a whole bunch of white men around so I felt pretty safe he wasn’t going to act too much like a turd. Men like that are usually cowards…he picked on me because he thought he could get away with it.