Written by The Peacock Bride

I’m a sell out. I’m a Negro Bed Wench. I’m an Uncle Tom. Yup…How did I find this out? Like most things, I’ve found out from the internet. I’m a bad woman who obviously hates myself and Black people…not because of who I “hate” but because of who I love.

It’s sad that in 2014 loving who you want to love (or can’t help but love) is still an issue, but it is. The uncomfortable juxtapose when we are together–seeing his pinkish skin near my caramel color is enough to invite looks that are sharp enough to cut glass from people showing their disdain for our relationship. I was so naive; too liberal; too Utopian in my thinking; too intermingled with people that are different than me to understand the gravity of what me marrying a White man means to other people. I just didn’t know. Call me inexperienced.

I’m 33 years old and I’ve had my fair share of relationships. I grew up in Minnesota, where there is a limited Black Community. Instead of trying to fit into a White box, I grabbed hold of my culture and wore it proudly, unabashedly, and allowed my whole spirit to be fully engulfed in an understanding of where I came from. My dad grew up on welfare in a one-room tenement apartment in Harlem, NY during the 50’s and 60’s. My mother was born in Birmingham, AL around the same time and her mother relocated them to Minnesota for a better life and to avoid the violent racism that plagued the South at the time. The KKK was killing Black children and burning crosses where my mother grew up, so they had to do the great exodus to the North.

My parents, for all intents and purposes,
grew up during what I would consider to be times of war. People were fighting for their rights. Things were changing. People died. People sacrificed. People changed the national conversation from the denial of rights of certain people to a pathway for equal rights for all. The struggle still continues, but I would certainly thank my parents’ generation for making those pathways for me. I got so entrenched in reading slave diaries, civil rights narratives, and Harlem Renaissance poetry about African and African-American culture, it forever burned into the spirit of who I am as a person. To this day, I don’t use the word “Nigga” because of what I learned about “strange fruit hanging”. I was so Afrocentric at one point, my body is still decorated with permanent tattoos of African symbols that documented my journey of self-discovery. I love being Black. No doubt about it. I take great pride in my culture and heritage.

After I moved to California and ended a long-term relationship/engagement to a Black man, I found myself single in Los Angeles. For the first time in my life, men of all races, colors, creeds, backgrounds, and income levels started to notice me and ask me out. I pretty much exclusively dated Black until I was 25. I started becoming interested in the Latino guys that I knew. White guys would always ask me out, and at some point, I started to say yes to their offers. I had dated many guys of different races, but until I met my husband, I didn’t have any serious relationships with White men.

My Husband on our Wedding Day
Fast forward to when I met my husband. We met through work. And no, I wasn’t his first girlfriend of color or his first Black girlfriend. His last girlfriend is a sweet and successful black woman, who is absolutely gorgeous; however, their relationship ended after nearly five years of them being together. She is so well-loved by his family, she is still considered extended family, and rightfully so. My husband has a strong preference for Black women. Not just light-skinned women, but black women of all shades, mixes, and varieties. He loves natural hair, afros, chocolate colored skin, full lips, and the attitudes of black women. He does not have a “fetish” for Black Women. He has a genuine preference and appreciation for the beauty of Black Women. He is a musician, and his appreciation for Black culture came from many of his heroes being Black musicians. He has lived his whole life in the Los Angeles area, which is the melting pot of the US. He is a blue-eyed soul boy.

I personally had preferred dark-skinned, muscular, Black men my whole life. But there was something about the kindness in his blue eyes that made me give him a chance. I had no idea we would fall in love, be together through thick and thin, then get married. I had no idea I would grow to love his family as my own or that my father would grow to love him as his son. I didn’t know that my nephews and niece would adore their White uncle…and that my Brother-in-Law and my guy would hit it off as if they’d known each other for years. I had no clue that any of that would happen. I just was going on a date with a nice guy who seemed super excited to be in my presence.

“Black women are not objects, we are people. And it’s not perverse for a man who is not Black to find us attractive. To imply that a Black woman cannot be attractive to another race due to her beauty–physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually–rather than superficial things like sex degrades the Black woman and strips her of the dignity and honor that she deserves.”

Black women are constantly told a seriously degrading lie, “If a White man is interested in you, he is trying to feed a fetish. White men cannot be truly attracted to Black women for who they are; only what they look like, or as an object White Men use to assert their power over Black People.” This is the most disrespectful thing I can think of. A fetish is to have an unnatural sexual attraction to an object. Black women are not objects, we are people. And it’s not perverse or unnatural for a man who is not Black to find us attractive. To imply that a Black woman cannot be attractive to another race due to her beauty–physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually–rather than superficial things like sex degrades the Black woman and strips her of the dignity and honor that she deserves. Black women are beautiful, gorgeous, strong, and our culture is interesting to just about every group in the world, whether they would like to admit it or not. When we imply that the beauty of Black Women can only be appreciated by Black Men, what are we telling Black Women? We are telling them that they are not good enough to be loved and appreciated, and that is just not the case.

Read the entire story here.