Imagine sitting on the couch in your leopard Snuggy with your rain-beau, fire burning…maybe some other stuff burning too…but just before you tell your man to put out that/your fire, you flip through the TEE VEE and see this:

Welp, speaking of “burning in hell,” I bet after seeing that drama it’s about the ONLY way flames will burn TONIGHT, because, well…THE WHITE MAN IS THE DEBBIL! (OMG did I just say that out loud? Last beer for the night, definitely!)

**ahem**

You look at him. He looks at you. Both of you have some thoughts about what you just watched. You’re probably thinking Samuel L. Jackson’s character made the world a better place by killing those criminals that raped his daughter. All the while, rain-beau, ignorant as a ostrich, is checking out the action between Sandra Bullock and Matthew McCommonyousofine. So clearly the both of you are NOT on the same wavelength, and there’s not enough Ms. Meyer’s Clean Day to cover the stank eye you’re giving because you’re man’s just not outraged enough, and a bit too cavalier about that slavery thingamajiggy or that guy, what WAS his name? Oh yes, now I remember–Jim Crow.

To be honest, I watch a show like this with the same zeal as I have to eat raw snails or patty fried bat gauno. I do not watch this buzzkill in front of the husbo. For one, he just can’t relate. NONE of his family history can be tied to slavery in America. They were in Deutschlandt heilling Hitler, but the family thought better of that guys and high tailed to the U.S. and Grandpa Schlelien made machine parts for WWII airplanes and became a millionaire. No slaves needed for that job I guess. AND, those movies just piss me off, honestly. They make me mad/sad/bitter that my people went through such horrors.

Deborrah Cooper, a popular relationships expert and blogger of www.survivingdating.com, says there’s a time in every black American’s life where they have an epiphany–a moment of shining truth–the “N*GGA MOMENT.” It’s that situation, the interlude, that snub, that clutched purse or lost-in-the-mail invitation that makes your realize that no matter how poised or pretty, how educated, how much money you make or how many alphabets are behind your name, you are still a…well…you get the point.

If you rain-beau is white, he has no such AHA! moment. He has been free to roam the country without fear of driving while black, being mistaken for Sambo. He has had his CLEAR CARD, in which, as a member of the dominant racial club, he has never ACTUALLY had to use.

But…when he dates YOU, chocolate princess that you are, things are not so clear all the time, especially if he’s been free to roam about the building as if he were invisible. “If your man can’t relate or at least empathize with what it’s like to be black in America, he has no business dating you,” says Cooper.

Twofold question: How do you talk to your man about the struggle without wanting to lynch him if he can’t seem to relate?

Looking forward to your insights and comments.