Photo Courtesy of Lizzy Okoro Palafox
The Black Woman's Perspective on Dating and Stereotypes
Kai Allen's views on interracial dating and relationships is a little different. Having dated and been in relationships with mostly black men, she also has experienced a relationship with one white man in her early 20's. But now she prefers to have a black man as a partner.
"I do want to end up with someone black because...I don't have to explain things. I don't have to check anyone if they're being racist or insensitive or anything like that and I really appreciate that," Allen said. "I want to live my life with a partner like that."
The currently single event planner has been on different dating apps such as Tinder for the past three years but had recently deleted all of her accounts. She admits the wide variety of men did not appeal to her and she did not swipe right for everyone. "[I swiped] just black men, because I know that's what I want so why bother swiping on somebody else," Allen said.
Allen's choice to only date black men has received mixed reactions from both her black and non-black friends. Ironically, it's the latter who tells her she should expand her romantic interests to all men, not just black.
"When I've gotten that, it's been from black women. Who are just like 'why would you limit yourself' and weirdly every single one of my black friends who is married or in a relationship it's with somebody who isn't black, all of them...but [for] my non-black friends...it's not a conversation," Allen said.
Though Allen respects her friends who are in interracial relationships, she doesn't want to give up on the idea of finding a partner within her race. However, she noticed some of her longest relationships she's had with black men were ending because she sometimes experienced patriarchal, misogynistic attitudes within the relationship, a "very male-centric view of how a woman should be in the relationship," she said. But she says she doesn't want these experiences to ruin her overall view of what it means to be with a black man in the future.
"It wasn't fair for me to think that all black men all act a certain way and therefore I cannot be with them. I'm doing what people do to black women which is 'oh I can't date black women, they all have attitudes...all these bullshit stereotypes about black women, I was doing the same thing and that's not fair," Allen said. "So that's what I mean when I say that I don't want to give up because everyone's different and it's not fair to say that all black men are misogynists."
According to the dissertation Dating Missrepresntation.com: Black Women's Lived Love-Hate Relationship with Online Dating by James H. Johnson some of the stereotypes associated with what it means to be a black woman are historically rooted. The common depictions being the "angry black woman, mammy, strong black woman, and jezebel."
But television production manager Ebony Shanks doesn't want these stereotypes to negatively impact her dating life or define her as a black woman. "I don't subscribe to that narrative that they're trying to throw down black women's throats that 'oh nobody wants to date you, you guys are always angry,'" Shanks said. "I don't subscribe to that at all, if I see a headline on it I'm not clicking on the link, I'm not reading it. Because that's not my story."
Ebony doesn't allow the stereotypical depictions of black women in the media to personally affect how she approaches dating. Though she has primarily dated black men, she does not have a racial preference and is open to dating outside of her race. "I don't think being in an interracial relationship affects me. You know people are people," Shanks said.
Currently, she is not active on dating apps because she wants to find a relationship the old-fashioned way, by meeting people in person. "I think that dating in general is just hard. Especially in this era of social media, it's almost as if everybody is looking for the next best thing...these apps have made it so you can kind of hide behind a screen."
Though she doesn't have a particular preference she does notice she is usually approached by black men but never men of other races. "I do feel like I've never been approached by people of opposite races. And if I do then they end up being a chocolate chaser or have some weird fetish thing or something that doesn't go anywhere," Shanks said.
The Fetishization of Blackness
J.J. Anderson being half black and half white, also has experienced the fetishization of her blackness but specifically her biraciality. By also being in a relationship with her Salvadoran boyfriend Tito, she feels that even her unborn children are even fetishized. Comments she usually gets from people are how beautiful her future children will look because they will be multiracial.
"When you're saying that you're discounting all of the other children who are not just black but who are not biracial," Anderson said. "If you're full [black] or you don't have something else in you to make you lighter or 'exotic' then what are you? You're not to be mentioned or you're not notable and it's really messed up. So that has to do with a lot of self-hate and deprecation and racism. But I'm tired of people bringing my babies into a fetish of their own. It's really strange and it's really weird."
Mixed Race Babies Twitter
A Twitter account dedicated to mixed race babies.
Shantel Buggs, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Florida State University and affiliated faculty in the Program for African American Studies has researched on multiracial populations and interracial couplings.
"There's different conceptions of what people are going to consider to be exotic. There is something I think to this ambiguity that's appealing, even if you aren't necessarily a mixed race person. If you look like you could be, that adds extra appeal to you," Buggs said. "Some of these things around mixed race people and racial ambiguity are still a part of this desirability schema, even if Eurocentric beauty standards still are dominant. Because a lot of the features that are valued in racially ambiguous or mixed race people often aren't dark-skinned, often aren't dark-eyed, or it's a certain texture of hair."
The notion that blackness is deemed beautiful when one is mixed can stem into the issue of colorism that is a prevalent topic within the black community. Hearing the words "good hair," "light/green eyes" or "light skinned," are used to supposedly compliment a specific type of black woman but disregards black women who are not mixed.
Founder of media production company HRDWRKER, J.J. Anderson describes her experience in the dating world as a mixed woman.
"I definitely think that colorism plays a role when black men are dating. And I think that lighter and straighter and greener is tied to easier," Anderson said. "How many times have you heard a black man say I'm done dealing with black women because white women are just easier to deal with. But that's the consensus right? That non-black women are just more easy-going."
According to Buggs, the belief of how black women are in relationships is completely different to white, Asian, and Latina women. "Images of black women as being angry or abusive partners compared to white women who are more docile, similar framings of Asian women as docile, which is also why a lot of white men desire Asian women," Buggs said.
With Latina women, the "spiciness" of their personality is played up in mainstream media but Buggs states it's a specific type of Latina that is focused on.
"There is a privileging of the so-called 'spiciness' of Latinas, and not Afro-Latinas but white Latinas, Mestiza Latinas, light-skinned Latinas. That spiciness is sexy but the attitudes of black women are emasculating. So we're constantly being sent those messages and you know people internalize them and it shapes how we think about people's attractiveness," Buggs said.
Diann Valentine, author of Going the Distance for Love and love expert on the show To Rome for Love on the Bravo channel, stresses how black features are now more than ever considered more attractive on non-black women.
"You have increasing numbers of non-black women buying physical characteristics of black women," Valentine said. "Why the obsession with booties? Why the obsession with fuller lips? Why the obsession with cornrows? Why the obsession with all the things that black women used to be ostracized about?"
For black features to be celebrated on non-black women proves that the stereotypes of black women being difficult to date affects how black men percieve black women. "To me that tells me that black men really want black women... but they want us to be easier," Valentine said.
According to OkCupid , black women were the worst rated demographic by men of all races. While the Facebook dating app Are You Interested, black women were the least responded group. At the same time, black women are the most likely to date within their race.
Julie Wadley, founder of Eli Simone Matchmaking & Coaching created her company catering to "bold, brilliant, beautiful black women." Being one of the few black matchmakers in the industry, she wants to be able to change the narrative of what it means to date and fall in love with a black woman. "We don't really get a lot of grace when it comes to our society and how we are perceived as women and eligible mates, whether or not we are dateable or marriage material," Wadley said.
She states that within the matchmaking business it can be difficult as matchmaking is not considered culturally acceptable in black American culture, but specifically getting help is unacceptable. There is the notion in the community that "when it comes to dating you either have it or you don't," Wadley said.
Her clients are predominantly black women who are looking for black men too. "Everyone's looking for the same thing. A tall, Christian, successful black man. And I say black man," Wadley said. "The problem is in 2018, the door is wide open. Everyone is dating outside their race."
How Location Affects Black Women Dating
Another huge factor that affects how and who black women date is where they live. "The complexity of looking at kind of these national widespread trends where black women are disadvantaged in these marriage markets or dating markets [but] also differences locally," Buggs said. "If you live in a super black metro area your marriage market prospects will perhaps not be as bad if you lived in a majority white metro area."
Valentine added that the culture and lifestyle of Los Angeles specifically can prove to be a harder landscape for women to navigate dating in general.
"LA is probably the worst place to try and be in a relationship. LA is a destination for most people, so most of us come here in pursuit of a dream, a goal whether it's Hollywood or music or acting, whatever it is," Valentine said. "It requires so much focus and determination to achieve something and really build something here. So I think people are really focused on that and relationships are not necessarily a priority."
The Cultural Context of Black Women Dating Interracially
The stereotypes and racial biases that black women experience in the dating world are only a few aspects black women experience when navigating romantic relationships, especially when it comes to dating someone of another cultural background. What is culturally expected and considered socially acceptable for who black women can date is another story.
"Some of that gender bias I think it has to do with our conceptions of women and [being] the keepers of culture. And in kind of most family structures, the woman family members are the ones who are expected to do the socializing and a culturalizing of children," Buggs said.
She theorized that in order for black culture to survive it is dependent on black women and black mothers to pass it down to their families.
"There is this narrative that as a black woman if you partner with someone who is not a black man that you are 'selling out,' especially if the person is white," Buggs said. "In ways that we don't see that kind of selling out narrative for black men who partner with white women, I mean it depends on who we're talking to."
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff a writer for VICE shares a message from a white male match off Tinder. Matching with different men on the dating app, she discusses in her article "Women of Color Get No Love on Tinder" that many matches harped on her race throughout their conversation. She also identifies as black Caribbean and white. Some messages read "I'd love to have sex with a black girl," "I have a thing for black girls," "Do you have (insert race here) in you... Would you like some?" "What are you?" "You look like you have a bit of oriental in you," "No, where are you really from." Brinkhurt-Cuff writes that she felt tokenized for her ethnicity.
An example of this is the criticism Serena Williams received for announcing her engagement to now husband and Reddit founder, Alexis Ohanian, who is Armenian-American. Williams got major backlash specifically from the black community for planning to marry a white man. Ironically, black men are twice as likely than black women to marry outside of their race. While Williams has also been depicted in the media as being the"angry black woman" her choice of who she loves was heavily racialized in the media and the black community.
But Valentine believes the color of your skin shouldn't be a determining factor on who you should love. "I believe that love is colorless...you can't tell your heart what to feel. You have the right to love whoever you love," Valentine said.
When it comes to dating so many factors play into how black women experience romance and finding love. Some black women date within their race and some do not. However, it is important to recognize what black women go through. Understanding mainstream media's depiction of black women can heavily affect how people perceive and treat black women. Because of this it is necessary to give black women the opportunity to share their own experiences, especially when it comes to something so intimate as love and romance.
For Lizzy Okoro Palafox, her experiences in dating and journey to a loving marriage resulted in her changing the way she approached what kind of man she wanted to be with, even if it meant being with someone who isn't black. "I didn't want to continue to put limitations on myself of who I could love and who would be my husband to be," Palafox said. "If the universe says this is my person, I'm open to being with that person."
Love expert Diann Valentine is a believer in making sure black women are heard and seen within the dating world. "I'm an advocate for black women and for us getting, receiving and enjoying the love that I know that we deserve. And sometimes it means that you got to learn to love who loves you."
Background Photo Courtesy of Lizzy Okoro Palafox