Monday, July 13, 2009

Miss Jay, J.D. tells us why she has decided to stop dating Black men:

***This is Part 1, of a two part series. I will post my commentary to this tomorrow.***

Recently, I was chatting it up with a friend. I'm close enough to this young lady that she can feel free to say anything and I won't get angry or judge. So imagine that while i'm visiting a blog that I actually frequent because I think it's an excellently written blog, idatewhite.com, and she sends me this message:
"I have decided to stop dating black men, and let me disclaim this entire conversation by saying I know some amazing black men who have a number of virtues that any woman would be lucky to have. Clearly they are not free of flaw but neither is anyone. They are still catches."

Of course, I didn't think anything was wrong with that. But I was still interested to know why and below are some of the highlights of the conversation:


First, my best friend [it’s a male] sent me an article on what single women can learn from Michelle Obama the article's argument was that many black women wouldn't date the community organizing earning 30K or something; and excuse me, I'm about to say something that some people cannot stand because I'm about to get very nitpicky and classist. Please forgive me in advance. Barack graduated from Columbia and then went to Harvard law. Michelle met him AT HER LAW FIRM. So it is different if he's highly educated, able to hold his own with certain people in conversation, etc and chose to earn 30K.

Now a point on Michelle, a top Princeton grad who went to Harvard law as well, she knew her earning potential. I'd argue that a lot of girls who went to the top schools aren't necessarily looking for the money. The money is already under control, they can earn it. They want someone with the credentials. That's another issue, maybe thats a problem, but that's not at issue right now. Yes, a community organizer who doesn't make that much comparatively but that was by choice which is important he's not making that much bc he cannot make more, he's making that much bc this is a career choice he's passionate about.

[A former male classmate], God bless his soul too but not as much, sent me something someone wrote on black women needing to stay fit and they cannot be surprised when men aren’t interested if they gain weight or already are fat. I am naturally thin, very thin, I will probably always be thin, BUT I understand that weight is an issue thats a little more complicated than eat right and work out sometimes, and eat right and work out in itself can be complicated. If you control for socioeconomic status, black men are less healthy than black women, its just true. But it doesn't seem so, why? Their dating pool.

They have a very large dating pool available to them and won't necessarily exclude girls who will be excluded after controlling for education and/or socioeconomic status. My friend always loves to say...round everyone up and ask all the men, "how many of you have or know someone who has dated someone who was in jail or had just gotten out of jail?" and then you do the same for the women and after those answers, you cannot complain about a black woman's standards because it will be clear what they really are. so then men still complain black men that is, and why is that? Because they can. it's literally a world where the odds are so in their favor that they can demand excellence and produce nothing. It won't work for all black men, but in theory it could.

That results in a group of entirely spoiled black men with elevated senses of self which I feel horrible saying but it’s true, and that’s not to say that their aren't girls who are full of themselves or have an elevated sense of self worth. And while I love you all so it's actually just a bit insane. so, as a result of all this, I talked myself into anger and am removing myself from the black male dating pool.

me: now do african men count?
I think I'm going to end up making it non black American men ... with both black and American being who separate subjective tests. meaning a man of recent African heritage who has been sufficiently "Americanized" will also be excluded, the point is to remove myself from the dating pool of anyone who has been affected by this nonsense.

me: Well, don't date white men, because of the reasons you named for Black men, it's out of control for white men.
White men have a sense of entitlement for other reasons and its the fault of the British. I've never excluded groups based on race, my serious relationships have only been with black men but I've dated white guys, so I'm not going to exclude them. I date based on the person anyway, white guys have a higher bar bc I'm very anti fetishizing. And I generally don't have to worry about a black guy fetishizing me for being black...that actually makes no sense. It would have to be based on something else, so the same restrictions will be placed on white guys. Nothing is changing. I’m' just actively not dating black men.


To be continued... tomorrow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I felt like I wanted to argue with the lady or play devil's advocate just to start trouble but she brought up alot of quality points.
The "sad" part is, is that even with her out of my potential dating pool, there are many women just as good, worse, or better than her that are willing to date me. I am spoiled, and I'd rather be this way than hiding in some corner fighting self esteem and letting some chick who doesn't really like me much push me around because she can.

She might as well be gay.

Doesn't matter.

White on sista!

DC DIVA DATING ADVENTURES said...

I'm going to wait for the commentary on this before I comment fully...

Unknown said...

lol...

I dunno..

I have personally witnessed the ugliest and fattest and poorest of men say something to me about how I look..and its true because they do have more options in the dc area especially

I dunno what else to say right now

DCBuppie said...

I am with @True2me . Speechless, yet at the same time this makes so much sense. That maybe I need to rule black men out too. Not that I am not a equal opp dater, but maybe i should discriminate.. mmm looking forward to part 2

FiGZ said...

This is not something new. I see this as a phase that will be over as soon as there is another politician that's smoked out of his cave for having a foreign mistress. This will not hold. Men are men; as women are women. Excluding particular groups will only have you missing out on a good thing.

Like Rah said, you might as well be lesbian then. Instead of the "tip" it will be the "clit". Dam! Did I just go in. Sorry if I did, but I'm always confused when women say things like that. But hey I'm just the 150 lb. optimistic, always happy, passionate driven Black(with a hint of Puerto-Rican spice) man passing through this post.

To each his own.
[Figz shrugs his shoulders]

Unknown said...

This is actually a pretty interesting read, so I only have two comments until tomorrow's follow-up.

1) By and large, men (of all races) are less picky than women; therefore, their dating pool and thus their choices will always be larger than a womens, right? With that in mind, it seems ironic that she complains that men are "spoiled" and have more choices than women, when at the same time she will be willingly shrinking her dating pool by opting NOT to date any black men.

2) I find that black men, like myself for example, dont care as much when black women decide not to date black men anymore as much as black women care when black men decide not to date black women anymore. That might be because black men have been doing it longer? I'm not sure. Still, personally I dont care and wish your friend and any other woman the best. I stopped dating black women for a while in college - didnt really do much for me one way or the other. Now I date women of all races, thus, my dating pool is HUUUUGE. True Story.

...sorry so long.

Tunde said...

good luck in all your future endeavors with not dating black men. like wisdomismisery said:

" I find that black men, like myself for example, dont care as much when black women decide not to date black men anymore as much as black women care when black men decide not to date black women anymore."

i date black women and only black women but if a black woman like your friend says that she's not dating black men anymore i really could care less. all i can do is wish her the best. *shrug*