I’ve been thinking heavily about this topic lately and noticed that it seems to be trending more than it did twenty years ago. It really has more to do with culture than it has to do with race. I can give my opinion on this topic because I have personal, first-hand experience growing up in an African-American community in Ft. Worth, Texas for most of my life. My understanding of relationships was based on what I witnessed growing up. Until the age of 22, I had never dated a woman outside of my race, mostly because that’s what I was used to and secondly, dating outside of the Black community was a stigma and you ran the risk of being called a sell-out or losing your “Black card” if you did.
Every Black woman I dated either didn’t know their dad or didn’t have a good relationship with him. They grew up in a single-parent home or their mother had remarried another man. Any person living in a situation like this makes it counterproductive to a healthy conducive life in its totality. It’s just better if you have a streamlined healthy family structure. Although my dad was in my life, my own parents weren’t even together so I thought this was normal growing up.
When I went to college my eyes were opened to a lot of things. When you look at the racial demographics of most universities, you’ll see that there’s an overwhelming number of white people, which is not something I saw in my community growing up unless it was a white teacher or white police. I felt a huge culture shock being a minority in college. Also, a lot of myths were being unveiled as false such as white women don’t have good bodies, they don’t have any rhythm and you can’t bring them home.
My understanding of the world started changing when I got to college because I started seeing things I’d never seen before. For example, I discovered sushi for the first time, met people who went hiking and learned what organic food is. After being introduced to different avenues of life, my mindset towards women and dating began to change. Once I started to evaluate the dating pool, I was more attracted to white women because I began to realize that single-parent homes aren’t normal and not knowing your dad isn’t normal.
I was also exposed to cultural situations where women knew how to treat a man. Women knew how to be ladylike, compassionate, and loving. I wanted to start over, have the life I didn’t get to have before and be exposed to the things I didn’t grow up with like dinners with the whole family or mom and dad, grandma and grandpa staying together. Remember, this isn’t about race. It’s about a culture that is more conducive to your success and happiness. Once you experience it you can never go back because it becomes your new standard.
