From the Associated Press:
For years, Toinetta Jones played the dating game by her
mom's strict rule.
"Mom always told me, 'Don't you ever bring a white man home,' "
recalled Jones, echoing an edict issued by many Southern, black
mothers.
But at 37, the Alexandria [Va.] divorcee has ****fted to
dating "anyone who asks me out," regardless of race.
"I don't sit around dreaming about the perfect black man I'm
going to marry," Jones said.
Black women around the country also are reconsidering deep-seated
reservations toward interracial relation****ps, reservations
rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation.
Let's try a little thought experiment, shall we? Imagine the story with
the
races switched:
For years, Muffy Smith played the dating game by her mom's strict
rule.
"Mom always told me, 'Don't you ever bring a black man home,' "
recalled Smith, echoing an edict issued by many Southern, white
mothers.
But at 37, the Alexandria divorcee has ****fted to dating "anyone
who asks me out," regardless of race.
"I don't sit around dreaming about the perfect white man I'm going
to marry," Smith said.
White women around the country also are reconsidering deep-seated
reservations toward interracial relation****ps, reservations rooted
in America's history of slavery and segregation.
It is impossible to imagine a re****ter treating a white woman's prejudices
against black men with the sort of indulgence the AP shows a black woman's
prejudices against white men. The reasons for this double standard are
obvious
and understandable: Inasmuch as each race's misgivings about the other
are, in
the AP's words, "rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation,"
they
implicate white guilt and black victimization and thus can be morally
differentiated.
But they are also different in terms of their consequences. Antiwhite
prejudice of the sort the AP describes is much more harmful to blacks than
antiblack prejudice is to whites. This is so for reasons of simple
arithmetic.
If we assume that the pool of eligible men reflects the racial pro****tions
of
the country as a whole, a white woman who refuses to date black men
thereby
reduces her prospects by about 13%. A black woman who dates only black men
reduces hers by 87%.
If Toinetta Jones's former attitude is widespread among black women, that
has
broader social consequences as well. As the AP re****ts:
[Jones] reflects many black women frustrated as the field of
marriageable black men narrows: They're nearly seven times more
likely to be incarcerated than white men and more than twice as
likely to be unemployed.
What the AP misses is that the unmarriageability of black men is an effect
as
well as a cause of black women's attitudes. Competition for mates is an
im****tant incentive for young men to succeed in the economic marketplace,
to
be willing to make romantic commitments, and otherwise to behave
responsibly.
If a large number of black women are unwilling to consider dating or
marrying
nonblack men, this competitive pressure on black men is vastly reduced,
and
with it the incentive to succeed.
Compounding this effect, interracial romance does not seem to carry the
same
stigma for black men as it does for black women. As the AP describes it:
[Romantic op****tunities are] made even slimmer, grumble many
black women, by high rates of successful black men choosing
blondes. For some, they argue, white wives are the ultimate
status symbol.
"They don't want a dark chocolate sister laying around their
swimming pool," [blogress Evia] Moore said.
Nearly three quarters of the 403,000 black-white couples in 2006
involved black husbands.
Moore's blog advocates marriage between black women and white men; it's
sad
that she views black men who marry white women as prejudiced against black
women rather than simply as willing to broaden their own romantic
horizons.
Which brings us back to our Muffy Smith hypothetical. Such a story would
never
appear, not only because the re****ter wouldn't write it, but because it is
socially unacceptable for whites to express antiblack sentiments.
Stigmatizing
prejudice does not cause it to disappear immediately, but surely
diminishes it
enormously over time. To the extent that black prejudice against whites is
a
self-defeating impulse, our culture's willingness to countenance it is
harmful
to blacks.
--
If black Democrats--and white Democrats, for that matter--cannot disagree
respectfully with a conservative who happens to be black, they have no
moral authority when it comes to combating racism in other
manifestations.
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