O.K., let me just get to it. I think I broke up with my last girlfriend because she’s white. Actually, no, I definitely broke up with her because she’s white.
It’s been a year since I broke up with my girlfriend, and I haven’t told her the real reason. I talked around it, mumbling about how I was trying to figure out who I was or whatever. She didn’t understand. I’m not sure I do either. There was nothing wrong with her at all.
Maybe I wouldn’t have broken up with her if it hadn’t been for all the judgment coming my way. Over the years I have dated brown women and black women, but mostly white women. I hadn’t thought about why that was, but when some brown and black people in my community started giving me a hard time about dating white women, I sensed they’d be happier if I stopped.
I also got weird vibes from some white people, namely the parents of the women I was dating. Like the ones who — even after I’d been dating their daughter for six months — kept thinking I was from Puerto Rico. I’ve never even been to Puerto Rico.
But the real reason I think I can no longer date white women isn’t any of that. It’s because in today’s hashtag-woke society, there is mad pressure to be hashtag-woke. To be aware of the implications of whom you’re attracted to and why. Which means that in the eyes of others, the color of the women I date is a big deal. Like I’m the problem. Like I’m betraying my people if I date white women.
But I was taught that we were all one people!
I see people watching me with a stink eye, noses turned up, as if they think black and brown people would somehow be better off if I dumped my white girlfriend. It’s a lot of pressure. Along with each watchful eye, the whispers of, “Pick a side, Chris, pick a side,” fill my already noisy mind.
I started reading James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates and other black and brown authors looking for guidance, a road map, help on what it means to be a brown man in the world. Like: Yes, our bodies have been colonized. Yes, I am a child of blackness. Yes, the black body has done more for society than it has gotten in return. Yes, society seems to want to embrace a lot of things associated with blackness without actually being black.
Am I the problem or is everyone else? Do white women find me attractive or do they see me as some exotic idea they should find attractive? Do I find white women attractive or do I see them as they some exotic idea I should find attractive? Do I even know whom I’m attracted to or why?
It’s a message amplified by movies and TV, from “Save the Last Dance” to “Master of None” and dozens of other narratives that all feature, in one way or another, a black or brown man being made better from being with a white woman.
Anyway, this is me yearning, praying, journaling, writing, dialoguing, putting up a one-man show, wishing, trying to pick a side, wondering how to choose myself and trying to wrap my head around this, hoping that I’m doing woke right, because something just doesn’t feel right.