I like white guys. Here is the thing: it is not because I actively seek out all the white men in the world and I actively reject other races. When I date someone, or kiss them, or become involved with them, or even just like them, it’s because I see them and go, “He’s cute. I want to know him.” Then I get to know him and I think, “I like this guy.” I read the signals he returns to me and either decide he’s into me or he’s not. And in my life, it has happened that more of the guys I share a mutual attraction for and that seem to be a kind person have been white.
Maybe I do have a type. But doesn’t everyone? Look at the people you’ve dated or been involved with in the past. Are there more tall people than short? More in shape people than overweight? More people with dark hair or eyes than light? What were their occupations? Their ages? Where were they from? What did they like to do? Even just look at the celebrities you think are hot and ask these questions. I bet you that you can find some kind of pattern somewhere. You have a type. You vary from it sometimes probably, but there are certain things that you like more than others.
I am no different. I like a guy to be tall, but at least just taller than me. If you're taller than me, you're already winning. I like a guy that is into fitness. I like guys who are into sports. Most of the guys I’ve liked are older than me. I like guys who are friendly, but not the type that has to be the center of attention. I like a guy that has style. Most have been fun people. Not necessarily funny, but the kind of person that when you’re around them, you end up having a good time.
Those are just some of the things I’ve noticed in the guys I choose. Maybe some psychologist out there has a theory about why I like what I like, but they probably have some theories for you, too (“Oh, you like a guy in charge? You must want to be dominated in your relationship”…you get the point).
The bottom line is that the most common pattern in the guys I like is that they are white. 1) No, I'm not a traitor. This sentiment is usually expressed by lunatics babbling about the upcoming race war. This feels like something you might tell a pre-schooler but when someone is black, they're black. They were born black, they will die black, it's a gene, it's a skin tone, not a commodity that can be measured and weighed and if you listen to country music you lose blackness and you have to quickly put in the T.I. CD to get some of it back. Marrying a black guy doesn't make you any more black than if you married a white guy. It's not a one size fits all mold where being black automatically and oppressively means you have to marry black people that seems more suffocating than a true racial identity. It's a physical trait, not a personality type, and you can't be more or less or a "traitor" by whom you choose to socialize with or marry. Plus, thinking of it in terms of “traitor” implies a war, implies two sides that should be kept separate and at each other’s throats instead of humans in the same boat, and I thought most people were tired of that mentality. 2) I am me. I like what I like. My skin tone doesn't define me. And if you know me, you know that I'm a product of an interracial marriage (Egyptian and African American).
There have been moments that I've looked at pictures of me and a white guy and I look at our skin next to each other. More than once, I’ve thought to myself, “This is beautiful.” Growing up, I always liked those ice cream cones you could get that were chocolate and vanilla. I’m not trying to make a joke here, but honestly, I thought the brown and white looked pretty together (and I liked both flavors equally and could never choose). I didn’t think white cones were pretty or tasted good; it was too vanilla. I didn’t like the chocolate cones by itself because it just looked like someone crapped in my ice cream cone and the flavor was too much chocolate. When you mixed the two together, I was happy. It was visually pleasing and I liked the balance of flavors. This is not to say that a vanilla cone or a chocolate cone can’t be good or beautiful to someone else. They are. Still, sometimes, I will get just one or the other. My own personal taste though prefers the mix. That’s what I’ve thought about when I’m looking at our contrasting skin. I like this. It’s beautiful to me. I do not know why. Just like everyone has their favorite ice cream flavor or their “type” they look for in a partner, so do I. I am attracted to lighter skin. You wouldn’t judge me for liking the vanilla/chocolate twist ice cream cones, would you? So why judge me for the skin color I’m attracted to?
I strongly encourage anyone who still thinks “race” is a real thing to look up an article called “How our skins got their color” by Marvin Harris. Here is the linkhttp://homepage.smc.edu/delpiccolo_guido/Soc34/Soc34readings/HOW%20OUR%20SKINS%20GOT%20THEIR%20COLOR.pdf
He explains it better than I could, but the basics boil down to how much melanin our bodies produce. People nearer to the equator and therefore exposed to more solar radiation produced more melanin (because of natural selection and the fascinating ways our bodies know what we need and when) because it protected them from severe burns, which we all know can be damaging and even lead to skin cancer. The further people migrated away from the equator, the less solar radiation they were exposed to. As opposed to the bad effects of too much sunlight, there are also bad effects of not getting enough. When people got further away, usually in colder temperatures where they had to keep their skin covered up for warmth, they needed to soak up whatever sun they could to get the good benefits. So their bodies produced less melanin so that they could absorb more Vitamin D from the sun. More melanin makes your skin darker and less makes it lighter. Diet also effects how much melanin you produce, which is why people in some non-equatorial places still kept some of their darker color…their diets were helping them to keep producing it, mostly in places near water (think Alaska). Then as time has passed, we pass our skin color down to our children just like we pass hair or eye color. And now, we are so free to move around the world that there are various skin colors all over, integrated into the same towns. Basically, your skin color is a result of where you or your ancestors just happened to be born. I was born in Springfield, IL…do you think I choose that or even liked it? No. And I didn’t choose my parents either. I didn’t choose my skin color just like I didn’t choose to be born with brown eyes and goldilocks hair (if you didn't know, you know now what my natural hair color is). We don’t say that our friend with brown hair is less of a human being than us over here with blonde hair, so why do we do that with skin color?
I’d also like to point out that everyone against interracial relationships seems to only focus on white and black. They seem to forget that they have probably either participated in one or came from one. I would almost say that the Colombians and Germans and Italians and Austrians are more interracial than an African American, because those people actually moved here, away from their families, FROM their countries, where they grew up speaking another language on another continent. African Americans were born IN THE UNITED STATES. They are Americans in the same way that I am technically Egyptian, African American and Cherokee but I call myself American because I was born in America.
Which leads me to the fact that most of us come from interracial relationships. Look down your family line. You're probably French, English, German etc. I am a bi-racial child conceived from an interracial relationship among people who are made up of probably ten different races not just two. I am not black. I'm not the color of the black suit you see in the store. We are all brown, of some shade or another. Most of us come from more than one racial background somewhere down the line. All of us come from the first two humans to ever exist on Earth, whether you believe it was Adam and Eve or not. Science and religion both support the idea that the human race started in either what is now Africa or the Middle East (Jesus wasn’t a white boy speaking English…in case you didn’t figure that out yet). In the beginning, we probably all had darker skin, probably what we now consider black. It was later on that we migrated into Europe and Russia. That Native Americans were able to come into what we now call Canada and the United States. That over generations, skin started changing because we needed to either protect ourselves from the sun or expose ourselves to as much of it as we could.
In today’s society, we may have cultural differences between our “races”, but we come from the same place. We are one race: the human race. And we are no different on the inside. Maybe white girls do drink more Starbucks (I don’t even know) but if so, that is a cultural development, because Starbucks happens to be in the United States on every street corner and someone somewhere (my guess is the media) made it pop culture and “cool” to drink coffee and tea all the time and the susceptible white girls fell for it. Maybe more black men are arrested, but that is a cultural development. It probably comes from the fact that black people are profiled for crime because of our stupid, racist ancestors or that black people tend to be in a lower socioeconomic class in this country and are prone more to crime. I don’t know. I’m not an anthropologist or sociologist or a crime expert. Talk to the ones who are.
None of these stereotypes come from the actual biology of our skin. And not everyone fits a stereotype. I know I don't fit most stereotypes that people have of my skin color. The next time you judge me for being a black girl with a white guy, think about your “type” and try to see if you can honestly explain why you like what you like. Think about what races have mixed in your family history that led up to your creation. Think about whether the stereotypes associated with people are actually biological or cultural. Think about how you’d feel if you were judged for being a blonde dating a brunette because at the end of the day, that’s basically what you’re doing to me. Or any other person in an interracial relationship. Think about the concept of race and ask yourself if you are really so stupid to believe that our outward appearance really makes us biologically and fundamentally different than other people. I sincerely hope you aren’t.
-xoxo, E
-xoxo, E
