Facebook Publication Date: 7/15/2020 11:07

*All new norms apply. No fewer than 500 comments. Absolutely NO reacts.*

A community member wrote this comment in response to a recent post about the primacy given to white women and *selected* parts of Blackness. Read, find yourself, and respond. Particularly hold her words, “These dynamics are real and don’t disappear just because of love.” This can absolutely be applied to more than just romantic love and relationships.

*************************
“This obviously hits very close to home, I am a white woman who has been with a Black US-American man for 17 years now. It doesn’t matter that we met and live in Switzerland now. The question isn’t wether we qualify as “economically successful”. The results for his community in the US and our impact on Black communities and white supremacy in CH are still there.

I understand so much why this was sent privately. This is a topic that will without doubt cause hurt because of our lack to grip all dimensions of the issue, and there will be hurt and denial and deflection. It also speaks of being left behind by everybody. We would be tempted to personalize the viewpoint and put all the responsibility and denial on her shoulders. I do try my best to handle it responsibly and of course I’m open to feedback.

It is also a statement that is used in the few movies showcasing white girls and Black boys as a couple. I think “Save the last dance” is one example. But the movies use it to show intolerance from the Black community, further emphasizing the goodness of the white female lead, while resolving the white audience from any ambiguities they might be feeling. Too often, interracial couples don’t challenge supremacy, their stories are used to enforce it.

Obviously, the answer for me can’t be to just not have romantic relationships. When Black men chose white women we need to examine how much of it is because of notions of desirability and status. When white women chose Black men we need to examine how much is fetishizing, savior complex and superiority. These dynamics are real and don’t disappear just because of love.
Power dynamics, racism, misogyny don’t disappear because “love”. This is also one of the cases where individual choices can be right, but that doesn’t resolve us from the structural effects our choices have.
To think of the relational ethics series, the dating period isn’t love yet, love is what comes after and takes so much work and dismantling of the intersections of race and patriarchy.

We have to treat this like all the other areas in life when privilege has a hold – how do we live our love, while lessening the harm we do to (our family and other) Black and Brown people.

Black women emphasizing the importance of Black love and the damage done by the “Black man white woman”-dynamic doesn’t take away my love, we absolutely must not “all loves matter” this.

I see that I still have to personalize this to the harm done to Black Women, I’m working on it.”

Permalink: https://www.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/pfbid0QXvGJkcjXc2GM3mWx3wtFYDjuzAoBirtGiZoEzEdhyWghNa92AusaeBAXihZCNrWl

Post Type: Text

Caption Type: N/A

Is Cross Post: 0

Is Share: 0

Impressions: 3

Reach: 2

Reactions: 0

Comments: 67

Shares: 0