Last night I called my dad and he was pleasantly surprised to hear my voice. “I didn’t think you were going to call me ever again,” he said referencing a mini-argument we had when we last spoke a couple of weeks ago.
I don’t recall what led to the following statement from my dad, all I know is my world stopped once I heard him say: “I told Nigel he doesn’t have to only date Black girls.” Nigel is my 16-year-old little brother.
“Why would you tell him that?” I asked in shocked.
“I don’t know if you know this, but your brother has some really bad views of white people. He says some really terrible things sometimes.”
“Okay…” I replied, still waiting for an explanation that justified his fatherly advice.
“As much as we need Black families right now you go and tell him that?” I asked
“Well, I know that. But I also think there are a lot of things you can learn from other cultures…”
“That’s fine, but that doesn’t mean you have to date someone of a different race to experience or learn from other cultures,” I said cutting my dad off.
From there we went back and forth trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the other of our point of view, with my dad saying he simply didn’t want my brother to limit himself as a result of some of the negative images around him and me telling him there are other ways of doing that without implying “go get yourself a white girl.” Eventually my dad told me he wasn’t trying to upset me and we got off the phone. I was upset though, not so much at the thought of my brother dating someone other than a Black girl but at my dad for feeling the need to encourage that behavior.
I should point out here that my mom is Black and so is my younger brother’s mom. I don’t know my dad to have ever dated outside his race himself, and this is the same man who asked me whether I think our family has a colorism issue because everyone is light-skinned except for my uncle’s new wife. I know his heart was in the right place when he gave my brother that not-so-sage advice, but his head? It had checked out.
But then I had to remember a basic truth about my dad: He’s a Black man. And (some) Black men will never understand what it’s like to get the message that they can go somewhere else and find the same thing Black women can offer. Of course it’s a fallacy, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to hear expressed and I know it’s that angst that fueled my disgust at what my dad told my brother. No, I don’t want my brother to hate all white people or paint them all with the same racist brush as they often do us, but correcting that is far less of a priority in my book than my desire for him to love, respect, and appreciate Black women.
I told my dad I was going to text my little brother when we got off the phone and tell him he better get himself a Black girl (although from the looks of his Instagram I don’t need to do that). And I haven’t — yet — but my conversation with my dad did lead to a different revelation. My brother and I didn’t grow up in the same household and our age difference makes it difficult for us to find ways to connect. But now I figure if no one else is exposing him to the beauty that is Black women, or explicitly telling him about it, I’ll make it my job to be an example so he has no desire to actively seek out women of other races for fulfillment. If he naturally ends up with someone of a different culture, so be it. But that’s not a seed I find necessary to plant.
Would you encourage your children to date outside their race?
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