Dating On The Other Side of the Fence

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a borderline militant black woman. I have a lot of love for my people and I love being black. I love black men to death. I can't see myself seriously being with a man who isn't black.

However, once upon a time not too long ago, I went out with a white guy. Not a Paul Wall white guy, not even a cool ass Owen Wilson white dude. I'm talking super-whitey yuppie white dude. He was a 40 year old golf instructor. It don't get no more whiter than that.

He was pink. He spent a lot of time in the sun, so his skin was leathery and wrinkly. I wondered, why the hell is he trying to get with me? I figured he wanted me to be his black girl fantasy. So, I thought to myself, hell, I never dated outside of my race, so lets give it a go.

He was a very enthusiastic person. Whenever I talked to him, he was always super juiced and perky. Thats something that always annoyed me about white people. What the hell are you so damn enthusiastic about? Maybe I've been jaded by my experiences as a black woman in America, but I digress. Anyway, when I first met YT, he paid for drinks and food for me and the homies all night at the Standard. Needless to say, we consumed a substantial amount of alcohol that evening.

I agreed to give him my number after he promised me free golf lessons. I'm usually don't give my number out to people who I am not attracted to from the jump, but when I've had 4 belvederes and tonics and two beers, I'm a little more obliging.

We talked on the phone a few times, and he asked me out on a date. I agreed to go. We went to the LA Auto Show, and then we had dinner at The Palm. Over dinner he unsuccessfully attempted to impress me by ordering a $150 bottle of champagne and calling himself teaching me about the difference between sparkling wine and champagne, which I was already aware of. He thought he was teaching me some shit. I remember thinking that he was a wee bit pretentious, but I was like whatever. Its a free overpriced meal, and maybe I can make him my white meat sugar daddy.

All ideas of making him my white meat sugar daddy went out the door when the subject of race came up. At the time, I had just came from a trip to DC. I was telling YT about the trip, and I mentioned that I was with a guy friend who was also black, and none of the taxi cabs would stop for us. I was telling him that its no small feat for a black man to hail a cab on the east coast. YT had the nerve to be like, "No! I don't believe that!" I was like dude, I was there. I saw the shit with my own eyes. Like 20 cabs passed us before a black cab driver pulled over for us. YT steadfastly disagreed. He was like, "That doesn't really happen."

At that moment I realized that YT was truly ignorant. True, as a white man he doesn't experience subtle racism and he isn't snubbed because he is a minority. But dammit he should be aware of the fact that this bullshit still goes on. Its 2006. The Civil Rights Act just passed only 40 some odd years ago. Wake the fuck up YT!

At that moment I realized that I could not date outside my race. I'm not knocking others who do it, because love has no color. But I, black girl interrupted, cannot do it. YT just didn't get it. And I'm not about to be nobody's black girl fantasy/ambassador for the black race. I deal with enough of that shit in corporate America. I don't want to deal with it in my personal life.