She's 1/8 Spanish (A Deeper Look at Black Men and Interracial Dating) (Part 1)

"So, stick by his side
I know it's dudes balling and yeah that's nice
And they gone keep calling and trying
But you stay right girl
And when you get on he leave your *ss for a white girl"

Kanye West, "Gold Digger"

Kanye's 2005 hit "Gold Digger" still
resonates with  men and women of color.

Thanks, Kanye.  We had it hard enough with "Daddy issues", past relationships with jerks, and "Act Like a Man (...I mean Lady), Think Like a Man", then you give the sisters more ammo. While I don't completely agree with the notion Black men openly seek interracial dating, it's definitely a common theory. Whispers of brothers undervaluing our own females stretch from Trenton to Tinseltown.

On the season premiere of BET's "The Game", retired football player Jason Pitts (played by actor Coby Bell) was confronted on the issue of dating White women by a attractive female bartender named...Chardonnay. Yeah...Chardonnay. Anyway, Pitts (who is an African-American and Caucasian) recounted a humorous yet all too familiar story of being a school kid interested in a beautiful black girl. As he told it, he build finally built up the confidence to ask her to dance to Kool Moe Dee's "I Go To Work", but when he did, the girl laughed in his face. Unfortunately he would experience this feeling again, only to see a change in how he was perceived by African American females once he acquired money. This would lead him to create a subconscious prejudice against women of color. After watching this clip, I was forced to wonder.

Why is this such a common thought process?

Taye smiling  like he never kissed Nia Long in
"The Best Man" and her breath stunk.

I thought about my talks with the crew. Ladies, we talk about the modern black woman, the good and bad, and dealing with (spitting while I talk) WHHITTEE WWWWWWOMEN (I just wanted to say that.) While I feel that all...well, most of us want to marry a woman who looks like us, the discussion takes place. Probably not how you would imagine it, however. Speaking on the chats I have had, the notion of interracial dating comes more out of despair than delusion. Frequently, Black men are accused with losing touch of who they are and forgetting where they came from. IF that is the case, I believe there is a path to that  destination we are ignoring. There is currently a disconnect between three crucial components of black love: Parents, Black men, and Black women.

A Black man's views on relationship are made of many components, but often overlooked is the family structure. As a black boy, your first relationship is with your mother, and it is CRUCIAL to your future love life that this love is developed and nurtured. Many young men are not experiencing first hand how influential and advantageous the support of the black female is to their lives. Even during the years after my parents separated, there were always reinforcements of good sisters around us: the Ebony Magazine Black Love issue (Will and Jada every year), trips to Trenton High Basketball games, and going to see Black movies the first weekend they came out. My parents aren't that slick; they were teaching life lessons. They made it a priority for me and my brothers to hold African American women, OUR women in high regard. I feel it's really important to reestablish that system in Black households.

(Continued in the next blog)