My friend, a black man who shall remain nameless, declared 2004, the year of the white guy. I asked him how they earned such a prestigious honor and he replied, “Everywhere you turn, black girls are with white guys. What’s going on!”
I gave him a look. The look. Since we’ve known each other many years, he knew what I meant and he quickly replied, “I know. I know. Brothers have been doin it for years but damn, white guys are getting sisters everywhere you look.” It seemed unnecessary to have the same conversation I’ve had a million times about why black women are dating outside of their race more and more. He knew why and I knew why but it was funny that he was just noticing it.
He went on to say that black guys never had to worry about white guys before because black guys were just cooler than white guys and therefore didn’t see them as a threat. I laughed because I always knew that many of my black male friends thought this and was amused that after many glasses of red wine, he was willing to admit it to me. He continued that before, white guys didn't have the guts to step to a black girl and now something's happened and they stepping in droves. I even admitted that friends of mine have been talking about this. How in high school, white guys never talked to us and now they're all over us. We're not sure what's changed.
A few days later, this friend went to a swanky affair where many of the most beautiful black famous black women attended. (He’s one of those guys who goes where all of the beautiful people go and you’re not quite sure how he got there. ) He was shocked to learn that two of his favorite stars, Aisha Tyler and Kerry Washington were involved with white guys!
He sent a longish email about the details of the evening, conversations he had, etc. And at the end of the email, he just wrote these lone words:
04, baby. 04.
what a riot. i would have gave him 'the look' and then i would've proceeded to double over laughter. props for holding it in, hun.
Posted by: nona | November 15, 2004 at 08:48 PM
Medicine and Hair.
Wish I could be around in 200 years when the whole world will finally turn honey brown. That would be when skin/race becomes so irrelevant that mix marriages would be the norm until their would be no mixed marriages.
The color of someone's skin should only be brought up in conversation in two situations.
One is in discussing medical diagnosis since there are various percentages of medical conditions between each race that must use race a factor to diagnose properly.
The other situation when you can bring up someone's skin color is when it also makes sense to bring up their hair color in the same conversation.
Of course these are my utopian ideals of the future. The present is still too bogged down in race problems for some fanciful vision of hug-hug kiss-kiss.
Damn-it you have to think of want in the future and start acting like the future is now. Star Trek was ground breaking with Uhura and especially Uhura's kiss with Kirk.
It's a shame that some people only see me as white guy who married a black girl who had a brown baby girl. We are as indescribable and complex as " ".
Posted by: Paul | December 10, 2004 at 03:53 PM