Happy Valentines Day...

I recently read an article that I came across on Yahoo, although I couldn't locate the address of it for purposes of this blog post, which quoted statistics on the racial requirements of people on online dating sites. It concluded that the least attractive male to females was of Asian descent, and the least attractive female to males was African American. So, as a male, this got me fairly interested as to why African American females were so disproportionatley shunned. It led me to read through many blogs and articles, and it seems that at least part of the reason is that African American females seem to be one of the most likely demographics to oppose interracial dating. In addition, African American males do not achieve the same educational or societal standing as African American females on a whole, which in effect, forces African American females to choose from a smaller proportion of ''good black men" which accounts for why such a large percentage of them have never been married.

This has also assisted in creating the stereotype of "the angry single black woman", which no doubt probably accounts for why they ranked last in those polls.

So, why exactly, are black women so opposed to interracial dating, at least, it seems, more so then many others races? Without singling out any post or article, the most frequent argument I have seen is that they are very interested in building a "strong black family". I have to take issue with the "black" part of that. Since when did "black" or any "race" become as important as the strong and family part of that? Why have black women increasingly settled for either not having families at all, or having children out of traditional family settings, simply to ensure their "blackness"? What is blackness? Why is it so important to keep your family lines as "black" as possible? Does keeping your line racially pure make you closer to your ancestors? Is it impossible for a child of mixed races to be proud of or educated about all of his ancestors positive accomplishments?

What really bugs me about it is, any person, not just a black woman, who lists racial purity as one of their top requirements of reproduction or relationships, is that very few of us even know where the hell we came from. Even with all this modern emphasis on family trees and geneology, most of us cannot go back further then "yeah, grandpa lived in Jersey City, and he thinks he was Italian". This is especially true for many of us who have generations that were particuliary poor or illiterate, and from which very little information exists. So, at what point do we stop being "African", "Italian", "German", and just be American. What point is a strong family more important then a strong "black" family?


The second most popular argument by far is the one about society or their respective families not accepting or blessing the relationship. To me, this is a tremendously weak argument. Only a very sad person is going to let society or their family control their potential happiness, and only very sad members or society or families have such contempt for another race that the overall happiness of their relative or society in general takes a back seat.