By now most black women have heard that we outnumber our male counterparts by a whopping two million. Since polygamy and man-sharing isn’t desirable to most, opening up your dating options to include an international pool suddenly turns your love life into an ocean of possibilities.
Take Brooklyn native, Ieishah Clelland, who packed up her big apples and went to Barcelona, Spain and Belgrade, Serbia and quickly came to discover her deep brown skin and curvy figure were a hot commodity. Apparently, chaps in certain parts of Europe, the Balkans and the Netherlands are climbing over the blue-eyed blonds and checking for the melanin-rich sisters.
“So much about this depends on your attitude,” says Clelland, who runs a blog, Brooklyn. Barcelona. Belgrade that chronicles her experiences abroad. According to her, issues of slavery, Jim Crow, and the “mammy/Slore” stereotype generally don’t come into play, so that makes the baggage a bit lighter, so to speak. “They view us as just Americans,” (as opposed to hyphenated ones).
Clelland also says the ride has been less bumpy for her close friend–an African American man–who has been globetrotting with an expired passport. “Can you imagine? A black man can’t even drive a car in the U.S. without a license!” She goes on to say that her pal feels “freer and more creative” outside these United States.
Hmmmm…he feels freer outside the ‘land of the free?‘ Scratching my head on the irony of that one.
