There are double standards in life. Always has been and always will be. That’s why men get props for having multiple sexual partners while some women get dogged out for it. Somehow, double standards have also crossed over to interracial relationships and with them come lowered expectations, flawed thinking, and poor dating decisions.
Once upon a time, people used to choose mates based on their overall attractiveness, their personality, what they brought to a relationship, and the qualities they deemed acceptable. In today’s world, for some people, race is becoming the lone factor when choosing companions. Some very nice looking, successful, and intelligent men and women are increasingly finding themselves in ratchet relationships with people of the opposite race who have nothing to offer. Why? Because they actually have a beef with men and women from their own race that they don’t want to be honest about.
Time after time, people display their disdain for those within their own race that are too dumpy, too frumpy, too fat, too lean, too angry, too unambitious, too trifling, too hateful, too independent, too this, too that. Yet when those same characteristics appear on someone of the opposite race they become acceptable. When a black woman ditches black men altogether because of one terrible relationship and then puts up with just about anything from a white man because she thinks the end results will be better, it makes no sense. When a black man says he doesn’t think a weave wearing black woman is attractive but then parades a heavy makeup wearing white girlfriend around with the same love for extensions, his double standards become painfully obvious. When this hypothetical scenario made its way into reality for me, that was when I realized how common double standards are in interracial dating.
I have a black male friend that has an affinity for white women. He’s a great person, always treats me with respect, and we always have a lot of fun. One of the best qualities my friend has is the fact that although he exclusively dates white women, he’s never really bad-mouthed black women. His fondness for white women was a non-issue with me until the fateful day he reached the point of no return.
We were having a discussion about our preferences in potential partners when he jokingly said he could never date a woman with fake hair, bad credit, and no job. When he stated these reasons were what kept him away from black women, I couldn’t help but be bothered by the stereotype he tried to use to justify his appreciation for women of other races. I mentioned that some of his white former girlfriends were uneducated, unemployed, and wore excessive makeup and extensions on the regular. In response, he explained that his former girlfriends wore makeup because they had bad skin and that they didn’t work because they were trying to pursue their passions, so it was all good. I tried to tell him that I didn’t understand his stance, but he continued to make ridiculous statements supporting his views. His asinine, stereotype-based explanations for his basis of eliminating black women from his dating life made me think it wouldn’t matter what a white woman had going on: as long as she was white, she was all right.
My friend is not alone in his line of thinking. There are black women, white women, and white men, Asian women and Asian men, basically people of all backgrounds, who also fall prey to the double standards of dating interracially–what they claim they can’t take about one group of people, they’ll ignore for another. Like who you like and do what you want when it comes to your dating life. One of the best aspects of the freedom we get in this country is the opportunity to date whomever we choose. However, it would be wise to fairly apply the same standards to everyone without regard to race. All I ask is that people be more honest about what they like, and why they like it, as opposed to using stereotypes and a few bad experiences with a certain kind of individual to blacklist and bash a whole group of them.
