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.
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I and my writing partner, Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn are still deep in research on this stuff, but a quick impression from our interviews so far points the arrow on: the Netherlands (think Holland).
My fellow LMU college alum packed up for Holland last winter, and although she’s a California girl through and through, she’s toughing out those bitter winters and she’s not coming back to the States any time soon. She tells me that blond and blue eyes are so bologna sandwich. Her Nordic boyfriend treats her like fillet mignon.
Germany: Apparently it’s one of the most welcoming places to date and mate internationally.
The Balkans: Now that’s a new one for me, but Clelland is getting pretty hot and heavy with a Serb and it looks like she’ll be packing and waving adios to Spain in the near future.
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Christelyn D. Karazin founder and organizer of “No Wedding, No Womb,” an initiative to find solutions to the 72 percent out-of-wedlock rate in the black community. She is the co-author of Swirling: How to Date, Mate and Relate Mixing Race Culture and Creed and runs a blog, www.beyondblackwhite.com, dedicated to women of color who are interested and or involved in interracial and intercultural relationships.
