First published 2011 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright 2011 by Kellina M. Craig-Henderson.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2010011531
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Craig-Henderson, Kellina M.
Black women in interracial relationships : in search of love and solace / Kellina M. Craig-Henderson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4128-1128-6
1. Interracial dating--United States. 2. Interracial marriage--United States. 3. African American women--Attitudes. 4. Man-woman relationships--United States. 5. United States--Race relations. I. Title.
HQ801.8.C732 2010
306.84608996073--dc22
2010011531
ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-1128-6 (hbk)
SBPF, 43, 54, enjoys reading, movies, outdoors, concerts, and good conversation. Seeking SWM, 35-50, N/S, tall, intelligent, college educated, for dating, possibly more.
A recent issue of the Washington Post newspaper included fifty-two personal advertisements placed by Black women looking for men. The ads were from Black women indicating an interest in meeting men for love, laughs, and more. The specific interests and reasons for their requests varied. Whereas some of the women specifically expressed a desire for someone who was fun and spontaneous, there were others who stipulated a desire for commitment and long-term involvement. The women also varied in terms of the type of information they used to describe themselves and the personality attributes of the men they sought. What was most interesting to me was the extent to which the ads placed by Black women specifically noted a preference for non-Black men.
To my surprise, there were more ads requesting men of other races or which made no mention of a racial preference at all than those that specifically requested Black men. Indeed, less than half (40 percent) of the personal ads placed by Black women indicated a preference for meeting a Black man! Only, twenty-one of the fifty-two personal ads placed by Black women in that issue requested Black men. There were twenty-seven ads in which no race was mentioned (i.e., 52 percent), and four explicitly requested White men (8 percent). One example of this type of an ad, with a specific request for a White man, appears above. In this issue, it was all Black and White; none of the women who placed ads requested an Asian or Hispanic man.
As an African American woman, I was especially interested in whether this was some kind of a fluke or whether it was indicative of a trend involving increasing numbers of Black women in search of intimate inter-racial relationships. The latter was certainly a possibility given all of the hype about interracial relationships these days. As a social psychologist engaged in research on race, gender, and interpersonal relationships, I was interested in not only determining if what I suspected was truethat increasingly more Black women were looking to non-Black men for lovebut also in learning first-hand about the experiences of Black women in intimate interracial relationships. Who were these women? What was going on with them? Is it the case that Black women are increasingly seeking relationships with men who are not Black? I was more than just a little curious about the rates of Black women involved in intimate interracial relationships and the circumstances surrounding their decisions to become involved in these types of relationships.
Of course, I realized that it was also possible that Black women who place ads to meet potential mates are qualitatively distinct from those who dont. Their distinctiveness might actually have something to do with their interest in interracial relationships. I considered this, and in doing so realized that this was in itself something worth thinking about. I had not previously considered that people might be more likely to use the personal ads for dating others from other racial backgrounds than if they were looking to date someone of the same racial background. In addition, I had never considered the possibility that Black women would be well represented among the ranks of people who did so.
For a variety of reasons, including perceived pressures from family and friends, Black women have tended to express reluctance to date and marry interracially. Indeed, some of Black womens enthusiasm for the movie Something New, released in early 2006, can be attributed to their collective uneasiness with interracial dating. Needless to say, that movie made the trends reflected in the personal advertisements especially meaningful. The movie, which targeted Black audiences, was a chick flick about an attractive, professional, African American woman who meets and subsequently has a romantic relationship with an attractive landscaper who is White. The fact of the latter detail, that he is White, causes the woman (and her friends and family) a fair amount of angst. Throughout the film, the female lead character and others discussed the significance and meaning of the interracial relationship, particularly in light of the fact that she had recently ended a long term, difficult relationship with an African American man and passed up the opportunity to pursue a relationship with another professionally employed Black man.
Ironically, Hollywood mainstream movies involving African American characters in leading roles rarely depict successful intimate heterosexual relationships between Black men and Black women. The African American male in a lead role in a mainstream movie (i.e., predominantly White cast) is usually linked with an ethnic looking woman who more closely resembles a European or Hispanic prototype than one who is clearly of African descent. The point here is that Black men and women are not often romantically involved with one another in mainstream movies, and events unfold more frequently from the perspective of a Black man rather a Black woman. The latter continue to be rarely depicted in mainstream films.
What made the movie Something New unique, and reactions to it somewhat celebratory, was the fact that this time
