Jessica P. Pryde - Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happily Ever Afters

When I was eight years old, I used to pretend that the kiss on the tarmac was the final scene of The Bodyguard. (Dont ask why I was watching an R-rated movie at eight; I had my ways.) The giant swell of Whitney Houstons powerhouse version of Dolly Partons I Will Always Love You makes the perfect fade-out for my own ending to the 1992 movie, one where Kevin Costners secret-agent-turned-bodyguard Frank Farmer doesnt move on to another job, recovering from the bullet he took. Where Whitney Houstons Oscar-winning triple threat Rachel Marron doesnt literally fly off into the sunset, future unknown. Long, rotating kiss shot, hit that high C, roll credits, end of story.

I might not have thought about it this way then, but I was giving Rachelgiving myselfa happy ending, one that I could be satisfied with as a burgeoning devourer of love stories. And the fact that it was a Black woman I was giving the happy ending to, in such opposition to the other media Id been exposed to and would continue to experience for the next few years, was no small factor in needing to see that happy ending. (I can also rewrite the narrative in my mind as an adult to consider that while Frank doesnt work for Rachel anymore, they can still be together. Just not all the time. But thats another story.)

Ive rewritten a few narratives in my headand spent a lot of time reimagining those narratives that are, thankfully, on obsolete technology and can never be accessed ever againbut continue to work hard to seek out my own kind of representative love story. Ive been lucky enough to come across those stories at a young age, first on-screenfrom Purlie & Lutiebelle to Sparkle & Stix to Martin & Ginaand later on the page, mostly in books borrowed from and returned to the library as a tween that Ill never remember the titles of but always remember how they made me feel. Love stories centering the Black experience arent the only thing I read, but when I find the great ones, the feeling is the absolute best.

But even with that feeling bursting in my veins, I can still acknowledge that for Black people, especially in the United States, a happily ever after hasnt always been easy to come by, and continues to present challenges.

For more than four hundred years, people of African descent have been treated abysmally in many nations of the world. Weve been denied citizenship, jobs, housing, voting rights, equality, equity, respect, and often, common human decency from our fellow humans. Yet, whether free or enslaved, Black people throughout history have been able to find romantic loveregardless of their ability to marryboth inside and outside their own communities. They created their own kind of handfasting and married for themselves, if nowhere else but in the eyes of a godor in their own eyes, if a higher power wasnt something they could believe in.

But because of institutional racism and a white supremacist society, Black consumers were often exposed only to white love. If there was a person of color from any background in a book or film centering a white narrative, they were often given a more tragic endingdeath, the death of their lover, their death at the hands of their lover, killing their lover, being left behind by a lover, and killing their child. There were exceptions, often in media produced either by or with great input by creators of color. Race pictures and novels written by Black creators developed their own popularity within the Black community but werent considered works of the canon until long after the deaths of the people involved in their production. Instead, Black consumers were expected to fall for the white narratives of love and romance that were offered to them. (This is, perhaps, why the Saturday afternoons of my youth, spent with my grandmother, often featured the likes of romantic films starring Clark Gable and Mario Lanza, on top of the more tragic tales