Interracial Intercourse

This should be the very last thing anyone has to write or read about interracial romance, sex, marriage, miscegenation, or any other related issue, ever again.

As you can tell from the opening salvo, my ambitions for this piece are sky high. Maybe even comedically high; like Snoop Dog meets Cheech & Chong high. But still, I make no apologies. A final reckoning on this issue is LONG overdue, and I don’t think we can carry this burden any further. We cannot afford to.

Listen closely, and you can hear a time-bomb is ticking because this bitch is about to blow. America is either being gutted for demolition or massive renovation as I write these words, and Black folks need to make sure we get ours this time around. White folks who count themselves as allies will be accountable for playing their part in that effort as well. But to do that, we have to have our heads on straight; at least straight enough to make sure we don’t fall back any further after Zeus finishes shaking up this joint like a big Magic 8 Ball. In short: Black folks can’t afford to be pissy with each other anymore over nonsense like who we sleep with and why we sleep with them. Misdirected energy, in a crisis especially, is a cost burden we cannot shoulder.

My hope is that a thorough and well-reasoned appeal can finally set my people free for good. And when I say ‘my people’ on this issue, I mean Black folks. To the extent that this matter bedevils White people of good conscience and good character, who I also embrace as ‘my people,’ I simply do not know. You don’t have to be my genome brother to be my soul brother, but that deserves its own stand-alone piece. Whose soul is more aligned with mine anyway, John Brown’s or Clarence Thomas’? Do I really have to ask?

But laying that matter aside for the moment, this discussion is specifically about how people who look like me deal with interracial hooking up, getting it on, and getting it in. Or being “down with The Swirl” like Sheneneh said it on Martin.

Regardless of how White folks may feel about it in this millennium, what I know for certain is that some of the smartest and most dedicated Black thinkers in the public square obsess over the fact that a lot of Black people and a lot of White people really enjoy having sex with each other.

They’ve got to love it, because to contend with the bullshit that comes their way as a result of their choice speaks volumes. The difficult part is that these talented and committed Black folks, who get so disgusted and disrupted when they see brothers getting booed up with ‘snow bunnies’ and ‘Beckies,’ seem totally disconnected from the reality that they are advocating for the same position as the slack-jawed, inbred, two-legged swine with Mountain Dew mouth who fervently believe that ‘race mixing’ is the Devil’s doing and melanin-rich skin is a curse. Being on their side should give any rational person pause.

While I know that the best players always take a hard look at every other player who is in their huddle, this is by no means a ‘both sides’ type of an issue. In fact, those barely exist in reality along racial lines. Black folks have a legitimate concern over the future and legitimate beef over the past when it comes to interracial sex. But White folks who object to intimate interracial relationships have no such legitimacy. They are just perpetuating a hateful white supremacist past, so I expend no intellectual energy on them. Any energy that proud hatemongers get from me will be strictly physical. You know as well as I do that some people can only understand expressions of violence, so this high-minded discussion is not for them.

With that said, brothers and sisters, I begin my plea: ENOUGH ALREADY. We really and truly have to let this issue go. In fact, letting it go might not be good enough. We probably need to fire this damned thing out of a cannon like they do stunt-clowns in the circus. Please trust and know that I understand how you feel. This issue is as old and as deep as America itself, and the history behind it stinks like a corpse rotting in the sun.

We can never, nor should we ever, forget our origin stories. Those stories are at the core of politics, mathematics, science, and psychology that combine to drive everything that we do. If we are going to come to grips as a collective with interracial intercourse once and for all, we have to take it down from every one of these angles. Like sex itself, we should either do it right, or we shouldn’t do it at all.

THE POLITICS OF INTERRACIAL SEX

There are realities that we desperately need to face and mythologies that we desperately need to turn loose. To the voices that insist on preaching the gospel of racial exclusivity, I am showing you an off-ramp to finally exit the looping highway to nowhere that you’ve been driving on for God-only-knows how long:

It's never going to happen.

There will never be a time when “if all Black men would just marry and raise families with Black women, we could finally [fill in the blank with your favorite social engineering fantasy].” People simply do not work that way in this context. If your political goals and cultural mission depend on any level of control over the romantic lives of other people, you have neither political goals nor cultural missions. You just have a vivid fantasy that you are passionate about.

The suggestion that Black people in America are ever going to procreate en mass for political purposes is so untethered to reality that even advancing the argument diminishes the credibility and damages the effectiveness of the messenger. No matter how well-credentialed and well-intentioned they may be, they will not be taken seriously by anyone serious themselves. Take that one to the bank.

It is perfect messaging to encourage our young and emerging Black men to respect and appreciate Black women; to value no other group of women above them. And the same is true in reverse, although Black women have always been more conscientious on the matter than Black men have. That encouragement, though, is about as far as we can go without making asses of ourselves. For reasons we’ll tackle downstream, you just cannot tell people who to get hot for. And being hot for somebody, regardless of the reason, is still the foundation of intimate relationships in this culture.

But still, I dig where you are coming from. Not too long ago, I would feel a pang in my gut when confronted with the news that a goddess like Tika Sumpter or Zoe Saldana had decided to bless the other-man with their especially exquisite brand of brown sugar, rather than keeping it at home for the brotherman. (Just roll with the antiquated 70s slang when it pops up; I’m old school, and it’s a tick I can’t shake.) Naturally, my objection reflex was triggered by my knowledge of the harrowing history of sex between Black women and White men in this country.

My mind will never be unburdened by the haunting knowledge of slavers taking enslaved women with impunity and all the incendiary imagery it invokes. Not only can that bell not be un-rung for me, but that bell has also reverberated throughout the centuries for every American, the sober self-aware and the delusional self-righteous alike. Some choose to ignore it because it is inconvenient, but I am not in that number.

My decision is perfectly rational and even appropriate. But do you know what else it is? It is MY PROBLEM. It is entirely on me to deal with my haunting knowledge, gut pangs, and anything else that comes along with them. Trying to dump it off on anybody else is not just fundamentally unfair; it is fundamentally unmanly. And even if my manliness only matters to me, fairness should matter to everybody. Nobody wants to carry the psychological baggage of other people, and when we criticize others for their sex life, that is exactly what we are asking them to do. And it is bullshit. And we know it. And we need to stop it. Full fucking stop.

No matter how sharp those invisible daggers may have felt, I am fully cognizant of the fact that neither Tika, nor Zoe, nor any of the other sisters out here gigging with White guys give a fuck what I think or how I feel. They are too busy focusing on what the man they are sleeping with thinks and how he makes them feel. And as much as I, or any other brother for that matter, may feel that I should, I simply don’t factor into her equation.

And I shouldn’t because these women are free people, and free people get to decide who matters to them and how much they matter. Because of the dedication and sacrifice of those we revere and hold dear, as well as legions more, we will never hear of, these beautiful Black women can do whatever the hell they want to do in life, and that includes taking a White man into the deepest parts of themselves.

And Black men can decide that they want to marry and build a family with a White woman if that is who he wants. Other Black folks just have to deal with it. And we need to do so in a constructive manner because that reality is never going anywhere. In fact, that dynamic is expanding across the country like 5G. And just like our trusty cell phones, if we don’t upgrade our connectivity capabilities, we will be painfully out of date, and we will barely be able to function. But this upgrade is easy. All you have to do is live and let live, and withhold hurtful public commentary about other people’s relationships. I know that sounds crazy, but it is not as hard as it sounds.

Despite my own conventional choices, I have developed an admiration for those who have consciously made the decision, regardless of their motivation, to be unbound by traditional historical and societal constraints on their lives. Refusing to be a prisoner of the past or a hostage of history is a course of action to emulate, not to excoriate. Loving whoever you want to love is as central to the expression of your personhood as living wherever you want to live. Any sane and self-aware Black person in America would reflexively reject any suggestion that we need to live in “our own” neighborhoods, where we have historically been limited to. So if we are intellectually consistent, that rejection must follow into the realm of the personal; e.g. we need to embrace our freedom in all things, and we must never discourage other Black folks from doing the same.

THE MATH OF MISCEGENATION OBSESSION

Each of us has only so much time and energy to expend in our lives. That breaks down to the smallest units of hours, minutes, and seconds. We are all prone to wasting time, which is just human, but we all know how it ends if we waste too much. We become the old angry drunk uncle and the old bitter bitch auntie at family gatherings that nobody wants to sit next to. They are a mess because they know they’ve wasted time they can’t get back, and now it's too late for them to do bigger and better things with their lives. They probably spent many prime hours cursing out Eartha Kitt, Sidney Poitier, and Sammy Davis Jr. for their romantic choices. So to avoid that awful fate, we all need to be optimally conscious of our personal energy economy.

At bottom, this is about the arithmetic of life. As it relates to the subject matter at hand, the math dictates that if we burn our energy following the old school rule that says, “focus on who’s doing you and not on who’s doing who,” we are going to be far better served. The math will favor all of our productive activities because we are divesting from unproductive alternatives. This is a point well beyond the reach of mere opinions or personal perspectives. We are literally counting out the 1,440 minutes each day and deciding how many of them should be committed to thinking about who is fucking who.

We have already established that this issue eats up a lot of space in the Black psyche, translating into lost energy, lost time, and lost productivity that is as impossible to deny as it is to quantify. I am unsure how much White folks talk about this when there are no Black people around, but my bet is that they talk about it a lot less than we do. And to the extent that my assertion is true, that is a net advantage to them in any context where they may be competitive with us- individually or collectively.

But I confess that I cannot know for sure. It’s not like White folks can miss me when I’m in the room. A lot of brothers can pass, but I have zero capacity for passing as anything other than a big Black dude. So to the extent that any White folks are inclined toward self-censorship, I am a person that only gets the censored content.

I admit I always thought it would be cool to turn temporarily White like Eddie Murphy did in that hilarious SNL skit back in the day and see what goes down when my Blackness isn’t around.

But I eventually outgrew my interest in being a fly on the wall of Whites-only conversations. I came to realize that it really does not matter what people say when I am not around. What matters is what they say when they are in front of me or what they can reasonably expect to get back to me. And what they actually DO that impacts me trumps everything else. That dictates the relationship that we are going to have, and I have a great deal of control and influence over that.

That recognition helped me get past the ‘White Eddie Murphy’ childhood fantasy. I finally grasped the immense value of focusing my attention on matters that I either control outright or directly influence. And the private impressions of people that barely know me are neither.

Sure, it sucked (and it was funny) for ‘White Eddie’ to see the cocktail waitresses emerge from nowhere to start serving complimentary drinks and snacks on the city bus the moment the lone Black passenger got off, but did it really change the fact that the bus took that brother where he was going? How much energy should that brother have spent on what those White folks did when he got off that bus?

What happened after he got off was entirely outside his range of impact and influence. Which is also the case when it comes to the racial attitudes and beliefs of others and the sexual desires and practices of others. The greater our concentration is on matters that we do not control, the weaker our concentration is on the matters that we do control. Simple math, brothers and sisters.

Every human being has a finite quantity of energy. None of us are as abundant in power as the sun, even if some of us can con ourselves into believing we are in an effort to drive up our effort output and achievement. Accordingly, we must be judicious in selecting the targets at which we aim the power of our minds and our hearts at. If we are channeling our energy toward condemnation of people for doing things we don’t like that have absolutely nothing to do with us, we are weakened, and the target of our ire is almost always entirely unaffected.

Every minute we invest in criticizing a brother or a sister who found love on the ski slopes is a minute we are not investing in working on something that we actually have control over, and that actually matters in our own daily lives. All of this impacts the group competitiveness and political effectiveness of our people. If you are pissed off that some Black basketball star just married a White girl, but you have put NONE of your money in a Black-owned bank, I am encouraging you to recheck your math. Your equations are out of balance.

If you are frustrated that some sexy Black actress just had a baby with a White dude, but you have NO products from Black-owned companies in your pantry, refrigerator, or medicine cabinet, I am encouraging you to check your math again. If you are exasperated that ANOTHER Black rapper just knocked up ANOTHER Kardashian, but none of your professional service providers are Black, I am encouraging you to check your math yet again. Redirecting energy from one area of focus that upsets you, and aiming it at others that will positively impact your world and empower you is an undeniable upgrade.

I am challenging my folks in the spirit of love, not in the spirit of condemnation. Because while we are blaming White folks for 95% of our problems and still giving them 99% of our money, the interracial couples we so often condemn are probably shaking their heads at us, wondering what the fuck our problem is. And if they are, they are right to do so. We simply have neither the time nor the energy to waste worrying about who is fucking who when the plutocratic oligarchy running this country is fucking all of us. And they are doing so with every bit of the malice that they did it way back when they started this corrupt enterprise they grew into a country.

THE SCIENCE OF THE SWIRL

There are times when it is exceedingly important to focus on the fundamentals of an issue, and this is one of them. It is easy to lose sight of, but sex is the most private and personal aspect of any person’s life. It is between them and whomever they are doing it with. It only has to work for the participants involved. The hang-ups of others, be they based on politics, religion, or race, mean absolutely nothing. Nor do the people harboring those hang-ups. To hear the reason why they don’t matter, brace yourself for the NC-17-rated portion of the discussion. This is mainly about the dick. The dick is a highly sensitive and complicated piece of equipment.

As men, we tend to think of our dicks in terms of the Ford F-150; strong and reliable, doing any job we ask it to and bulling its way through any obstacle in its path. But in reality, our dicks are far more comparable to the Ferrari F430, flashy and valuable, delivering power and excitement when care and conditions are right, but dangerously unreliable when care and conditions are wrong. In case you missed it, “care and conditions” is the phrase that pays. And the “care and conditions” part is where all roads converge for men. And I strongly suspect the same is true for women, even if the gear shift works very differently.

I believe I am reasonably knowledgeable about the sexual functionality of women, particularly Black women, if that makes a difference, but for obvious reasons, I am a grizzled veteran on the subject of the sexual functionality of men. And if we aren’t feeling the science downstairs, nothing else will matter. We need to be turned on by what is in front of us, or nothing of any consequence is going down. That is the not-so-dirty little secret kept by cultures that feature arranged marriages. The politics might be able to make you stay, but the politics can never make you play, not the fun games anyway.

The take-away point is that only the owner of each individual dick knows what the ideal “care and conditions” are for him. However strongly held the opinion of another may be, it will have no impact on what happens when that brother sticks his key in the ignition and turns it. That man, and that man only, has the responsibility to make sure his engine runs at peak condition when it is time. So only he controls the fuel he puts into the tank, and he alone will choose the ideal road for the driving conditions that suit him best.

Any effort whatsoever to steer men into romantic relationships along political lines for socioeconomic purposes is going to crash and burn when they run into the brick wall of selective sexual science. What turns somebody on is what turns them on. End of story.

My only caveat to this observation is that one Black person’s free sexual expression should not come at the direct and intentional expense of other Black people. Shitting on Black folks to suck off White folks warrants an old-school ass-whipping. To wit: Black folks who are really into Whiteness on the romantic tip deserve all criticism that comes their way when they express that preference by insulting or denigrating other Black folks. There is no shame in having a thing for Margot Robbie, but expressing it by putting down Megan Thee Stallion is some punk shit.

There have been a number of disturbing public cases in recent years of Black men who downplay or outright denounce the value of Black women as potential partners. And they do so while extolling the value and virtues of all varieties of women who are anything but Black. YouTube is lousy with those headcases. If they are not outright calling Black women ugly, there is always a generally negative cultural critique that disqualifies them from the critic’s consideration. Mocking and name-calling are common punchlines. These guys are begging to be held in contempt, and I have no problem doing so, so long as the circumstance arises during the normal course of conducting my affairs. Because like the Mountain Dew mouth motherfuckers I discussed up top, these assclowns are just peddling old-fashioned Black hate. So they warrant the same level of response I reserved for the others. Knuck if you buck, boy. Trust me when I tell you that is all they understand.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXUAL TYRANNY

It is incredible how often so many of us who have absolutely no training in psychiatry take it upon ourselves to diagnose mental illness in people we have never met, and may have only seen in passing. We figure they must be crazy because they are doing something that we object to, although we know nothing about them, their history, or their current circumstance. But still, something has to be wrong with them because, you know, it looks like they’re on a date with somebody who doesn’t look like them. Maybe, just maybe, WE are the crazy ones.

I know the Trump Experience has warped our perceptions of propriety in nearly every professional context, but as a general rule, shrinks don’t diagnose people they have never talked to. And those of us who are NOT shrinks should definitely recognize how foolish we look doing it.

So for all of my folks who have ever stated that a Black man who has wedded or bedded a White woman hates himself, or hates his mother, or hates other Black people, or wishes he were White, is having an identity crisis, or is a narcissist (the favorite catch-all diagnosis for people who like to play doctor but never actually went to medical school) please stop. But don’t stop for the benefit of the person you are slandering, because they obviously don’t give a damn what you think. Do it for yourself, because besides looking and sounding crazy popping off like that, you are probably harming your own mental and emotional wellness by wallowing in that bottomless well of negativity. Because the reality is that people who are looking for a grievance will always be able to find one to occupy their minds.

There is no pleasant way to serve a truth this unpleasant. The most malevolent reflexes that human beings have ever demonstrated toward each other have always involved controlling who and how other people love. It is fundamentally evil to attempt to break consensual connections between two people. I don’t care what the motivation is, it is just wrong. The connection that lives and breathes in them is theirs and theirs alone. Invading and undermining that opens the door to depravity in a way that I hope most self-appointed judges and jurors have simply failed to account for.

But having read this there will be no failing to account for the fact that evil men throughout history have made it their business to control the sex lives of other people. From Adolf Hitler to Shaka Zulu to Jim Jones to Osama Bin Laden and scores of despots scattered in between, they all were convicted in their belief that sexual relations between other people should be restricted to what they approved of. And they were batshit crazy. If you only remember one thing from this discussion, make it this: don’t be batshit crazy.

BEFORE I LET GO

It may have occurred to you somewhere during this excursion that “He could have summed this whole thing up by just telling people to mind their own goddamned business.” And if that did occur to you, you were right. I could have. But kind of like Glenda The Good Witch at the end of The Wizard of Oz (or The Wiz), I don’t believe that would have been convincing standing alone. People have been offering up that plain-spoken and potent truth forever to no avail. So in my view, taking this journey was the key to enlightenment on this issue, relatively speaking. Taking the time to deconstruct this behemoth and get into the granular details seemed like a necessity. I hope I was right, and I hope what you found here helps you free up any part of your mind that may not have been. But if you were already free of any burdens, I hope this discourse can be a tool you can use to set others free too.