Why Are Black Men So Comfortable Expressing Their Dislike of Black Women
At the end of last year, I would casually watch a tv show called Married At First Sight on Lifetime. I say “casually” because I am someone that enjoys having the TV on in the background. And since I’m probably one of very few millennials that actually has cable, I try to get my money’s worth and actually have it on.
But over time it quickly became clear that the show that started off as mere background noise was quickly becoming my new guilty pleasure.
So, I decided to go back and watch older seasons of the show. And it was upon watching the matchmaking special for season 7–an episode that takes viewers behind the scenes and shows how the season’s couples are put together, that I was exposed again to an all too common sentiment among many black men.
Tristan Thompson – not to be confused with the other trash-ass Tristan Thompson that Khloe Kardashian had a baby with–got on national television and told the matchmakers that he not only doesn’t prefer dark skinned black women, but he then adds insult to injury by claiming that “you gotta have someone that melts your butter.”
So listen, the thing that got me wasn’t the statement. This is not the first time or the last time that a black man will say in public that he does not find black women–but particularly dark skin black women–attractive.
What really bothered me to no end was the comfort and the ease in which he made his disgusting ass comment. He said it like someone spouting a universal truth or common knowledge–like someone saying “obviously” or “clearly” at the end of their sentence. While I couldn’t find a clip of it online, I did find a video from a brilliant black YouTuber that talks about it when the special aired that you can watch here.
Now look y’all… I know some people are going to bring up the preference argument; that you can’t help what you like and that you should be able to express what you want. And to a certain extent, I agree with you.
However, when it comes to black men expressing their “dating preferences,” I believe that it’s not just about stating the preference; it’s also about demeaning black women. It’s about reminding black women that they will always be at the bottom of the desirability ladder.
Again, Thompson totally could have just stated his preference to not date black skinned women–or better yet, he could have spoken in the positive and just listed the type of woman that he was actually interested in.
But the fact that he felt compelled to add in his belief that dark skinned black women are not hot enough to “melt someone’s butter,” and that he spoke to the matchmaker–who was also a black man, in a way that expressed a sense of “you know what I’m saying” or “you feel me, right?” is representative of a much deeper insidiousness within black male “preferences” that cannot be ignored.
Of course Black Female Twitter wasn’t having it and took Thompson to task for his problematic opinions–especially given the fact that his own mother is a dark-skinned black woman.
But it was sad to me that even despite all of the valid points people we’re making on Twitter about his harmful, colorist language, he ultimately chose to see himself as a victim of internet backlash at the reunion special.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”
Again, if Thompson feels that he knows that dark skinned black women aren’t for him, then so be it. I understand that people are allowed to have preferences, and even though I think they are limited and rooted in racism, if someone isn’t willing to do the work to think about why they prefer what they prefer, then that’s on them.
And I certainly wouldn’t want to force someone to expand their preferences at the expense of someone else’s self-esteem.
However, what I have trouble with about Thompson’s preferences is not the fact that he made it known that he doesn’t find black women attractive. It is that he speaks of dark skinned as being unattractive as an obvious, universal truth.
Yes, black men are allowed to have their preferences, but why do you have to intentionally dog black women in the process of stating them?
That, to me, is what moves this from being a conversation about preferences into a conversation about racism and self-hatred.
What are your thoughts? Share them down in the comments below.