White gay guy dating a black.ha

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I want to believe that we can kiss, hug, whisper, flirt, and have sex outside of the context of a racially stratified social world where we learn that whiteness is to be aspired to and desired way before many of us black and brown folk claimed the type of radical self-love that allowed us to refute the lie of white racial supremacy. But love, like sex, is political. Love of any variety is shaped by ideas and institutions, laws and the threat of the consequences should we break them.

In other words, our loving and love-making are never without context. And some of that context is the traumatic trace and presence of racialized supremacy—the kind that makes some of us feel like we need a white gay partner as proof that we have finally arrived, the kind that can easily turn sex between differently raced partners into conquest. That's why I wasn't surprised when a "crush" recently texted me, after I let him know that I was mutually attracted, and told me he was in shock because he assumed that black LGBT public persons, especially those who talk openly about racial politics like me, are only ever attracted to and in relationship with white people.

Truth is, I've rarely dated white men, and I empathized with the deep concern, unspoken pain, and feelings of rejection that were rooted in his comment. And I would be less than honest if I pretend that my dating and sexual politics have not been shaped by my desire to love the hell out of black men and women because I know that so many withhold love from us.

And whether I've turned to the biographies of Bayard Rustin, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin and other black LGBT luminaries of our present, I've often ended up intrigued after discovering that many were in interracial relationships.

I've been bewildered by a seeming phenomenon of black lovelessness, or, rather, the moments when some black LGBT people have purposefully and specifically sought out white partners for various reasons including the fact that the potential prospects weren't black. But I've had to critically reflect and remember that censuring another's love or sex life because of race is an act informed by racist ideology.

Disallowing interracial intimacy reinforces the white supremacist lie that socially-constructed races are to be separate, never equal, never in love, never in the same bed. And as a citizen living in the America of past anti-miscegenation laws—state sanctioned laws that banned interracial marriages that remained in some states until they were ruled unconstitutional in the U. Supreme Court Loving v. Virginia case—I know better than to allow my actions or thoughts to echo an odious past.

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So, I try to build and move into a future that is less restrictive. I went on a date with a guy recently. The first date was short and memorable. He showed up donning a fitted hat, a well-tailored blazer, a button-up shirt, slacks and Nike sneakers. And he was white.

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I told my friends cautiously because I felt hypocritical. Just a few weeks before I had been venting about the number of black LGBT public figures who have white partners and I showed up later with details of my own date with a white man. All of my friends responded by moving our conversation from one focused on his race to one centered on how good of a time he and I shared. I enjoyed the date. I laughed a lot.

I was inspired by his story. I was physically attracted to him and wanted to see him again. And for a short moment, somewhere in the time between our lunch and walk in the park, the fact that we were differently raced was less of a dominant thought. I was reminded of the need to free myself from the type of race-think that I often relied upon to shape my desire.

I am not sure what will become of the date, if anything, but I am more certain that racism is such a real, palpable, strong, and terrifying actor in our lives that some of us foreclose the possibility of love for self, those who look like us, and those who don't, because we have become so comfortable with racism's heavy hand directing cupid's arrow. But, really, that's no way to live, and to love. Henson and Terrence Howard are. Those stories matter, too, but I want to see two same-gender-loving Black men have their own romantic comedy.

I get that Hollywood is slow to recognize that white, straight men can enjoy movies that don't feature them and change can be hard, but the fact remains that, even in our collective struggles as LGBT people, some of us have it far better than others. By and large, Black queer men are portrayed in pop culture in terms of their pathologies, not their normalcies.

And yet we too fall in love, we have sex, we have courtships, and we pursue relationships. Opinion, Analysis, Essays Sponsored By. My Belief. Share this —. Get the Think newsletter.