New York Daily News - News & Views Columnists - Stanley Crouch: A new kind of cross-racial dating

New York Daily News - News & Views Columnists - Stanley Crouch: A new kind of cross-racial datingA new kind of
cross-racial dating

The ethnic provincials among us might be disturbed to see a growing number of black women dating white men. One sees them at sporting events, at museums, at movie houses, restaurants and walking along seemingly swept up in the luminous net of romance.

Lord, Lord, Lord: the black woman and the white man.

Some will bitterly recall that terrorist period in Southern history when white men had all the money, all the power and could join a mob intent on killing a Negro for the forbidden act of "recklessly eyeballing" a white woman.

Now, as the song goes, things ain't what they used to be.

For a number of decades, black men in the urban North have crossed the romantic color line for a variety of reasons. Yet black women have almost always remained inside of the group.

Why are these women now coupling up with white men? Are they rejecting black men? Have they been caught worshiping whiteness out of a feeling of inferiority? Do they think they become white women by proxy if they date white men?

Given the nature of the human species, I assume there are some black women who are with white men for all the "wrong" reasons. But I think what we now see is the inevitable result of a problem that has been growing for years: a man shortage.

There are 2 million more adult black women than black men. Black men live far shorter lives and have greater health problems than black women, and far more black women than men graduate from college.

The numerical gap between black men and black women is the result of murder, AIDS, diseases like high blood pressure, heart failure and poor health care. Part of the medical care burden is imposed by backward attitudes toward doctors.

Illnesses that could be treated are much worse by the time most Negro men show up to find out about their health. I even know a country Negro from Florida who lives in Harlem, is 63 and fears going to the doctor for a checkup.

All this means that, when incarceration is factored in, there are far from enough men to go around. But even if murder, prison and irresponsible attitudes about health did not reduce the pool of men, negative attitudes toward schooling and higher education would mean all these educated black women would still find themselves roving in pursuit of partners equal to them in intellectual development.

That is a big change. In the past, it was not uncommon for black men to explain their white lovers by claiming they could not find black women sufficiently sophisticated to "understand" them. Now the black goose is catching up to the ebony gander.

I am not opposed to interracial relationships or marriages. What bothers me is that we have a tragic set of circumstances imposed by violent environments, poor attitudes toward education and perhaps the worst problem of all: a lack of intellectual engagement and a fear of doctors.

These problems are far from intractable. But the time for new strategies and new attitudes is not tomorrow; it is right now.

Originally published on May 8, 2005