Welcome back!

I finally stole a night just for my entertainment. After the blog article was posted and the the temping was done, it was time to enjoy a Friday evening with some friends.

I’ve been mostly hibernating for the last nine months only leaving my home most recently to look for temp work and run errands. After landing a temp gig while still freelancing there’s been even less time for socializing.

I had a severe case of deja vu this past Friday. I met up with some friends to take in a burlesque show and some sushi…an interesting yet entertaining combination only to find myself experiencing my own Something New or SoulMates moment. (For the record, I love burlesque shows…)If you have no idea what I’m talking about SoulMates is a movie produced for black christian singles that explores why there are so many single, educated and accomplished African American women. The emphasis being firmly planted on the word “single”.  Something New is a movie about interracial dating, which I reviewed a few months back. Both movies have the same producer and SoulMates even shows clips from Something New where a group of accomplished black women ponder their marriage prospects.

Well, after the burlesque show had finished and we were waiting for the sushi to arrive, I found myself at the wrong end of the discussion round table. On one end was several black women, myself included, and on the other end was a few more black women but also a Caucasian friend from Africa and her Hispanic boyfriend. On my end of the table the conversation quickly turned to why a good black man is hard to find and the ones you find have non-black women on their arm, while the other side of the table was commanded by the Caucasian woman from Africa who had a non-Caucasian man at her side.  She was talking about the customs of her country and how from her perspective she was much more surprised by the racism in American than what she witnessed in Africa.

Does anyone see the irony in this experience? I definitely felt like I was sitting at the wrong end of the table. I found myself straining to hear snippets of the other conversation rather than the incessant whinning of why educated Black men seem to prefer non-black women. It was hard for me to weigh in on this conversation being a black woman who generally prefers non-black men just because that has been my environment. A more interesting conversation might have been, where have all the black men gone?

The Caucasian lady from Africa discussed her experiences with racism and how her eyes were open to the fact that it exists beyond black and white skin, but she also talked about politics and perceptions of her country…a country many blacks claim as their own but know very little about. We’ve all seen the pictures of AIDS-riddled orphanages and pot-bellied starving children, but to hear stories about innovation, technology and politics sparked my interests instantly.

It is another lesson in how multi-faceted each culture is and how biased the media can be. It’s not to negate the problems and the ills of under-developed countries but to shine a light on the arrogance and ignorance of many American people, even among people who claim to embrace a culture as their own just because their ancestors originated there.

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