There is a white American marine texting me right now. He
calls it flirting and would like to take me on a date. It’s cute, Shems. He is
currently in my country for some service with the United States Embassy and how
I met him is really such an awkward story I’d rather not share.
Now despite this young man having all the qualifications I
usually have for men whose advances I bother to entertain he is failing
miserably. Unfortunately I’m sorry to say it’s because he is white. I've never
had an interest in a white man so I thought, hey maybe I’m just not that into
him. But now I’m absolutely sure it has everything to do with him being a white
man.
How might I know this? Every time he says I am gorgeous I
see porn title flashing through my mind, “Ebony slut hungry for some white
dick”, “Black maid seduces white boss”, “explorer gets jungle fever”...
Basically I see myself being made into a fetish. Like when Justin Beiber
*cringes* cheated on Selena Gomez with a certain African American model and
White America’s headline punch line was “Justin Beiber Cheats with Black girl”.
Basically would I become “the first black girl I dated” or “Oh but I date black
girls”? Then I wonder if his friends made jokes about him enjoying
some African pussy while down here. I also wonder if I’m on a 20 things to do
before I am 30 list. “Go to Africa and bang African girls.”
Am I over thinking
this? Yes? No? Maybe? Have I watched too many Tyler Perry (I didn’t know
better) movies? Or have I been on the Zimmerman hashtag too long? Because I want to
Google where he is from and check how many black boys have been shot in that
neighborhood and how their courts dealt with it.
It doesn’t go just that far, the worst for me is whether
he’ll use pictures of us to justify why as a white male who dates black women
he does not fall into the category of racists that support Zimmerman’s
murdering a 17 year old black child.
Is he aware that he has white privilege?
And that in my city when we go out girls will snicker that I’m seeing him for
his bank account. Despite him probably making not much more than me (that’s a
lie I’m a student and journalist, my bank account doesn't know what money is)
but white is synonymous with rich in Africa.
I also wonder if on our first date he’ll ask to touch my
hair now that it’s out of its braids. I wonder how I will feel about him
touching it even if he was trying to be innocently cute in getting it out of my
face. I also find myself wanting to ask him how he feels about the fact that
the United States system is designed to keep the poor just that, poor, and that well the poorest
were black.
But I’m not sure how he’ll react and if my opinions might
tantamount to hate speech therefore landing me in Guantanamo bay being force
fed Monsato GMOs. After all he is a marine, he might be patriotic and ready to
die for his country and stuff and I’m just here a 19 year old black girl trying
to get her driver’s licence. So maybe despite it eventually coming from him
being a white American male, it might also simply be that I cannot be with
someone that I cannot be comfortable voicing my opinion to.
