Blog mentions and the IR Community

I was very humbled and excited to learn that my blog and my previous blog post, "Don't Leave Us Out", was mentioned in Angry Black Cat's eighth podcast! ABC and JeffG discuss the survey I was ranting about plus more. It was a great piece. Check it out here. You must be registered to listen to it.

I also received some great responses to that post. ChelB and Diva(Thanks for the comments ladies!) both expressed disappointment at feeling left out of the whole black women IR community just because they married men that weren't white.

I feel the same way at times. I got into the community relatively late because I had already married my husband prior to finding the community. As I said before, it's great that a movement has started to get black women to expand their options. But, it also feels like the IR community is pushing white men at the expense of other races.

Black women need to consider and expand all their options. Should Diva, ChelB, and myself be excluded from this movement just because our husbands aren't white? Didn't this movement get started because a majority of black women were limiting themselves to black men?

Expanding our options and finding love should be the key terms for the BW IR community. If you find love with a white man, great. If you find it with another race, that's great, too. No one should be made to feel like they're on the fringes of a community that can give great support just by the race of the man she married.

Don't ignore us

I was reading Halima's blog recently where she posted some information about a doctoral candidate surveying interracial couples. It sounded interesting, so I decided to look into it a little more. I like sharing my views.

Needless to say, I was dissapointed for the survey to narrow down who they wanted to black women/men to white men/women couples.

It points out a issue I have with the interracial community at times. While I get that they want to show black women are desirable, and that white men should be considered among their dating choices, there are other choices out there.

I didn't marry a white man. I married a Dine man. We have our own unique situations that a bw/wm couple would never face. Is my opinion any less than those who married a white man?

Sometimes I feel as though I'm on the outskirts of the whole IR movement. I bucked the statistics that said a lot of black women would stay single. And I opened my options to include other people. Shouldn't that count for something?

There are other races that should be considered for black women. White men shouldn't be the the only one. There are Hispanic, Asian, Native American and others to consider as well.

We should be telling any black women not to limit her choices to white men only. Whe should be considering all people and all races. Because we did that with black men, and look what happened to us.

Maybe I should start my own community for black women who didn't marry a white man.

-DineBoo