Black Girl Lost?

I love women of all colors and shades. There is nothing that can make my day better than watching the sunlight reflect off a beautiful woman’s iris and then glisten like sapphires. The only thing that can top that is when a gorgeous female walks past me, and I watch as her hips rock back and forth like a pendulum or a wrecking ball, (depending on the size of her assets)some girls look even better going than they did coming. I love women with long hair that flows like the waters of the Amazon, and I love with women that wear their hair short to heighten their facial features. I love women with Spanish accents, copper skin tones and exotic eye colors. I love girls with fair skin the complexion of baby powder with red hair and long legs. 

Needless to say race is never a deciding factor in who I am attracted to. I am always more concerned with what a person brings to the table mentally and spiritually than if a person fit’s my conceived preference of skin color or race. Besides, there isn’t a person on Earth that has a outer vessel that  is impervious to the powers of time , an that is regardless of skin color or race.  But if I had to pick a preference, or a type of woman that catches my eye more than often than others it would have to be black girls. There is something about a black women’s smile that has always caught my attention. I believe it is her ebony colored skin that wraps around the ivory of her even teeth, resembling diamonds in a velvet case, that mesmerizes me. Whatever the case I’ve always had a soft spot for dark skin black women, but apparently a lot of other men do not feel the same. 

During a discussion with a friend of mine in the dining hall I was presented with some very surprising news. I say that this surprise was news because it was entirely new to me, and though this “news” was completely the opinion of this friend,  she presented it to me the vigor that one presents cold hard fact. We were talking about the pros and cons of campus life; about how it can be difficult sometimes as black people to attend events at a predominantly white school. We complained about little things like having to endure dub-step and bad pop music at Arcadia’s SPB events, and the lack of black literature taught in the university English departments. Dub-step is bad and yes, it is true that non-white literature is a rarity in the English department, but neither one of us were prepared to orchestrate sit ins, or march on the walk of pride in order to read a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. 

However the con that did come up about life on campus, that made my friend lose her usual cool, trade her polite tone for an indignant attitude, and speak with a passion I thought her previously incapable of was the treatment of black females. My friend claimed that she was tired of being looked over by males on campus, and that she felt like black women were the equivalent of the invisible women from the Fantastic Four. She felt that the black female had fallen out of the favor of today’s men, and that men only approached women of lighter skin tones. She claimed that if that female did not adhere to the European state of beauty then she was considered ugly in the eyes of society. She then vehemently stated that she felt like a black girl lost. She did not use the term in its traditional sense, but instead used it as a metaphor to illustrate how she felt amongst her peers. She felt like the campus was separated by a black world and a white world, and that those two worlds come together too infrequently, but when those two worlds did come together, the black female was lost between the cracks; falling into a world lost in irrelevancy. 

As a man that adores all women, black women especially I found it hard to believe  that black women were falling out of favor among men.

My friend, however, was convinced that black women were the bottom of the totem pole and especially among white men. She was adamant that white men did not find women of her complexion attractive. My friend  is a dark shade of brown, her complexion is similar to that of the Aunt Jemima character on pancake boxes. Ironically (or coincidently), she was the same complexion as a character that was based from a vaudeville minstrel show which entire existence was focused on making blacks look stupid and unattractive. During our conversation it never once occurred to me that maybe whites were conditioned to believe that a skin that shade of brown  was unattractive and unsuitable for a prospective partner. 

Aunt Jemima, minstrel shows, the depiction of blacks as primitive uncivilized creatures in children cartoons, all of those damaged blacks in the past, but I always thought that we have done enough to burn those images and ideas out of memory. Maybe I was being naïve? Or maybe my friend was over reacting? 

In hindsight I believe that it was a little bit of both. Yes, my friend’s sexual repression caused her to express her self a bit too rashly, but at the same time her feeling of being invisible to Arcadia’s male population  did not occur out of thin air. But, at the dinner table I decided to give more reasonable reasons for why she felt that she was invisible to men on campus. I told her that Arcadia is filled with cliques and that the reason she felt so invisible wasn’t because males, white males in particular, did not find her attractive but were rather intimidated of approaching a group of strangers. I told her that I found a lot of white females attractive on campus, but I never approached them because they were in a completely different circle of friends. It would be difficult to approach someone with romantic inclinations when they are constantly surrounded by strangers. I also asked her how many times she went out of her way to talk to someone not in her immediate circle of friends. But admittedly she was a social butterfly who intermingled between cliques, so when she frankly answered “Yes.” I took her word for it.

The discussion that I had with my friend at dinner played back in my mind long after we had left the dinning hall and returned to Oak Summit. A few days later I took the opportunity to ask another of my female friends if she felt that black women were out of favor among men, and in particular white men?  She was of a lighter complexion of my previous interviewee and also had long straight hair and more European features. She was mixed with German and Native American, even though she identified herself as black she had a very exotic appeal to her. She answered that she believed that black women were out of favor to only some white males. She thought that white men didn’t really like black girls of a darker complexion, but said they were attracted to her.  She told me how she would have white men tell her, “You’re pretty for a black girl” or ask her, “Are you really black? Do you tan?” She went on to say that she felt that white men who approached her  were attracted to her because being with her would be like another notch in their belt. It would be like a sort of accomplishment they could relay to their friends in the morning. She said that for them being with a women of color was bragging rights. So they could boast, “ Yea I’ve been with Spanish girl or I’ve been with a black girl.” She then told me that she had a friend who was white and he had a black girlfriend. When she asked her friend to describe his girlfriend to her , he said she was tall and she wore her hair natural. He didn’t say that she was black because her race was of irrelevance to him. She said that that of course there were white males who were genuinely attracted to black females, but she believed there was not a large amount of them. 

I then asked her did she ever feel that black men were less interested in black women as well? She answered that she felt white women were genuinely attracted to black males, and at the same time attracted to them in the same manner that white guys were attracted to her. The mixture of having a strong desire for black men and having the sensation of being with someone “exotic” made it easier for black males to be with white females. She thought all it took was someone to have the courage and step up. She also told me that she felt that black women made themselves inaccessible and that black women sometimes alienated black men. Black women feel the need to be independent,  producing this aura of confidence, and unwillingness to settle for anything less than perfection. She said, “the notion of not wanting to settle is fine but when you start to say things like, ‘niggas ain’t shit’ you only alienate yourself.”

I listened to what she said and I agreed that sometimes black women do alienate themselves by being too proud. But at the same time I never felt intimidated by any female because she had her own things. After the conversation I had with this second friend, I thought to myself, if black women were indeed out of favor in the eyes of men how could they change?  I mulled over that question for hours. I believed that my first friend was just frustrated when she said that men did not find girls of her complexion attractive. Any real man could realize what she could offer. She was in every word a beautiful person, and besides, black is beautiful. She called herself a “black girl lost.” But I believe that she is really a woman who is temporarily missing, and that someone (white or black) will find her in the lost and found somewhere. I still do not believe that black women are out of favor with today’s men, despite having two friends who believe that are. The most beautiful garment any woman can wear, regardless of skin color, is confidence in herself. If black women loose that then maybe one day they will fall out be favor. Until then I am a disbeliever.