NOT TOO LONG AGO SOME friends and I, all African-American women, were sitting in a trendy restaurant having lunch when a good-looking, popular black actor strolled in.
As an audible buzz of recognition traveled from table to table, my group, restrained stargazers all, managed to surreptitiously turn our heads toward the handsome celebrity without sacrificing one iota of our collective cool.
That is, until we saw the blonde trailing behind him.
We moaned and groaned in unison, rolling our eyes heavenward. We gnashed our teeth in harmony and made ugly faces. For the 10,000th time we lamented the perfidy of black men and cursed trespassing white women who dared to “take our men.”
The fact that I am married to my second black husband didn’t lessen the fervor of my rage one bit. Had Spike Lee ventured in with a camera he would have had enough footage for Jungle Fever, Parts II, III and IV.
Before lunch was over I had a headache, indigestion and probably elevated blood pressure. In retrospect, I think I may have shortened my life considerably.
For many African-American women, the thought of black men, particularly those who are successful, dating or marrying white women is like being passed over for the prom by the boy we consider our steady date, causing us pain, rage and an overwhelming sense of betrayal and personal rejection.
When asked why they are with white women, most black men explain that they just happened to fall in love. Others say that they consider white women more docile and obedient than feisty black women. And some refuse to answer the question.
Whatever the real reasons, many black women perceive a black man-white woman relationship as a hurtful mixture of blatant sexism and eerie internecine racism: If you were good enough (if you looked like a white woman and didn’t give me so much back talk) I wouldn’t choose someone else.
For sisters, the message that we don’t measure up is the nightmare side of integration. We can’t get even, so we get mad.
I once believed that if I could just lock my rolling eyes onto those of some wayward brothers, somehow I could will them to return to black women where they belong.
But as I drove home from lunch, I slowly came to a conclusion I’ve been avoiding for three decades, out of pride, sisterly solidarity and just plain stubbornness: In the multiracial society we Americans live in, to feel one has exclusive proprietary rights to the members of the opposite sex of one’s race is a one-way ticket to Migraine City.
Not that I’m ashamed of my fury. The resentment I harbor is perfectly normal, and I believe I have conducted myself with ladylike dignity and enormous restraint. I haven’t slashed one brother’s tire; I don’t have any blond ponytails hanging on my bedroom wall. I’ve just been obsessing.
But if my anger is within the range of predictable and acceptable norms, it is increasingly uncomfortable for me personally. Anger has become an addiction.
There are, of course, black women who couldn’t care less about any man besides the one they are seeing. Still, almost every time I get together with two or more African-American women, the topic turns to “the problem.”
We’re disgusted; we’re depressed. We’re obsessing; we’re PMS-ing. I’m tired of putting my mood at the mercy of strangers.
Yes, I want my people to date and marry each other, and I don’t think it will ever give me pleasure to see black men with white women. But my being angry isn’t going to make these couples stop choosing each other.
The only thing I can control regarding this phenomenon is my response to it.
I CAN’T SPEAK FOR OTHER women, but when my thinking isn’t clouded by anger I am forced to recognize that my pain isn’t coming from black men and white women. It is coming from within. Therein lies my healing.
As a child I remember sitting in my bedroom in the dark with a hair clip on my nose, trying to reduce the size of my wide nostrils.
When the teenage parties I attended grew hot and my pageboy turned “nappy” I’d dash into the bathroom and attempt to comb it so the boys wouldn’t see how ugly I was.
While I was growing up I recall watching my grandmother make pancakes and seeing Aunt Jemima’s smiling face on the box. Aunt Jemima has a new, modern hairdo now, but she is still on the pancake box, a sturdy, sensible woman, not unpleasant to look at but clearly one who is meant for servitude and not adoration.
And what I knew then, I know now: When some people look at me, or any black woman, they see Aunt Jemima — a mammy, built to serve, not to adore. A few of those people are my men.
I can’t change anyone’s perception of me, but I can hold all the facets of me in high esteem. The thing I like about Sister Jemima is this: She’s a survivor.
I don’t want to be held hostage by my own rage. Like Aunt Jemima, I want to endure through the decades with a smile on my face, knowing that no one can reject me unless I give them permission to do so.
If, like me, my brothers need to embark upon the path that leads to the resurrection of their damaged souls, then I urge them to read the books, attend the seminars or choose the therapist and begin their journey.
I forgive black men for hurting me; I forgive me for letting them.
I am moving toward peace.
—- BEBE MOORE CAMPBELL is a novelist who deals with interracial relationships in her new book, “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine.”
