Interracial Gay Relationships

Lauren Olson, M.D. gives her take on interracial dating.

I received this interesting E-mail from Dan Collier and I asked his permission to post it here:

Fascinating series of articles; fascinating and sensitive and powerful.

As an aging gay white male who didn’t come out until I was in my mid-forties, the entire issue of interracial dating intrigues me. I dated women through college, my twenties and into my mid-thirties. Until I finally uttered the three fateful words to myself: “I am gay.” Probably 80% of the women I dated in those years were Black. And by the time I was in my late twenties, I dated only Black women.

When I started dating men, I realized that I had moved from Black women to Black men. In fact, I have dated almost exclusively Black men since acknowledging my homosexuality to myself.

While there may well be some sort of early childhood psychological moment which led to this, I suspect not. The plain and simple fact is that I have always been attracted to people with dark skin. As long as I can remember, in college, when I’d see three women — one Black, two white — from a block away, my eye would gravitate to the dark-skinned woman. Instinctively, before I ever knew what she looked like.

I am attracted by dark ebony skin and African features. I adore rich full lips and a wide dominant nose.

There is no fetish aspect to this (at least that I am aware), nor is there anything to do with race play, white guilt, etc. Again, at least that I am aware.

God knows, interracial dating (gay or heterosexual) is fraught with complexities, a mine field of emotional explosives.

And many of the Black men I’ve dated have challenged me on my desire for the man of African descent. While they might be proud to be admired and loved by another man, there is a side which remains skeptical, which remains suspicious, of a white man’s motives.
I fully understand this. And, sadly, it will be many, many decades before slavery’s horrible and oh-so tragic legacy has been consigned to history.

Thanks much for these stories of other men. They are brilliant.

Dan

Here is my response to Dan:

Thank you for you thoughtful comments and support. I believe our stories are so important, especially to those men who remain feeling guilty and conflicted.

I have not addressed interracial relationships in my book or on the blog, mostly because I would be writing about something about which I know very little.

What you have written about Black men not trusting your intentions and sincerity reminds me some of how older men feel about younger men who are attracted to older men albeit much more complex because of the understandable resistance most Black men have to self-identifying as gay. Until I heard K. D. Alston’s story, I did not understand how the roots of that date back to our painful history of slavery.

Thanks again.

Loren

Then I received the following...

Hey, Loren:

Interracial dating (gay or straight) can be so very complicated, no doubt about it. But when some of the barriers and sensitivities are broken down, it is so extraordinarily satisfying. To come to know and appreciate and welcome and understand and embrace a world outside your own is a tremendous … well, up!

As I mentioned, I dated Black women before I came out of denial and acknowledged my homosexuality to myself. I learned in my college years that, as a white man, as a member of the majority culture, it was incumbent on me to put aside my preconceived ideas about race, about racial identity, about what race meant in late 20th Century America. [I needed to] put aside my sensitivity about criticism of white culture, in other words, to look at our society from an outsider’s prism-of-vision; i.e., from a Black perspective.

It’s funny, but I was so naive as a young man, and truly astonished to learn just how much racial identity is oh-so up-front and personal in the daily life of someone who is Black. When I’d be spending the day with a Black girl friend, and the simplest moment – for example, waiting on line to be served, — could turn racial. The clerk behind the counter might ask a white person ahead of my Black girl firend — all innocence, or was it?

Seeing this from a Black’s point of view opened up a whole new dimension to the human experience for me. There are so many moments, in every single day, which are layered with racial ambiguity. And Blacks must negotiate these moments dozens and dozens of time, every day, every week, every month.

We, as whites, never have to deal with our racial identity, we are the dominant culture, we set the pace, we make the rules. Although, these rules are slowly being upended and changed, the game is no longer necessarily within the left/right field foul lines. Our increasingly diverse society is widening the foul poles. And, to be honest, I wonder if some of the discontent in our country today isn’t based on the new foul lines?

And, when you add to a Black person’s everyday experience the fact that she/he is gay, this makes what was a complicated experience even more difficult. Being Black and Gay adds yet another wall to becoming faceless in the white world.

But it is so very worth the effort. I am a far better person for seeing the world through the lens of the Black experience.

Loren’s response:

I remember once traveling to Mexico with my partner. One American woman pitched a fit that her hotel didn’t have cable TV and USA Today. Apparently the only thing in Mexico she was willing to appreciate was the sunshine.

We get a much better view of our own world when we put ourselves in someone else’s world. After having traveled abroad, my view of the United States certainly changed.

Unfortunately, too many people move into another world and want to change it to be more like the world they just left. They fail to appreciate their new experience but rather de-value it as something less than their own.