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| Fathia Nkrumah with son. |
Last week I got to talking with two sisters. The topic: black “nationalist/revolutionary” men dating/marrying white women. Before I get into what was said, I must confess: I get skeptical (or is the right word perturbed? uncomfortable?) even when I see non-radical black men dating white women. Yet I can’t put my finger on the exact reason for these feelings. I must say here that this is not a feeling reserved only for people of African descent, but people of color in general – Latina/o, Asian, etc. I must also note that my apprehension is not arbitrary, but based within my recognition of the history and continuation of oppression and white supremacy.
So the conversation began with both ladies shaking their heads. They were definitely not down with the nationalists dating white women. For whatever reason that day I took the opposite position.
Me: “We’re talking about black radicals who were fighting to get rid of the notion of race. Couldn’t it be that they were more progressive than we could understand?”
The response was no. “How can you fight for black liberation and preach about building black families and nations if you can’t love black women?”
Well, I think I said that it might not be relevant. Something about public versus private lives. Something about these men being free of the diseases they’ve diagnosed others with.
My friends continued to shake their heads.
We spoke about Frantz Fanon, Bob Marley and Kwame Nkrumah. The discussion of these figures of course led to a tangent: do we consider Nkrumah’s Egyptian wife, Fathia Nkrumah African? Is she black? And what about Bob Marley’s former girlfriend Cindy Breakspeare?
Me: “Isn’t Cindy Breakspeare mixed race? Are Northern Africans not African? Are they too not black?”
I was shot down on both counts. Up came a picture from a search engine. “Cindy is white,” they said. “Fathia is Arab.”
I did not have concrete details. I did not deny an Arab slave trade or the fact that some Northern Africans distinguish themselves from the “Sub-Sahara”. But I argued that maybe we discount how much Africans have influenced Arab culture, probably in the same way that mainstream history neglected the Greeks indebtedness to the Egyptians. Did the relationship between Africans and Arabs start with slavery? I also don’t think it helps the fight for liberation to play into some of these artificial divisions.
We went on:
Me: “What about black “nationalists” who date black women who could pass for white? Women who adhere to European aesthetics?”
Sisters: “That’s a problem too.”
One sister made a great point: “These conversations of black men dating outside the race are always about them dating white women specifically. They’re not dating Latinas or Asians. That is a problem”
OK. These ladies were staunch in their opinions and I certainly applaud their commitment to liberation. We started talking about how black women have been burdened; the ways in which patriarchy stifled our mobility. So black men had this freedom to date and marry outside of the race because they were men. And white men historically have had their fill of white wives at home and women of color to rape and pillage on the side. White women had a tad bit more freedom due to their whiteness, but black women…don’t seem to venture out as much.
This is a very complex topic and while I recognize the both history and the continuation of oppression, I do not think that its impossible to love a white person. Its just that history and the continuation of oppression do exist.
What do you think?
Zahra Gordon 
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