I don't think it was coincidence that all my former white boyfriends had only dated women of color. And all of their arguments were the same—“I don’t like white women, and Black women are just more attractive.” They loved to compliment my mixed features and point out the things that made me “unique”. They were “enlightened,” politically conscious and progressive men, because of course, they were dating a woman of color. They didn’t bother to recognize or correct the subtle micro-aggressions they had internalized and directed toward me. They didn’t bother to learn the nuances in our power dynamic, or about how living in a white society affected me. But they sure loved to complain about how annoying white women are. Boring, nagging, unaware “Karens.” They most likely saw it as an act of solidarity, trying to “empathize” with my lived experience.
Being a biracial person (Black and Mexican), I had a lot of issues with identity growing up. When you’re having an identity crisis of your own, the validity to your identity from someone you admire is blinding in the face of a problematic dynamic and racial bias.
I was raised in a southern mostly white and Hispanic community, and never felt any strong ties to an identity. My Black father actively distanced himself from his family and his culture, and I never really felt a part of the Mexican community of my mother’s side—I don’t look Hispanic, I don’t speak Spanish, and I’m sure there are other reasons I haven’t gotten around to unpacking. I had a few Black friends here and there until I was 22, but I never experienced a real sense of “community,” as it was usually just me and one or two other Black people within our circle.
I remember in my very white elementary school being shocked when a friend told me they knew I had a Black parent. I didn’t realize I had looked Black enough to be recognized as such. By the time I entered middle school, I realized I looked different and began to mostly identify as Black, understanding that’s how I’m typically perceived. I certainly felt this “difference” when I was teased for my hair, my nose, called a “mutt,” etc. I didn’t feel comfortable with the white crowd but didn’t feel welcomed by the few Black peers I was around either.
So obviously, being complimented by men who had a particular fascination with the features I had been teased for felt affirming. My first ever boyfriend, a white European I met online, was very interested in my Blackness. He would also constantly use the N-word, complain about Americans, complain about Black culture, and so on. My second boyfriend (another white European) told me it was inappropriate of me to use the N-word, and as an impressionable 16-year-old, I complied. In college I dated an older white southern man who collected young women of color like trophies, constantly complimenting my hair, my completion, etc. All these men had a type, and my type became men who made me feel valid.
For most of my life, up until adulthood, I was shown Black culture and the Black experience through the lens of whiteness. I learned the polished versions of Black history in class. I saw Black culture simplified and carefully curated in white media. And dating white men felt very “normal” to me. A lot of the media I consumed showed interracial relationships, minus the complications, historical baggage, biases and ingrained micro-aggressions that come along with it. And like many young women, I unfortunately listened to the misguided perspectives from my white boyfriends to shape my identity.
In my dating life, my white partner gave me the feeling of “Blackness.” I didn’t have to prove my identity, and I didn’t have to grapple any hard questions of what being a part of any community felt like. Black became a different hair texture, different skin tone, different facial features. I was Black because I looked different than them—it was simple. Realizing this now, I understand why I had hard time seeing beyond these features in terms of my Blackness: My Blackness was only seen as these features.
I now find it unsettling when a white man, when questioned on why he only dates Black women, states that he just finds us more “beautiful” or “aesthetically pleasing.” Because being Black is more than just looking Black. Minimizing Blackness by reducing it to your aesthetic preference, like how you’d describe liking women with long hair or big butts, is a weird fetishization of race. And I think a lot of these men like the power that having a Black partner gives them—the virtue signaling, the facade of “progressiveness.” The ability to denigrate women without criticism and hide their sexism by adding “white” to the front of their complaints.
When looking back at my relationships and learning about other white men and their “preferences,” I don’t think it’s a matter of just having dated a handful of weird white men. It’s a systemic issue of normalizing this “whitewashing” and simplifying other cultures to the most basic, outward aspects. It’s the normalizing of interracial relationships without normalizing the complexities and nuance that need to come with them as well. For white partners in mixed relationships, understanding Blackness requires more than just acknowledging physical traits like curly hair or dark skin. It involves actively engaging with discussions about race, history, cultural dynamics, and many of the other unique aspects of mixed-race relationships, much like you would discuss your partner's other needs and boundaries.
It wasn’t until I moved to Brooklyn that I felt more than an “other.” I stopped feeling like the token Black person, in contrast, I often didn’t feel Black enough.
This caused another identity crisis of sorts. Being Black became more than looking Black. It became being a part of a community, one that I felt like an infiltrator in. I was given the label of Blackness from white society from which I didn’t want to be defined by.
I still am grappling with my cultural experience and defining my identity for myself. I won’t be shoved into “other” that society, or the white men around me, or the form that won’t let you select more than two races, want me to be in. In thinking about my mixed identity growing up, and with the thoughts swirling in my head of not feeling either Black and Hispanic but “other”, I internalized being “half” of an identity, rather than understanding that am fully from two cultural backgrounds. An identity can’t be partial. Not half woman, not half queer, not half disabled. And I’m not half Black and half Mexican. I’m full Black, full Mexican.