First things first, I didn’t always believe in Black Love…… At an early age, I fell victim to brainwashing, bombarded with euro centric beauty standards growing up. This programming affected the way I approached non-black women compared to sark skin women when I grew older. I ended up convincing myself that all women are beautiful and color didn’t matter but that was a clever lie…

In my mind, white women were always number 1 when it came to approaching and dating women. In my last committed relationship, I thought that having light skin children would be the answer to my future family’s Black Liberation at one point. I witnessed that privilege of lighter skin all throughout my life, so that “solution” made sense to me. I find it funny how I still had the capacity to think about Black Liberation with this kind of infected mindset.

About 4 years ago, I was single but I decided to GET OUT and stay out! I re-birthed myself and my new-found consciousness towards Black women and relationships in coconut holy oil. My confused Spirit was baptized in the Nile River and mystically rose and woke up like Neo’s first time out the matrix. On the real, a lot of social factors contributed to me consciously ending the program. Being single really helped me reflect on how I claimed to love being Black and my people who were suffering.

Photo: Giphy

I use the word “programming” because there is a reason why little Black children can pick a white doll and say it’s more desirable and innocent over a black one. There is a reason why Kodak Black is going around saying he prefers light skin women and hates his own complexion. There is a reason why skin bleaching and skin lightening is becoming more popular throughout the world.

Without strong Afrocentric, Black-first centered values at home, the issue of beauty standards plus colorism within the Black community will continue to blur the image of beauty to the smallest degree. We can only enjoy Black only if it’s mixed with white or something “exotic”. There is a system in place to make Black children love every color before their own first. This is what I call programming, the self-hate aspect of psychological warfare perpetuated against melanin dominant people.

That is why Black Love and the Black Family must be whole-heartedly at the center of Black Liberation. The Black Man and the creator, the Black Wombman and the offspring of the nation, Black Children. Black Love is the answer to destroy this infectious programming, stopping Black Boys from idolizing white women and Black girls from feeling ashamed to be in their skin and mistreated.

There is no running around this point and no amount of swirling or attitudes to interracial dating can change that. The Black Family is the foundation and all other issues and platforms must revolve around PRESERVING said family. There is no Community with out families and the families at the absolute center must be Black Families in order to maintain the Black Community in the first place.

The Black Liberation movement can not and will not center around an interracial family that preaches “love is colorblind”. That’s ludacris because a family like this has the potential to lose all the carbon-based melanin in 3 generations. If these people are fine with this type of direction their family bloodline is going, that’s cool but please stay in your lane.

They shouldn’t distract or detract from the message of Black Love just because they feel some type of way for their partner. Swirlers need to realize they aren’t serious about *Generational* Black Liberation. They only care about Black Liberation in this lifetime and that’s fine, I’m not wasting energy fighting it. Black Love is not about this lifetime but the next million and one generations, cherishing the melanin.

What happened to me 4 years ago came natural to me, before I became a community activist. I self reflected and asked myself what type of woman I would spend the rest of my life with, during this increasing climate of anti-Blackness. The answer was as natural as drinking coconut water from the shell.

A Black woman is the only organic choice, any other choice would be forced. Black Women suffer triple headed oppression based on race, class and gender. They are the only ones who can relate to the plight of the Black man and vice versa. Black partners must teach their non-Black counterparts these realities and I’m only interested in teaching my future seeds how to love themselves.

I want the essence of my Blackness reflected in my descendants in the purest form. I can’t control who my descendants mingle with but when the time comes, I can show them deep self love for themselves and our people and protect them from forced eurocentric beauty standards.

A non-Black woman can NEVER feel or share the experiences of a Black/Dark skin woman. Non-Black people can only see, study, learn, observe or be oblivious of the feeling. Non-Black people who appear woke can only form an idea of what it feels like. The natural, genuine feeling dealing with years of police brutality and torture, systematic humiliation and degradation and all the ugly things attached to anti-black, anti-Carib anti -Afroness will always be out of their senses.

Coming from a former swirler, these are the types of questions, current interracial couples, have to ask themselves to determine the strength of their union;

How many couples can say, with confidence, their relationship didn’t evolve from self hate or fetishization of their partner?

How many couples can say, with confidence, that their relationship or family won’t be used as a tool that contributes to anti-Blackness?

Lastly, the biggest question… How many couples can honestly say, with confidence that they either don’t mind or don’t care that their descendants have the potential ending up white in 3 generations? “Love is Love and you can’t control it.” “Love is colorblind”

The 1895 painting ‘A Redenção de Cam’ which represents the Brazilian ideology of’embranquecimento’ or whitening.

With that being said, I don’t completely dismiss work done by the Black half of an interracial couple. I’m not going to throw away the work of “The Birth of a Nation” because Nate Parker’s wife is white. I’ll gladly accept contributions that benefit us. If his mission is to raise Black History and representation in Film, why not let him do his thing if he *stays in his lane*. He is not the spokesperson on how to build the Black Family and community and he is not going around preaching how Love is Love…..

Now a question to Black singles, PLEASE look inward and ask yourself and reflect if seeking love from non-black person is the best possible option for the collective liberation of the original people. Queens and Kings that claim to be serious about Black Liberation… If your 100% with the shits, you can wait and reject love or interest from non-Black people.

It may sound harsh to some but it’s worked miracles for me since I removed my programming. It took several years but it ended up being easy to realize Black Love is the only option when your skinfolk are being gunned down and buried. When self hate looks like Bleached skin and favored lighter TV and music actors, actresses and models are selected. When our history and artifacts have been stolen from us and white washed every step of the way….

Peace, Love and Blessings.

blackdollars.ca

Writing since July 2017 · 1 story contributed