Can Someone Be Pro-Black and Date Someone Who Is Not Black?

In the midst of the wild events that are unfolding domestically and abroad, I’ve seen the same debate being had on various platforms: Can someone be pro-black and date someone who is not black?

The origin of human beings has long been debated between science and faith groups. Faith-based schools of thought believe that human beings were created by a higher being thousands of years ago. Science-based schools of thought believe that we have evolved over millions of years. I believe that both faith and science would agree that we are human beings, the only surviving species of the genus Homo.

Since human beings began mass populating the planet to the point where we could recognize distinction, we have divided ourselves by tribe, by nation, by wealth, by religion, by culture, by pigmentation, etc. The evolution of this division led to groups believing that they were superior to other groups (even within their own grouping!). This social system took a nefarious turn when humans began the wholesale selling, trafficking, and enslavement of other human beings. It’s evil to enslave your own people but it’s a greater form of evil to purchase and enslave someone else’s people without war. So in order to execute these human transactions, human beings convinced themselves that the group that was being sold was less than human. Most even believed that they were not even the same species altogether. These slaves were not homo sapiens (i.e. human), they were homo naledi (i.e. gorillas).

Fast forward to the 21st century where most human beings still haven’t cognitively evolved their thinking to fully embrace the complexity and nuance of our species while overlaying the impacts of our history and culture as it is applied to our existence. If we did, human beings across the planet would understand that we are more alike than we are different. If we did, we would understand that man-made concepts of “whiteness” and “blackness” are distinctions created to empower one group over another. If we did, we would better understand how the human brain, the nervous system, emotions, and personality all intertwine. If we did, we would better understand that culture impacts who we are but does not change the composition of who we are as a species. If we did, we would ultimately understand that debates around groups of human beings procreating with other human beings based on pigmentation are cognitively beneath us as a species.

Like any other species on this planet, life is all about survival. The empirical evidence shows us that in order to continue the species, we need to eat, sleep, and procreate. The mating process is critical to the preservation of the species. Over time we have increased the complexity of this process by including man-made social constructs into the procreating consideration set. Cynically, I believe that these social systems were developed to divide, control, and oppress us. Therefore, to whittle down my experience as a human being to just being black is a futile attempt to rob me of my ability to think, to create, to build, to feel, to love, to emote, to stand erect and walk, to use my thumbs, and to act in a manner that is not in line with the evolution of our species. When we continue to breathe life into these social divisions we give life to the same ideologies that empowered one group to enslave another.

Man-made social constructs like “blackness” or “whiteness” or “dating” are still relatively new to concepts for our brains to grasp. As a member of this culture, I participate in understanding these classifications but my primal being wrestles to reject them. Specifically, around ideas that I should not “date” and/or mate with another human being that is not also a member of my ethnic grouping. I would be foolish to dismiss the psychological impacts of the systematic oppression of darker pigmented human beings at the hands of lighter pigmented human beings. While I do not dismiss this altogether as it relates to love, mating and procreating; I do not leverage that man-made ideology into the consideration set of whom I choose to be with. So to answer the much-debated question, yes one can be pro black AND date someone who is not black. However, I believe the more evolved question that we should be asking one another is can one be against the oppression of a group of human beings and be with someone who is in favor of the oppression of a group of human beings?