The Problem With Black Men Who Refuse To Date Black Women

Men who dismiss an entire race of women deserve to be called out.

One woman is calling out all the black men who choose not to date black women thanks to negative stereotypes and stigmas.

Kimberly N. Foster, founder of For Harriet, posted a video on Facebook and YouTube Monday in response to a recent controversial episode of “Iyanla: Fix My Life,” which focused on the problematic attitudes of black men who refuse to date black women.

Host Iyanla Vazant spoke to three black men for the OWN show, which aired on Sept. 17, as part of a retreat meant to get to the root of the issue while also dispelling the angry black woman myth.

“The fact that black men who choose not to date black women feel the need to constantly make it known is an issue,” Foster said in the video, which has over 1.4 million views on Facebook, while she acknowledged that people are entitled to have dating preferences.

The three men in question admitted to Vazant on the show that their bias against black women was due largely to past experiences as well as negative preconceived notions. One of the men, 28-year-old Bo, said he doesn’t date black women because of their “strong personalities,” their inability to “stay in a woman’s place” and then he added: “Why are black women so angry?”

Well, clearly, it appears that Bo just doesn’t like women, period. But it’s the angry black women trope or the “strong, sassy black woman” narrative which is so problematic because of its prevalence in mainstream media. It’s been used to discount black women. Clearly, not all black women are angry or have strong personalities and even if they do, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“Traits that in anyone else would be seen as positive, get turned into negatives when they exist in black women,” Foster said. “We are too independent, too strong, too educated, too focused, too confident.”

Foster then explained that the black men who dismiss an entire race (their own race) of women because they deem them to be “angry” should be called out. If black women are “angry,” it could be because they are often left to defend themselves from the ugly descriptions these dangerous stereotypes often paint of them.

And yet, black women are strong and independent, even magical. And yes, some of these same black men who have hurt feelings towards black women likely have black mothers.

But Foster sums it up best towards the end of the video:

“If you’re fixing your mouth to speak negatively all the time about black women, you’re not pro-black. You can’t be, because the work that black women do literally keeps black men alive, it keeps black communities thriving,” Foster explained. “As the great philosopher Beyoncé Knowles-Carter once said, ‘When you hurt me, you hurt yourself. When you diss me you diss yourself.’”

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