So for the longest time, I’ve been saying that there’s a difference between being a Pro-Black man and a Pro Black-Man. I guarantee that everytime I say it, I have to define what I’m talking about. I think I really came to this revelation through personal and later, in social media conversations. For years, you’d get online memes on how women dressed, posts on our hair, how we raised children, being the crazy ex. Basically, the type of women which were preferable or desirable as opposed to the infamous ratchet twerking queen; because who didn’t want a marriage like grandma and grandad had? Or better still, who do you serve first – Dad or Husband? You get the picture. So, where do I start explaining the difference between the Pro-Black man and the Pro Black-Man? Well, my journey really started on social media with a meme that went a little something like this…

It was always a black woman with her white partner – never a black man with his white partner, which at the time was the largest interracial partnership type in the UK and the US. But this tupe of meme and the responses it elicited generally tended to focus on the image rather than the question. This raised many questions for me. Why the emphasis on black females? Why does this commentary never elicit such harsh critique on black male/ white female relationships? However, this was not new for me.

I remember what it was like coming up. In my teens, black women with white partners were rare. They were “sellouts”. “Letting the race down”; and I admit, I cosigned these views, until one day, I asked, “Why don’t black men get this level of scrutiny? They outnumber us with their mixed relationships” I’d never heard of a black man being called a sellout, letting down the race or worse, getting spat at because he had mixed-race children. Not once. What was telling was that even as a discussion amongst us as young people, men had a lot to say about women but very little about the men. This led to me concluding that there was a difference between Pro-Black Men and Pro Black-Men; and I’ll tell you from now that the difference lies in where the hyphen falls.

Pro-black Men are all-encompassing in their love of all things black. Pro-black men love black women, their black children, their black family. They shop black where they can, supporting black businesses and enterprise. Simply put, everything about them emotionally, culturally, physically is set within a Black 1st framework and is black-centric. Most significantly, their love of blackness is not necessarily at the cost or impingement of any other race or community. It just means Blackness is their prime focus.

Pro Black-Man, on the other hand, is all about black men and their position in society. This type of man lives in a world that is primarily about his black manliness and very little else – and that door of entry also significantly excludes his closest ally, black women – unless it’s his mum, sisters or aunties – never his contemporaries. This type of man will call out police harassment and understand systemic racism. However, whenever you ask this man why, in the face of systemic racism, is he with a white woman or their new penchant, an Asian woman – his reply will invariably involve some allusion to the problem being black women. His allegiance is primarily with other black men and the issues that they face. Subsequently, there was a reason why I asked this.

That in a nutshell is the main difference. At this stage of my life, I cast no judgement but I will call bullshit out when I have the energy. Both of these broad groupings can err on the problematic and as such, you’llfind exceptions to the rules. For example, there is a certain amount of toxicity even with the Pro-Black subset – especially if they clock and take advantage of the women: men ratio. However, that’s an observation for another blog.

So for the sake of balance, I’ll address the inevitable “what about black women with white men?” Aka, the inevitable two wrongs don’t make a right angle... For context, more Black women in the UK are making connections with non-black men. And for the most part, these relationships are borne out of a couple of things. For older women, there is a general ‘let me try something different’ whereas with younger women tend to go where they perceive the love to be. What is noticeable in both groups is that neither group will tell you what’s wrong with black men as a justification for their choice. I’m not the only one that thinks this and I can assure you that it’s not a confirmation bias observatio – many black women see this.

And there does seem to be some longevity in those relationships and this may be in part to do with the following:

There is something to be said regarding the misogynoir within all of this and I have done as much research as I want to do outside of an academic piece. I love black men – I’m trying to raise one with his dad right now. I accept that there are exceptions to every rule, especially when you present a binary. Have I been hurt by black men? Of course. Would they be my preferred choice? I think so, yes. But am I willing to wait forever and a day? I don’t think so. This is an unapologetically black-centric blog based on far more than opinion but I didn’t want to make it an academic, statistic-laden piece. The point is, if you’re happy with your partner, focus on that.

And I think I’ll leave my thoughts there…

Thank you for reading, Tricia xx