I've Got Jungle Feeeever

"You’d better not bring home any white girls," said a female friend during a long-distance phone conversation some years ago. "Of course not," I replied.

A.J. Griffith

At that point in my life, I couldn’t even conceive of dating outside my race. To my mind then, black people had enough trouble to deal with in "white America."

We didn’t need to bring trouble home with us to dinner. Dating white women would have meant that I was losing touch with my roots and betraying my sisters.

Then the hard times came. I was a lonely brother in search of female companionship and I needed a friend.

All my black female friends were either married, in relationships or too busy with school to have time for me. I couldn’t buy a date. I was the invisible brother.

One day at my job, I had a conversation with an attractive white girl. She was a student at Louisiana State, and I was considering going back to school but had apprehensions. I explained my fears as she patiently listened.

I noticed her eyes as she gave me her undivided attention. She applauded my quips with a warm smile that made me feel special. She gave me words of encouragement that I desperately needed.

For a brief moment, there was a pause in our conversation, followed by an intimate gaze and an echo of heartbeats that suggested one thing, chemistry. This was completely new to me because I had never gotten the type of attention from a white female that I was used to receiving from black females. It was strange even feeling attracted to her in the same way, but her skin color didn’t even matter to me; the support she gave me right then did.

Did we exchange phone numbers and have deeper, late-night conversation as a result of this encounter? Did we go out and become romantically acquainted? No. In fact, that was our last conversation.

However, the experience opened my mind and made me see outside of the racial box I had placed myself in.

I realized that by limiting myself to dating within my own race and not taking into consideration the possibility that someone of another ethnicity could have a sincere interest and desire for me, I was missing out on a valuable experience that could change my life for the better.

It was then that I realized that love is something that must not be confined by racial or cultural differences. I learned that where hearts are concerned, preoccupations with skin color should be looked upon merely as a thin wall that need not be climbed because by doing that, its height only increases.

That wall should be broken down and the affection for another human being should be allowed to be experienced, expressed and enjoyed with no barriers.

Regardless of what race we may be, we all have something beautiful to offer one another. Skin tone should not hinder us from exploring this notion in our search for emotional satisfaction.

Don’t get me wrong. My ideal queen is an ebony angel with deep, brown eyes and a summer evening smile.

I’m looking for an Eryka Badu-, Jill Scott-type of sister to vibe with and carry my seed. But if a Christina Aguillera-, Britney Murphy-type comes along and can prove that she sincerely wants to be on my team, I’m only one man with one heart.

Whoever steals it first will be the one. And if the latter-mentioned type beats the sister to my heart, she’ll be my queen.

That means you’ll see us together holding hands at the mall with matching "dead prez" T-shirts, or cuddling at the Bayou Classic feeding each other nachos, or sitting up front at the poetry readings like it’s our world.

I wouldn’t treat her any better or any worse than I would my black women. I would not consider her whiteness a prize. That would be irrelevant to our relationship. And whoever I wind up with –- Caucasian, Asian, Latina, Indian, whoever –- the black woman will always be my sister, foundation and source of inspiration.

I’m her, she’s me and that’s the way it’ll forever be. We may not be bound together as man and wife, but we’ll always be bound by our plight as black people. I realize that the person I choose to love will never make me blind to that fact.

Love is a beautiful test. It challenges us to see past each other’s differences. It beckons us to embrace those things that separate us culturally and learn from them.

True love is a color-blind third eye that looks directly past physical differences such as skin color and outer pulchritude and sees only the beauty of the soul.

A.J. Griffith, a student at Southern University, is opinions editor of The Southern Digest.

Posted Oct. 13, 2004