0.0 -- Pilot

I was recently looking through a photo album of one of my African-American exes and I realised, once again at least, I'm tremendously lucky I married outside of my ethnicity.  High five to myself!  Dodged a big ass bullet on that one.  What?  No I don't hate the black chicks, I just wasn't in the market for one anymore.  It's called knowing thyself, and isn't that what people all over are trying to do?  Know themselves?  Isn't that like a path to righteousness or some bullshit? 

I'm clicking through picture after picture of her graduation from college, with her family; grandparents, parents, cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles.  Upchuck.  Gag.  I tried to insert me into that picture with a smile and I wanted to immediately kill myself.  Everyone at a local dining establishment, in "Sunday attire", drinking sweet teas and enjoying stupid fucking stories from her childhood.  Just think, if that relationship had worked out, I would be sitting there, faking a smile, wishing death upon all of them.  Or better yet, I'd be sitting there, hoping for some sicko with an AK to chop up the whole table, myself included.  The agony I would have suffered.

Then I think of having to go to church with her and her parents sometimes, because I know this bitch would have wanted to live close to home probably or at least within a 3 hour car ride.  Sitting in a black church, for two hours, hearing some Ludacris-sounding pastor change pitch and emphasis with every other sentence and sometimes going into that "powerful whisper" like Ray Lewis to suggest this shit is important.  All I would be thinking the whole time is "Wasn't part of the reason I became Catholic was to avoid this very moment?  This long ass service?  This boring ass bland service?"  Or better yet, having to fake being Christian, because these days, I'm definitely Catholic but not a Christian even in the loosest definition of the word.

I know.  I'm severely generalising and marginalising the African-American woman on the basis of one girl.  But then I go through the memory's rolodex of exes and the similarities are massive and they all lead to one thing--I would have killed myself or been a mass cheater, fucking every two-bit whore in sight just to get some action in my life.

Oh African-American woman, you and I weren't meant to be.  However, I doubt you're crying your eyes out because I know, I'm impossible to get along with, my values seem askew, my politics are too out there, my religious views are sacrilege, and I hate the idea of family.  So maybe you dodged a bullet too, no?

I flash the pictures of scenes with all my exes that I would have had to endure, and I tell you, it makes my skin crawl.  I'm not one to put on heirs, to live up to something I don't aspire to nor want.  I'm not a shirt and tie guy.  I'm not a kids and backyard guy.  I'm not a family reunion guy.  I'm not a Sunday service guy.  I don't like Tyler Perry movies and fish dinners.  I'm not a bad guy either, I'm just not that guy. 

I'm the guy who doesn't mind, and quite enjoys, working at home by cooking, cleaning, every now and again teaching my kid a valuable lesson, folding laundry; your typical domestic endeavours.  I don't hold gender roles.  If you're better than me at something, then go ahead and do it.  I can pick up the slack somewhere else.  My non-African-American wife can attest to that.  Sometimes she likes to go back and insert traditional gender roles on me, but then again, she also lets me be who I am.  I'm a lucky guy.  Sure, she may not be perfect, in fact she's far from, but she let's my nutjob, wacky ass remain a nutjob and wacky.  She'd love it if I learnt to drive, but then again, she doesn't push me.  I'm sure she would love it if I wanted to be a lawyer or a top executive at some company, but then again, she also loves coming home to a tasty, hot meal.  She doesn't say hey, let's go to Mass or church, but she also doesn't entirely say, "Hey, you can't practice that syncretic religion" either.

African-American woman, I doubt that those kinds of things would be intriguing to you.  I doubt that you'd let them fly.  I hate stereotyping and generalising, but I've dated enough and know plenty of other brothers who've dated enough and continue to and our stories are mirror images.  There's that list of things us brothers should be and should do.  I've seen them on twitter constantly--must love kids, must love his mother, must love God, must have a masters', must be ambitious in regards to whatever, must do this, must do that.  If that's the case, African-American woman and myself, we're not compatible.

I'm not the case of "why black men are dating non-black women" because it's not that bullshit excuse of I can't take a powerful woman.  My wife is quite powerful.  She knows what she wants, she goes out there and she gets it.  She graduated three times, she's in the career she always wanted, she's the rock of this family.  So it's not a fear of a strong woman.  She's also loud, opinionated, hates to be wrong, stubborn, and will fight over anything.  So again, get out of here with the strong woman routine.

But let's be real, there are constants across the black woman board, and a lot of them, I've mentioned.  We're not compatible.  Never mind the fact that I'd probably have no musica latina in my life, or beans and rice and a mother-in-law who can cook the shit out of them (realise, I'm saying African-American here, not Afro-Latina.  I could still have that stuff).  Never mind  the fact that I'd also probably have to play Keep Up with the Joneses, stop with the tattooing, and who knows what else.

African-American woman, I know.  You're constantly shitted on by men of all colours, by media outlets, by job markets, by the world.  And when it comes to black men, where have all the good ones gone?  We're either in jail, on the down low, or dating non-black women.  Well, be happy.  No one ever said I was a good black man.