One of the first articles I ever wrote was Jungle Fever: the Relationships Between African Men and White Women. It’s not my proudest achievement, but if you type ‘mandingo fantasy’ in Google, I will be among the first few search results (and ironically, by using that term again in a post, I pretty much solidify my standing on page 1 of the term’s search results).
For that reason, that article get’s read every single day somewhere in the world. Since I am constantly going back to the article to moderate comments, I noticed that I promised to give my take on what happens when the Women of Chocolate meet the Men of Vanilla. So here we are.
Considering that I was not blessed with the ability to breastfeed and am a member of the group that pees standing up, the most I can do is give a very pedestrian take on the relationships that take place between African women and white men.
Aside from sex, the other reason it’s difficult for me to go into much depth on the matter is because of the top-secret-wouldn’t-share-it-if-you-tortured-me-inquisition-style approach that a lot of women take to their love, and especially sex, lives. However, a few cracks have shown through and I encourage you to leave some comments and fill in any gaps.
White Men are in Demand
If you are a Caucasian male….welcome! You are going to enjoy (or not….just read on) the next couple of paragraphs. Significant numbers of African women across all age groups want to take a sip from the masculine tree of Caucasia (wow, isn’t that poetic? I like that, and you can use it for any race 
). Now the reasons vary across age groups and socio-economic lines a little like this:
Poor Young African Women
This one especially applies to a sub-section of young women who tend to be very rural, but have had enough of Western influence to believe they have a hang of the Westernized culture (much to the amusement of some of us pretentious middle and upper class folk). They tend to work as hairdressers or prostitutes. These women want Caucasian males for money and the benefits that money will bring them. They are poor. They don’t have nice things. They want the money and the nice things.
They are also motivated by something else that I will discuss a little further on, but for now let’s move to…..
Middle and Upper Class African Women
Some of these women are motivated by money, but it doesn’t play the huge factor it does with the poor African women. These women in addition tend to be motivated by three things.
The first is a simple desire for adventure and exploration. The same thing happens to African males when they land overseas happens to our African sistaz: they want to taste and experience everything in the shop.
The second one I thought was a joke, but once I heard it a couple of times, realized that people really believe it. That saddened me. Some of them go for Caucasian males either because they love Caucasian skin and/or want to have beautiful babies. Love for Caucasian skin, no problem, there are some pretty fascinating things about the skin that amaze me, like how the skin gets red when you apply pressure then loses the colour when you ease on the pressure.
However, because you want beautiful babies?! Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the subtext of that statement that half-black, half-white kids are superior somehow to a typical black child. With all the self-esteem issues we already have as a race, do we need this one too?!
Now, granted, half-black, half-white babies do tend to be pretty good looking - Shemar Moore, Barrack Obama, Lenny Kravitz, Jasmine Guy and Halle Berry just to name a few - but seriously!
In this day and age shouldn’t we be working on sorting out our inadequacies and insecurities as a race rather than making partner selection on the basis of something so superficial. AND NEVER FORGET, standards of beauty are taught. Shouldn’t we want to bring kids into the world who won’t look at other black people and think of them as hideous. But I digress…….
Reason number three, which is the same reason the poor African women traverse into the Vanilla milkshake aisle, is discussed below
Mature African Women
After the childishness and the silliness of youth (though a huge number of African women skip this stage all together) you are ready to settle down and build a life. Many African women at this stage are intelligent, hard working and have some form of material achievement. So when they look out across the globe at their prospects, they select the Caucasian male for a reason I know a lot of brothers won’t like:
They Treat Women Better
Feminism hit the West hard! In fact my two cents on it is that in this day and age, as far as relationships are concerned, the power is imbalanced heavily in favour of women.
Men have been taught that women are divine creatures that should be pampered, wined, dined and consulted when making any major decisions.
Of course this isn’t universal, there have been some horror stories of abuse of all sorts, but enough men do this that it counts. Even when the man is simply after some sex from an African girl, he’ll take her to dinner and treat her like an absolute gentleman on the way to the bedrooom.
On the flip side, majority of African men wouldn’t know romance if it was King Kong on top of the highest building. And that’s for a good reason: Most African men don’t care. A lot of us still believe very strongly in tradtional roles, chauvinism and sadly far too many still believe that wife beater isn’t just an article of clothing.
And so they decide I’d rather my Pink-hued prince than my Cocoa-brown wife beater any day.
My Feelings On It
I could lie and say that I am fully in support of this form of interracial mingling and it makes me feel good and fuzzy inside when I see a good African woman with a great white man. I always just feel sad. I feel like we all landed on the island to fight a war together and we have lost another soldier.
Call me corny but I honestly believe that all of us Africans here are part of the same body with the same history and struggles and when one part of the body is lost, it saddens me.
Don’t expect me to join any groups against interracial love, but if you are going to bring me your brand new White husband, give me some time. I am not used to it quite yet.
If you want to join me in further exploration of African immigrant relationships, make sure you stay subscribed via either RSS or email.
If You Want Love, then Make it,
Mwangi
PS: What is with Asian women and white men? You would think one is Michael Jackson and the other a sequin glove…..can anyone explain this to me?
Poetry and open mic night
11:23
