SFGate.com - City Brights blog
(picture from Ernie's Flickr)

Talk about segregation in the U.S. and for the most part, people agree that it is a shameful chapter of American history and not at all acceptable nowadays... unless you're talking about the bedroom. It seems that who you sleep with/marry/date might be the final frontier for racism.

While flipping through Essence magazine at Winifred's Hair Salon in the Fillmore, I notice the fashion spread is using "real sized" women which has me excited, but in the next article, Jill Scott blasts interracial dating and I am quickly deflated.(Read full article here)

I sigh, "I love so much about Essence, but whenever it comes to interracial dating, they make me feel uncomfortable. Like all those women who wrote to the editor, angry because Reggie Bush (who was dating Kim Kardashian at the time) was featured on the cover...."

My hairdresser gently says, "You mean all those women like me," and I pause.

Although Black hair salons have historically been a place to speak your mind, I might be hopelessly outnumbered on this topic. Statistics show that Black men are twice as likely than Black women to date outside their race and many Black women are unhappy about it. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 73% of Black/White marriages, the husband was Black.

There are a few Black women who are advocates of equal opportunity love, like Regina King who recently wrote an open letter to Vibe magazine urging Black women to date outside their race.(Read full letter here) However the old saying,"a good man is hard to find" might be particularly true for Black women. A popular online dating site, OK Cupid, reports that men, including Black men, "don't write Black women back," although Black women write back the most. (Read full report here)

Regina King happens to be starring in a movie about a Black man who marries a Chicana in Our Family Wedding. Perhaps Our Family Wedding is doing poorly at the box office partially because the subject alienated Black females, a critical demographic for a successful African-American romantic comedy. Guess Who? the slapstick comedy about a Black women/White man romance that featured Bernie Mac, Zoe Saldana and Ashton Kutcher back in 2005, grossed $20,671,446 in its first week alone claiming the #1 spot in the box office. In comparison, Our Family Wedding's total gross since its March 6, 2010 opening is only $19,917,812.

How do you feel about the opposite sex of your race dating someone else? In almost 3/4 of White/Asian marriages in the United States, the husband is White. As an Asian American man, do you feel hurt when you see an Asian American woman with a White man? As a Latina, do you consider a Filipina with a Latino an interracial romance? Are you a woman of Turkish descent who notes Dr. Mehmet Oz's wife with wryness?

I am happily married to a Jewish man of Ashkenazi descent and can honestly say that when I see a Black man walking down the street with a White woman I don't feel hurt or betrayed, I honestly don't really notice it at all.

My wise hairdresser cajolingly cross examines me, "When you first saw Michelle Obama you didn't feel anything?"

She has me pinned. I guess I did hold Barack Obama in a little higher esteem because his wife is so educated, successful, decorous and Black.