Not Down With the Brown

NOT DOWN WITH THE BROWN

There were definitely close encounters, but nothing ever came to fruition.   My friends and I couldn’t understand this.  We were beautiful educated fashionable girls, these were young male musicians.  Doesn’t that automatically equate with a hookup?  My friend Taschka and I would dissect this inconsistency, because things just didn’t add up.  Could it be they were just not into ethnic girls? 

We began breaking down the evidence.  These included the following questions: Who did these guys previously date?  If they once dated someone brown, they would be more likely again to  be open to eyeing you as a viable option.  Who was in their circle of friends?  Who were their celebrity crushes?  Was it someone who was truly ethnic, or the whitest ethnic girl out there that everyone loved, who was passable and acceptable?  What types of girls were in their music videos?  Who were their musical influences?  Were they strictly into hard core classic rock and roll bands like Led Zepplin or would they sample from Michael Jackson?  What part of the country were they from, and what was the white to ethnic ratio in that town?  How would dating an ethnic girl impact their reputation?  Would it be scandalous if they were photographed by paparazzi with a brown girl?  When meeting them, was there any flirtation or was it simply cordial thank you from an artist to a fan?  Could they dance with real rhythm? Were they themselves some type of ethnic minority? 

It was relieving to have this conversation aloud.  For many years I thought this, but never had the courage to say it.   If it was mentioned to white friends, the topic was minimized.  “What are you talking about?  You’re beautiful, your race doesn’t matter.”  At times in Ohio, I would talk with my longtime friend Lisa who was full Filipino and we may joke about it, but there were so few minorities in our town.  We viewed ourselves in Ohio as these rare find commodities, such as vintage classic cars.  Nobody owns them, they’re just on display to oohh and ahh at because they’re unique.  Using humor about our brown pride was easier than actually taking in the fact that people may not be interested us because of our race.

My mom, who was full Filipino, mentioned that when she dated my Caucasian dad in Ohio during the late 70’s, he refused to hold her hand in public because of their racial differences.  He feared being ridiculed, and that took priority over my mom’s potential need for affection.  I was surprised this wasn’t a larger issue in the home, as they were still married at the time.  But this was reality and normality for many interracial couples.  Prior to the 1950s interracial dating was illegal in many states in America.  This wasn’t so long ago. I still felt racial tension and a sense of not being fully accepted by my paternal grandmother who lived in small town Pennsylvania.  Growing up in Ohio, why wasn’t this more in the forefront of my upbringing?  

But now that I was in Los Angeles, I was having this conversation with a friend who thought the same way but was from another race.  Many of my friends in Los Angeles were ethnic minorities and we would have group discussions about this.  We may daydream of these white boys, but in reality did we even stand a chance?  Making them like us was out of the question.  All we could do was study why they may not be physically attracted to us or never allow themselves to even think of dating us. 

I was already doing a doctoral project on the multiracial identification process.  This type of conversation was in some ways an extension of this.   Acceptance of interracial dating, led to interracial marriage, and multiracial babies.  It was all connected. 

I remember my Greek/Cyrean friend Michelle tried to get me to be part of the tv show Blind Date.  This show was on from the late 1990’s to mid 2000’s.  I believe it was based out of Burbank, and my friend who dragged me to the casting call was living in Burbank at the time.  It was not to be one of the main people who chose a date, but so you could be part of the Blind Date’s database system.  I had gone in one day, with a small line of other young men and women, whose faces would grace the selection process.  The normal questions were asked: age, profession, city you were raised in.  Then the kicker question came in, what races would you be open to dating? I admitted to being flexible, and I know for a fact Michelle had said the same thing.  She definitely did not discriminate, and actually preferred chocolate men. Almost everyone else present in the room on that day, solely said Caucasian. 

Remind you, I was in the room, and I definitely wasn’t pure white.  People didn’t care, if they were going to be on a dating show, they wanted to ensure they would be paired with someone they could be attracted to, and this was another white person.  I believe Michelle was called to do the show, but chose to not follow up as she didn’t want her personal life displayed on tv for the world to see, even if it was only for one episode.  I was never called to be anyone’s date on the show, probably because I didn’t fit their criteria.  I was on the path to getting my doctorate by the age I turned 25, but there was something I couldn’t change no matter how educated I was, how much money I made, or how beautiful and thin I was.  I was not white.  I didn’t follow the conversation up with Michelle, as I didn’t think she would understand.  She was white and never experienced this type of dating discrimination, and she was romantically open minded. 

I did bring the recent casting call up to my ethnic friends, and we further used the topic of white hot male celebrities as our main topic, but this later catapulted to other normal hot white guys.  Some of my friends who grew up in Los Angeles felt a strong attraction to white guys, but felt this would never be realized because they were either a mixture of African American, Asian, or Latin.  My friend Jennie, who is Korean, took the topic further saying “White guys don’t like me because I look too FOB.  And I don’t have white girlfriends.  White people just don’t like me.”   

Although having these conversations felt validating, it was sad.  How could we be young beautiful women and have such insecurities?  But in truth, there could be reality to this.  And it was out of our control.  The only thing we could control was our potential knowledge and dissection of the topic as it pertained to each individual crush.  Having this in depth discussion and exploration of race in America further solidified our bond.

One thing that’s amazing about living in cities like Los Angeles or New York, is the top 100 beautiful men that People names you could run into at your local coffee shop.  Where many women throughout America, only drool and dream at this opportunity, we can actually have this happen.  The downfall to this, is that after you have so many runins with a crush, it becomes evident that this will always be an unrequited love.  The fantasy you have is murdered, by the fact that they never flirted with you.  I used to think, if I only met this person, they would fall head over heels in love with me and entranced by my charm.  But that never did occur.   Hence crushes on celebs begin to diminish. 

This became our deductive conclusion for all celebrities we may have run ins with, Maroon 5, Phantom Planet, Tony Lucca, John Mayer, and the boys from N Sync.  We were beautiful amazing women, who happened to be ethnic.  If they couldn’t see that, they must only be into white girls.  Disregard the fact that these guys maybe were in committed relationships, or weren’t our stereotypical male whores, or just weren’t into us.  No they just weren’t into ethnic girls.

Shortly after my LA years, the book “He’s just not that into you” came out.  It was meant to contain hilarious dating advice written by a white male.  One topic this book and many other dating books fail to include was the topic of race.  My friends and I commonly used this phrase, but tweaked it “he’s just not into ethnic girls.” Plain and simple.   Similar to the book, if he’s not into you why waste your time feigning over a man that lacks interest, admit defeat, and move on.  Don’t waste your time and heart for a battle that never will be won.  Same is true if “he’s just not into ethnic girls,” don’t try to convert him to be down with the brown.  Wasted energy and heartache.  If he’s not even open to getting your phone number, he will never take you home to meet his WASP family.  Refocus everything on someone who genuinely be into you and the color of your skin.   

I ensured later the men I dated felt appreciation for me and my skin.  There would be days where I felt like an outcast, and the only brown girl around.  One guy in particular who was an artist in Venice, tried to have me fully embrace by ethnicity.  Comparing my skin color to a beautiful tube of paint, one that he would opt to frequently select in painting a canvas.  As women, we want to be muses for artists, not running for political office trying to encourage our voters to vote for brown.  This should be instinctually celebrated versus a hump to overcome.  When selecting our crushes, choose solely those that are already down with the brown.