[Anonymous]

I’ve just began a new relationship with a guy that I met on a dating website. He is white, and I am black. I’ve been in plenty of IR relationships before; and this is his first. On our dates and our phone calls, things had been wonderful; but this all changed when we took our first trip together last weekend. Since we’d began talking, we’d always made jokes about stereotypes that we’d heard about black and white people. No matter which of us made the comment, it would always be met with a laugh by the other. No hard feelings were ever had, because we both knew that we weren’t being serious and we don’t buy into the stereotypes. I am a fiesty, sarcastic person by nature, who happens to roll her eyes at just about anything. This particular moment, I rolled my eyes at a statement he made; and he claimed that I get mad about everything. I told him that I was not mad and that when I become mad he would know it. I then made a joke about him stereotyping me as the “angry black woman” that America believes us all to be. I don’t know if he had been holding in resentment towards black people or towards anyone; but he started going off about how he is sick of “you all” playing the victim and blaming white people for everything. He even went as far as to say that he’s standing up for all white people because they are the ones who have experienced more racism than any other group; because he knows he has experienced way more hate and ridiculousness than I ever have. Now, rather than behave intelligently (as I should have), I fed into his foolishness and argued with him about who has faced more prejudice. Eventually, when I snapped out of my foolish rant, I mentioned to him that I never blamed white people for anything or said anything about playing the victim. He continued on his rant, all while we were on the beach. Luckily, there wasn’t a bunch of people around to hear us arguing. Anyway, I tried to reason with him and tell him to stop because there was no need for us to ruin our vacation over something so stupid. He continued, and told me he would listen to what I have to say when I say something intelligent; until then he wasn’t listening. It was as if I was talking to a wall. We preceded back to the bed and breakfast I booked and sat silently for a long while. After the long period of silence, I told him we needed to talk and told him that I thought we were both wrong and that there was no need to try and measure who has experienced more discrimination; because both groups have to whatever degree. I even apologized and when I asked him to apologize later that night when we were going to bed; he said he was too tired to apologize and that he would in the morning. I said with the two seconds it took to say I’m too tired, he could’ve said it then. He finally did say it, but you could tell it was just to shut me up. My first thought was to break up with him immediately. Then, I decided to take some time and think about the right thing to do; because other than this incident, he had been a good guy. I didn’t want to throw away a good guy over one incident, but this incident is a big one. I figured that maybe we can make this work and just not make any racial jokes or mention any stereotypes again; but I don’t want to feel as if we have to walk on eggshells either. What should I do? Sorry for the long post. I wanted to give all details to get a less-biased response.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You didn’t mention how long you’ve known him, but it sounds like (at the risk of a bad pun) he showed you his true colors on this vacation. His comment about “you people” was pretty clearly an attempt at prejudice and racism, and his personal feelings about the discrimination of white people by blacks was not just a little “out there” — it was bad behavior.

My advice is that you can do better. I know you said he’s a good man, but I think your judgment is clouded. Prejudice and racism like any other form of discrimination aren’t part of the character of any good man — or woman.There are plenty of men who are white, black, and every color in between who are not prejudiced or racist, and who will treat you better than this one did.

Next!

I hope that helps, and that you’ll follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the wonderful advice. To answer your question about how long I’ve known him, not that long. And you are right about everything you said. I knew it, which is why I was continuing to question our relationship; even though we had made up. I guess I wanted to be in denial, because I didn’t want to have to get back out there in the dating pool, again. However, I would rather be a little lonely and alone; than unhappy and attached. Thanks, again.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Dating is hard work — but like anything process that requires hard work, the prize is worth the sweat equity! 😀 Use the lessons you learned in this experience to weed out people who aren’t appropriate [i]sooner[/i] next time. The more you do this, the better you’ll get at it — and trust your instincts, even if you have to dig to find them! 😉

[Member]

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