My mom, the late Pamela Catherine Moodie-Williams was born February 28, 1927 in Devon, Manchester, Jamaica, W.I. She was the second of three kids and like many Jamaicans, she was aware and informed as to what was going on, not only in Jamaica but the world at large.
For instance, she knew about the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted from December 1955 to December 1956 spearheaded by Ms Rosa Parks and she knew about the teachings of Dr Martin Luther King Jr who subsequently visited the island in the 60s.
With all that was going on in the US with racism being so prevalent, she knew that she wanted to have a dark skinned child. That was her way of “doing her part”.
My father Ewart Gladstone Williams (RIP) tall, dark and to her and the ladies of the town, handsome, was more than happy to oblige. You see he had always loved Black women, up until the time of his death in July 2009.
Now I see how times have changed. Not so much in Jamaica because the unofficial motto there is Black is Beautiful, but here in America where I have lived since 1988.
Here, diversity is preached non stop and to me it seems as if Black men are using this argument to date, marry and have children with white women. The “forbidden fruit” so to speak.
Times have changed. Blacks are more successful now than before. We have more freedom to do what we want, to choose who we want and in still a FEW cases, to live where we want. So with that the men tend to choose light, bright and lily white.
Statistics show that in 2017, 409,000 Black men had white spouses, compared to 172,000 Black women. * The Pew Research Center released a report finding that 25 percent of Black male newlyweds in 2013 married non Black women compared to 12 percent of Black women.
I asked a few African-Americans what they thought was the reason for this phenomenon. Kelli, a 21 year old, said she didn’t like the way how Black men talked down to Black women and she found that to be disrespectful. Jay a 25 year old said that unfortunately Black women were thought of to be too loud and rowdy where as white women were considered to be more submissive and willing to please. He said that he himself was six weeks into dating a Hispanic woman and so far it’s been smooth sailing. Finally Kennesha a 21 year old also didn’t feel that Black men appreciated Black women enough and that Black women on the other hand, seem to be looking for someone who was established and making good money, and they could only find that in a white man. She called for more team work and unity between Black men and women.
I remember talking to a white lady when I was living in Florida and she was lamenting the fact that her daughter who had blond hair and blue eyes had done gone and married a Haitian and to her, the children were not pretty at all which I found to be very ironic because some, not all, Blacks marry white because they want to have “pretty” children.
I also notice that in many cases here in the US, when a Black Man becomes successful, he’d dump the Black wife or girlfriend for a white woman. And the sistas are following suit. Some are marrying white men who are not half as successful as they are. All in the name of diversity.
As Blacks we need to start appreciating ourselves more. Let us not use diversity as an excuse to make ourselves extinct.
*The US Census Bureau
Dorrette G. Young