Black girls....trapped in a box

SCENARIO:  Early Thursday morning. 8:30 am to be exact. I walked the streets of W. Wisconsin Ave. in Milwaukee. I felt pretty cute. Nice neutral eye. Cute black sweater. Fitted black dress pants. Brown heels and my signature brown bag cradled in the crook of my left arm. Starbuck's Tall Chai Latte secure in my right. I was headed to an interview. An interview that I felt I had in the bag. I was all smiles. I nodded a pleasant hello to various people walking my way. One young man in particular smiled my way and said, " Well good morning beautiful".  I looked up to find a short cropped, messy blond with a beautiful smile and teeth.  Was he cute? Gorgeous to be precise. Like David Beckham in a peacoat with a backpack. I smiled and thanked him. "My pleasure entirely sweetheart", he responded. We walked away slowly smiling. Well.....I'll be honest. I was Cheesing, but I did feel some kinda way. I combination of happy and weird. Weird because ummm he was white. And I don't mean that in the ewww he was white way, but the well that was different way. I had to stop and ask myself why is this weird to me? I see it everyday. My answer was: yes, just not really with black women.

R & B Artist Robin Thicke and wife Paula Patton

I have been guilty of being that woman. The one with the snide comments when I saw a black man with a white woman. (or woman of any race other than black). Somewhere down the line I stopped caring. I started seeing the situation for what it was. There is someone for everyone. Race shouldn't be the factor. However I wondered...what is stopping sistas from "venturing" out and seeing other men as love interests. I have always seen my life as one daydream or pleasant montage after another. I dreamed what my high school days would be like, what college would be like, how great my twenties would be. I have daydreamed everything down to my possible pregnancies. And I always viewed my wedding cake with two little brown faces on top of the cake. Why? I can't say. But that was always apart of the dream. I actually had a lot of crushes on white boys, but I always felt like my husband would use Dax and a wave brush. *Shrugs* Go figure. 

R & B Singer Heather Headley and husband former NY Jets player Brian Musso

As I get older I realize finding the right person has a lot less to do with color and far more to do with your heart. I rarely ever hear a black man say they won't date a white woman. Better yet I hear them give me a list of reasons why they would or why they feel like black women are now the obsolete option. I wont go into detail about that for a few reasons. 

• That ish is angering
• It's disrespectful
• And...it's neither here nor there, because we are not discussing exclusion we are talking about expanding options. 
• I'm not into making generalizations here.

Looking around I see a large portion of African-American men in prison, or have no act right, are married, with white women, are homosexual, or are in hiding where I just can't snatch them up. Because of this a lot of sistas seem to feel as if their pickings are slim. In some cases they are correct. So they choose to take sub-standard relationships in order to be with "the black man". I understand their train of thought, but sub-standard relationships never become what you want. They never flourish into the beautiful wedding and dreams you hoped. It just keeps dragging on into the land of sub-standard-dom. It's not my job to hold my brothers up. It's my job to live a happy, fulfilling, God- filled life with someone who loves me and understands me as much as I love and understand him.

South Park Co-Creator Matt Stone and his wife Angela

We seem to be so caught up in the specifics. Who cares if he's a chicken parmigiana guy and I'm a collard greens and cornbread girl. Those are all things that will work themselves out. The right guy will love me when the sink is filled with shedding remy weave anyway. In the year 2011 we are still trying to figure out one another when there isn't really much to learn. Everyone for the most part is the same. We all just have different life stories. 

Grey's Anatomy star Justin Chambers and wife, Keisha

So as of today I vow to keep my options open. I will be open to love from whatever tree it's leaves may fall from. Because the honest to God truth is on my wedding day it doesn't matter if the hand I'm holding is ivory and I'm staring into some piercing blue eyes, or he's a caramel brown brother with a beautiful dark brown pair. All that truly matters is the words, "I do". And the fact that he means them as much as I do.