"Quincy Jones couldn't find just one black woman good enough to marry and bear his children," I wondered out loud while flipping through the pages of his autobiography. He said, "I do" to three white women to formalize a legitimate, committed relationship in the eyes of society. He implied to these women, "You are not just some woman whom I share a bed with when it's convenient. You're a co-partner of my dreams and all that I aim to be." What is missing in the black woman that prevents Quincy Jones from inviting her into his sacred space of matrimony? "What's wrong with us?" I tearfully asked myself.
Maybe Quincy Jones needed somebody to see him as he saw him self, long before there was tangible proof that he would be the revered musician he is today. He was raised in a society that saw him as a black man with boundaries and limitations. I think the average black woman would have been worried about the rent and the baby needing shoes. His role as provider would have taken precedence over some dream to play musical instruments in smoky, dark rooms late at night with beautiful free women; most of us, black women, would have wanted him to get a "real job."
When the wounded souls and broken spirits of black males and females come together, sometimes the union is filled with the heavy baggage of oppression and disappointment; leaving either party with little to give to the other. Because of the emotional, financial and social pressures of today, some blacks are not able or psychologically prepared to give each other the soul food that is needed to nourish our dreams of tomorrow.
I think it's less painful for us as black women to believe that black men desire white women because her hair blows in the wind and her eyes are sparkling blue. We want to believe this because we don't have to look within our own souls for answers that may be painful. We would then have to question our role as "superwoman" and self-righteous, martyrs. We don't want to believe that maybe it's not the stereotypes that we hear about white women being docile and sexually uninhibited. We chant to ourselves how we pay the bills, wash his clothes and cook his dinner, but when he steps out of line we are there with a tongue-lashing to make sure that he recognizes and appreciates our hard work.
As a black women, I wonder if sometimes we are too bitter when sweetness is in order; too stern when being laid-back would suffice and too hard when softness could do it so much better. Maybe it is impossible for us to give our men, what we are seeking to obtain for ourselves. Maybe it's difficult to trust with shattered faith, love unconditionally with a bruised heart and support someone else's dream with a broken spirit. Because the typical American white woman's past did not contain the same type of pain as the American black woman, her vision of the black man is not blurred with criticisms and expectations.
I don't believe that black men date white women because they are American symbols of beauty and feminism. I believe that in Quincy Jones' case he married, not white women, but women who could look within his heart and validate his highest image of himself. Maybe she was able to remind him that despite racial barriers in American society, her love is living proof that his soul is free to be whom and whatever he wants to be.
Cassandra George Sturges Psy.D is a mother of two teenagers, a full-time psychology instructor, advice columnists for Today's Black Woman Magazine, workshop presenter, and publisher of Authentik Beauty Magazine.
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