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Just a Trendy Term My Brick Once Stolen: How My
Black Love Is More Than Just a Trendy Term
By Denise Kyeremeh
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I must admit that when I heard that there was an annual national Black Love Day on February 13, I chuckled. I tend to think of ‘Black love’ as a corny phrase that people use when they see a cute Black couple. The most accurate dictionary on the internet, Urban Dictionary, describes Black love as, “a spiritual journey that only people who are rich in melanin can experience.”
Although it has always naturally existed as a phenomenon, the phrase ‘Black love’ has never seemed more popular. The increased popularity of the term ‘Black love’ emphasizes the impact of interracial love on Black culture. Compared to other racial groups, the percent of Black people with spouses of a different race grew the most between 1980 and 2015. According to the Pew Research Center, around 5%
of Black people had spouses of different races in 1980, and in 2015 it had risen to 18%.
The signi cance of these relationships extends beyond survey results. Interracial relationships can be a divisive topic in the Black community. According to sociologist Rachel Sullivan, opposition to interracial relationships has ties to the Black Power movement when these relationships were seen as “not helpful to the struggle.” Different elements to this opposition include the historical danger of interracial relationships, the idea that people in those relationships pursue them out of self-degradation and self-centeredness, and the belief that interracial relationships uplift and give back to the Black community (Sullivan, 2005, as cited in Romano, 2003). These sentiments that are rooted in history still have implications on the Black community including the topic of loyalty.Some people may hesitate to enter an interracial relationship for fear of being viewed as being disloyal to their community. If a person chooses to be in an interracial relationship, it may be viewed as their removal from the community (Chito Childs, 2005). This may signal that the person is not invested in building up the Black community or concerning themselves with issues relating to the Black community. While this is not true of everyone who enters an interracial relationship,this notion is perpetrated by members of the community who reject the Black community.
There are people who reject the Black community by diminishing the beauty that exists within it. This is not an issue caused by interracial relationships, but it is a highly gendered matter that causes hostility between Black men and Black women. According to the Pew Research Center, Black men are twice as likely to marry a person of a different race than Black women. Black Twitter alone is littered with ignorant tweets that disparage Black women and replies that call out self-hate. Black women already have to live in a society that denies their femininity and beauty. It may feel like Black men should be the demographic who should love, accept, af rm them but when Black men choose to only date outside of their race or perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Black women, it creates discord in the community.
Many Black people care deeply about Black love because they are products of centuries of it, and they have a desire to continue the tradition in their own families. Others feel safe when their partner can sympathize with the social and cultural implications of their own racial identities. One thing that has always made the Black community strong is the ability to lean on one another for support in the face of oppression and hardship.
Black love has always been a symbol of de ance. Even when enslaved people could not legally marry, they celebrated love and created families. We still see this as Black love challenges stereotypes of abandonment and dysfunction that are associated with ‘Black families. Black love shows that the stories of abandonment and dysfunction within Black families are not representative of the entire community by highlighting the different ways that Black people live and love each other.
Representations of Black love are essential because they display the joy, positivity, and normalcy that exist in Black families and relationships. Whether centering Black fathers’ love for their daughters or the love in Black friendships, portrayals of Black love are an assertion of Black humanity. These are especially important in a world that constantly tries to take that away from Black people. There is far too much imagery of Black people as societal dangers or as people who struggle to love others. Although Black love does exist in the struggle of enduring pain and ghting for joy, it is only as a response to the trauma that Black people experience regularly. Black love is as much in the eyes of mothers who seek justice for their sons who were killed too young as it is in the eyes of fathers who kiss their children on their foreheads for the rst time.
