When I taught high school, I learned that people don’t mean what they say. As a general rule, we as a people say what we’re supposed to say. I say, “How are you?” You say, “Fine.”
As an adult, if you ask a high school student what they plan to do after college 98% of them will answer go to college. It doesn’t matter if the student never receives a passing grade, hates school, or can’t afford to go to college, they will always respond with college because it’s the right thing to say. Many times, people say things without thought or consideration. This led me to wonder if people mean it when they say I love myself. It’s not socially acceptable to say that you don’t love yourself or to lack confidence, so even if the latter is true, you never say it.
I recently had a conversation with a friend about interracial dating. In my mind the question posed was can you date outside of your race and still have pride and love for your own race? As a non-discriminatory dater who has dated outside of my race, I argued that it is very possible. I firmly believed this because I maintained my pride and love throughout my interracial relationship as I attended a historically black college. Then yesterday happened and questions arose.
Yesterday I saw a television show with a plus sized model. She said that she likes to date skinny or muscular men. This made me think about the actress/comedian Mo’Nique who has a clothing line named Big Beautiful and Loving It. It seems that in the current society your goal should not be self improvement, but self acceptance. Although I didn’t announce it, the first thought that ran through my mind was, if you love yourself so much why aren’t you attracted to people that are like you?
Usually when I think a thought like that, my mind reaches out for an analogy. Of course I quickly recognized that my latest thought countered my previous thought. As a black man who loves myself and has pride in who I am, why wouldn’t I date someone who is the same race as me? I still feel that my argument stands because I didn’t date outside of my race due to preference, but circumstance. However, I do recognize that there are many cases where this isn’t the case. The question then would be, can you truly love yourself and dislike those that are like you?
Socially, it is acceptable to date people that are not like you, but does that conflict with the ideals of self love. In college, I can recall several short girls telling me that they would never date a short guy. Their rationale was often because they didn’t want to have short children. Can you hate qualities that make you who you are and still love yourself?
Would it be okay to say, I only date white women because I don’t want to have black children, but then say I love myself?
