Black Women Are Enough w/ Sarah Adeyinka-Skold

Cock Show. On today's episode, we're talking about the challenges that college educated women of color experience dating in the digital age. Now, many years ago, I was on this website called Plenty of Fish and I got a message from a man. I went to his profile and was shocked. He said on his profile really disparaging things about why he would never date black and Latino women, just things that were so horrible and so stereotypical. I just can't even bring myself to repeat them here today. And so

I was just like, why would this man write me? So, in the spirit of research, I wrote him back and I said, I read your profile. I'm obviously a black woman, Why would you even, you know, write me and expressed interest in dating me. And what he said was, Oh, I can date you because you're light skinned. And then he said and I've always been curious about trans women, and so I just kind of remember sitting there and just sort of being like, Wow, this is this is

really deep. And then I blocked him and I never had any communication with him again after that. But over the years, I've heard from so many black women, both trans and non trans, who have expressed frustration dating and attempting to date in the face of this kind of stereotyping, blamed racism, colorism, misogyny, and treating trans women as experiments

and curiosities. When I came across Dr Sarah adayinka Schools research on dating in the Digital Age with the focus on college educated women of color, I knew I wanted to have this conversation with her. Dr Sarah is a licensed clinical social worker and assistant Professor of sociology at firm And University. She explores race, family, and gender in her research, with a focused interest in how forming intimate romantic relationships reveal inequalities in these areas. Please enjoy my

talk with Dr Sarah. Hi, Dr Sarah. How are you feeling today? Good? Miss Cox? How are you doing? I'm well, you can call me the Burn, all right. I just wanted to make sure, yes, my mother is Miss Cox. Okay. Can you talk to us just about the nature of your research and what what really inspired this look into the challenges that college educated women of color experience and dating. What was the beginning the nexus of genesis? I should say,

of you doing this, that's a great question soul. For me, I've always been a little bit of a mushy romantic. I love ear hustling about how people fall in love. I'm all about that. And when I was in high school, I was like, Okay, so I'm gonna go to college and I'm gonna get married. It's gonna be lick yea. And I went to call ligiend that is not what happened. In fact, what I was noticing already was that my white college age friends were already partnering and my black

female friends were not. We weren't getting together. And I don't think that it was people weren't hooking up with us, but there was definitely this field that we were going to have to wait to find our partners, whereas a lot of the white folks that I knew were like in serious relationships at college. So my junior paper, where

did you go to school? Where did you do your undergraduate I went to Princeton University, and so I took a class with Mario Small, who I think is now at Harvard, and sort of everything became clear for me, my own understanding. I took a sociology class there, my own understanding of being a black woman, and things that hadn't made made sense to me started to make sense. And so, you know, as someone who's interested in meeting and meeting already, I was like, well, I gotta figure

out what's going on, Like why aren't I dating? Why aren't my friend MS dating? Like what's going on? So my junior paper looked at how black women do marry, but they tend to marry down. I wrote a senior thesis that looked at how institutions like schools are actually matchmakers and we don't often think of them as matchmakers, as schools can be mechanisms to facilitate homogamy, which is where people get married along the same class, educational racial lines.

But if you meet at work, for instance, you might be less likely to marry someone that is the same as you in terms of class, in terms of in terms of class, education, race, but that might be changing now because work can be so um specific. So I wrote a paper on that. I stopped there, and then my advisor was like, you gotta go to graduate school because maybe this is an important thing to study. And

I was like, oh, I don't want to go. And I had told myself that, um, if I was still interested in this in five years, I would I would go to graduate school. So I read a book by Richard Banks called His Marriage for for White People, and the book pissed me off enough to be like, okay, when we need to go to graduate school. Why did the book piss you off? What was the press of the book that pissed you off? The title is interesting. His assumption was that black women simply were not open

to dating outside of their race. They were just closed off. And so I was like, that's not correct. I've been trying to day outside of my race. The wacky things that I've been seeing online, the ways in which people approach me was just incorrect. And I was like, this can't stand. I really need to go research this myself.

And then you know, as you're getting into your mid twenties, you're having these conversations with your non black friends and your black friends, and you're starting to see, what our experiences aren't that similar. They're similar in some ways, but they're not similar in other ways. And so that basically lit a fire under me, and I was like, I'm going to get my PhD. And this is what I'm

going to study. And for me, um, the comparisons are really key, right, I really want to talk to black women, but I think the uniqueness of Black women's experiences they really come into relief when you compare them to non black women's experiences. And that's what made me do the work that I'm doing. Girl, There's so many things that you said there that I just I want to unpack

on so many different levels. The first one, you just sort of alluded to marrying down, and if you just go online, if you go to YouTube, there's so many conversations about like hypergamy and black women and like marrying up and what does that look like? And and then the interracial dating piece. There's so we black women. I saw one study that suggested that black women are less likely than black men to date outside of the race. That we are more statistically more likely to pursue relationships

with black men, and black men are with us. Right, So where do we where do we even begin with this? Let me give me We can start with the data about black women being less likely to date and marry interracially. We do see that in census data UM two thousand. Intend we see the data that black men are actually twice as likely to marry interracially as black women. But I don't think this is solely an issue of preference. I think in our world today, we really you know,

we have this rugged individualism. We tend to live in this pretend world where like the way that the US was set up to make black people three fifths of our human and then to put them at the bottom of the hierarchy doesn't at all impact our preferences. That doesn't make any sense. So we have to recognize that our preferences are within a particular kind of racial and gender order, and they're influenced by that order. For a long time, sexual abuses that black women experience at the

hands of white men didn't count as illegal. You can't just ignore history and then pretend that black women are just gonna grow up in a vacuum where now it's just fine to date white or non black men and they have to be careful. We're seeing this even in our time now, like people are very bold about their hate and their dislike for black women. You don't have to look for Kamala Harris. So when black women in

my opinion, and I see this in my data. So this isn't in my dissertation, it's in a forthcoming book I'm called the Logic of Racial Practice. In my experience, black women don't want to date black men just because it feels good. It's about racial solidarity. How are you going to go through a life where you're constantly struggling and the person is like, maybe that's racial discrimination, maybe

it's not. You don't want that right. So, as this, as white supremacy bears down more and more and more on black women's lives, black women are trying to advance. We are one of the most highly educated populations in the US, but our college degrees, our post college graduate degrees are not getting us the same things that it is for non black women. So if we want to date black men, is because love is intimate. We want

people to understand us and understand that struggle. And I haven't talked to black men, so I don't know what their reasons are for dating white women. I can't speak to that. But for black women, it's a little less than just like, well, I just want someone that's the same race as me. That race has history behind it, It has struggled behind it, it has resilience behind it. And in a world like ours, where your blackness is,

people seek to trample upon it. They're saying, we want to count all legal vote, but your vote is illegal, right you? You want to be with someone that is going to get that. The immediate thing that I think about when I listened to you talk, it's trauma that that did. The trauma. The history of the ways in which black womanhood has been devalued in this country is deeply traumatizing. I think about my mother and how my mother there's no way she would ever date a white

man that she grew up in the segregated South. I remember we were in it was twenty twelves. It was eight years ago. We were in Vegas and she had just retired and we were both in Vegas, for the first time, and she was supposed to meet me by

the pool. Um. We were staying at the Mirage and I went for a dip in the pool and get out of the pool, and I have like ten messages from my mother, and I listened to the first and she's freaking out and she's like, you've got me about here around all these white people, she said to me. And I just founder and we sat down and I said, are you afraid of white people? People? And she was just so sort of riled up and it didn't clicked him.

And I was like, oh my god. And this is eight years ago, so I'm like forty years old, and I was like, oh my god. She grew up in the segregated South, watched her father be called the N word, was in segregated schools, and invested um desegregated schools, and experienced to all that there was so much strong. She was passed over for a promotion in the eighties for a white woman who didn't have the same education, And

so I think it's our experience. But then I also know that trauma has passed down in our genes and in our d n A, and so I think about that level of trauma as I listened to what you just said. But then I think about two. How so many black men, particularly black celebrities, rappers, et cetera, have no problem expressing their disdain from black women right and their desire not to date black women, or that that

black women must be light skinned. So the colorism, and I think when we have this conversation, it has to be we have to sort of talk about colorism, and we have to talk about the ways in which certain scan tones are privileged in the in the dating market.

What would you say to that? So I would say that just based on the work that I've done, I think it's important to think about hegemonic masculinity and when we think about the intersection of race and gender for black men, So in our world, patriarchy, masculinity, hegemonic masculinity are very powerful ideologies. You know, when you read the New York Times and people are asking, well, why did Latino men vote for Trump? Why did Black men vote for Trump? A lot of the answer is will they

really see him as a macho man? So what happens I think, you know, based on my limited experience, is that for black men, part of defining that masculinity is putting that above racial solidarity right by showing I am a man and because of white supremacy. One way I can do that is by devaluing black women. I'm seen as more valuable in the realm of white supremacy, in the world of white supremacy, if I'm able to join along with others to devalue black women who are at

the bottom of their racial hierarchy. So I think that whether or not black men realize it, they're literally part of that process of maintaining and perpetuating white supremacy by devaluing black women, and oftentimes they don't understand that. And so again with white supremacy, skin tone always matters. So if my goal is a black man is to get closer to whiteness, to get closer to white masculinity, of course I'm going to date a lighter skin black woman

because all of it matters. Phenotype matters, skin color matters, what her nose look like. All that matters in terms of maintaining my place as a man and a black man within this racial harchy and within this context, the white supremacy. So that's how I, as a sociologists understand those actions. What this is such a complicated thing to

talk about. I think too, because the question that comes up for me is like, well, if we just have our preferences, right, Like I just I am more attracted to someone who's lighter skin and that's like, not racism, It's just my preference. And a lot of people listening to this will say that, what would you say to the folks out there who are like, well, I just have a preference and it's it's not necessarily racist or misogynist or colorist. I just like what I like. I

would say say to them, You're not alone. That's a totally valid perspective to have. I'm all about interrogation. Why do you like what you like? Where does that come from? When did you start liking it? What does it mean for you to like it? And I'm not just talking objectively. I'm married to a white man, so I had to do that work for myself of like, well, what does it mean to be attracted to white men? What does it mean for a black woman to hold up whiteness?

What kind of life do I want to have with a white man? Why does it matter if I'm not or am I am married to a white man, so I had to do that work for myself, and frankly, what I found for myself is if I'm going to be with a white man, he better bring me closer and closer and closer and closer to pro blackness. His treatment of me better upgrade my humanity all the time. So I think it's fine to have preferences, but just

recognize that they don't exist in a vacuum. So interrogate, do the work, reflect on where those are coming from

and why they are important to you. I think that the thing too, it's like, if we do have our preferences, then they have those preferences, should not dinnigrade women with I remember there was I think famous singer or a rapper or something who had a song about, you know, women with their good hair or something like that, and and people like this is colorist, this is upsetting, and so that that even if we have our preferences, that we're not in the process of denegrating people who don't

fall into their preferences right exactly. And that's where the self reflection comes from, because what you might actually find is if you're a non white person, is that you actually might have some internalized racism that you haven't dealt with. You might find that you have some internalized colorism that

you haven't dealt with. So some of my respondents they were in this situation where they were always attracted to white men, and then one woman said that she went on a fast where she started to de colonize her her preferences. She's like, why am I attracted to this white guy, this mediocre white guy, when they're these black men over here, these Asian men over here that are

meeting the same criteria. She started to do that work of reflecting on those preferences, and so you might surprise yourself. You might actually realize, wow, I'm holding onto these things because the media's influenced me. How people define beauty has influenced me. So that's why people don't want to do the work, because they might be afraid to like go or something. They might have to realize that, actually, I

don't think all people are the same. And so when you do that work, though, then you can really start to appreciate the humanity and other people. So you can still have your preferences, but not at the expense of

denigrating other people. Yeah, I think it always comes down to a critical, loving, critical self reflection when it comes to all of these things that like, at the end of the day, it's like not about looking at other people and what their issues are, but like, how am I implicated in perpetuating or creating a racism, misogyny, colorism, et cetera. How am I participate eating and creating something

new and starting new and different kinds of conversations. This is a good time to take a little break and we'll be right back though after a little love is thrown to our sponsors. Alrighty, now that's all taken care of, Let's get back to our chat. My ex boyfriend was white and we you know, posted on social media, and I remember with the first few times we posted, there were so many people who were frustrated and upset that

I was dating a white man. And someone said, you know, why do all the lgbt Q celebrities when they get famous, they find a white man? And there was just like a lot of people were very very upset that my boyfriend was white, and it was just kind of I was like, most of the men I've dated are white men, and you know, and it's something I've thought a lot about and is something I've interrogated and but it's also about who is of any race right is going to treat me in the way that I feel I deserved

to be treated and I should be treated. And so, you know, I happen to fall in love with a white man who treated me really well, and so I think a lot of it is about our options and being open. You know, I think there's a there's a piece of trauma though. I think I think for a lot of black women, there's trauma around having been treated it's purely dark skinned black women having been treated so

badly over and over again. As I was preparing for this, I read so many accounts from dark skinned black women who just have been made to feel like they are just less than nothing by men, over and over and over again. And I think about, how how do we actually go into healthy relationships right where we can let

don't bring that baggage into it. And what have you found in your research around the healing process that has to happen from all the wounds of of the intersections of misogyny and colorism and racism for the folks that you've interviewed. Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things that I found in my UM work is that women, regardless of what race they are, they often experience negative interactions with men, both on and offline when

they're in their romantic partner search. And there are two ways in which women will often deal with these negative interactions, and one of them is emotion work, which is where they prioritize men's feelings. So if men are intimidated by their accomplishments, or men are intimidated by their educational level, those sort of downplay. As part of this emotion work, they'll ask the man a lot of questions about what

he's doing, have done that, Yeah, um. One of one of my respondents talked about how they were going to be lawyers. She has a PhD in sociology. One of her friends was going to be a PR person in l A and they these men came up to them and they told them exactly what they were going to do, and the men, she said, they shrank. So she turned to her friends and she was like, we need to tell people that were nannies or else we're never gonna get laid. So that's priority. It's one of my favorite quotes.

So that's prioritization of men's feelings around their accomplishments. But the other kind of coping mechanism that women did was emotion and repair, which is where they prioritized their feelings. Right. They weren't going to talk to any men that were showing any hints of intimidation. They weren't going to talk to any men who called them bitches online. They weren't going to talk to any men who used criticized daization

as a way to include them as romantic partners. It definitely shrank or pool, but you know what, they felt empowered. So I would say to black women, especially, take care of yourself. This world that we're in is not about you. I know that sounds terrible to say, but take care of yourself. Surround yourself with people who know your worth and who know your value, and this is an ongoing process. As a social worker, I'm all about therapy, even better if you do it with a black person that maybe

even understands where you're coming from. But like, trauma really needs you to air it out. It needs to be out in the open. You need to let someone carry that burden with you, because trauma will tell you that you're not enough. Trauma will tell you that you're less than. So you already have the value. You're already worth something.

People can't take that away from you. So the work is in you finding it and stepping into it and daily and again, this is not like a magical thing, like you're not gonna wake up one they and be like, oh my god, I feel totally fulfilled enough and love. It's going to be a constant thing because of the world that we live in, in in the American society that we live in. So black women, you are already enough. There's no here there about it. There's no discovering it.

It's just walking up and waking into it and living it out. That's what that's about. That's so beautiful. One of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you is that the ways in which so many men online have, the way they treat us, the way they the stereotypes they have, the ways in which they approach us, that is stuff that is systemic. That is something that is not it's not our fault. It's not something that we

need to sort of blame ourselves for. And I think it's really really important that we understand that's a lot of these things are systemic. There's an element to this. There's so many elements to this. But see the thing about being intimidating. Many years ago, one of my first interactions with men I was after I transitioned or I don't even know if I had officially medically transitioned, but a man with told me I was intimidating, right, And I just sort of assumed that for whatever reason I'm

men find me intimidating. And this was like, you know, before I, you know, had any sort of success or whatnot. And so when I tried to understand and parse out what that means, right, and some men like being intimidated by me. They saw me as a challenge and they were like it was hot for them that I was intimidating for some reason. And other men have coward and

like sort of run away. And this has nothing to do with me even being trans. These are men who are who are attracted to me and knew I was trans, And so it's but then I here accounts from black women, women of color who were not trans, or women who of all races who were very successful, and they um here that they're intimidating, and so I I talk out with my girlfriends about how much work we've all done on our Most of my girlfriends are really my super

close girlfriends. The cow Council of Transistors we call call herself the cops. Um. We do so much work on ourselves, trying to evolve and be better versions of ourselves and to go out into the world with a sense of worthiness. And it's rare that we meet men who seem to be doing the same work. You know, they say that there woke and they're feminist and there whatever, but then

their practices don't really bear it out. Um. I think I've told this story on this podcast before, but I had a man many years ago tell me that he, you know, he was a feminist and he loved women

and wanted to empower, you know, empower women. But then when it came down to his penis working and him becoming sexually aroused, the woman had to make less money than him, She had to even be less attractive as woke as he wanted to be an amazing he really was an amazing, awesome guy, but like he literally they could not physically get there for a woman who was more successful. And so this is what we're up against. Yea, so I think that, Like, I'm not in the business

of demonizing anyone. So what do we what is the prescription?

What do we do? I mean, you know, if this is the world we live in, it's it's really fascinating because I haven't done this work, but I think it'd be really interesting to think about the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity and the eroticism, how eroticism gets even constructed or manifested in our bodies, and men's bodies specifically, because basically, what he's trying to tell you is that even though his mind has advanced beyond what he thinks are appropriate

performances of men and women to be doing, his penis has not. So there's something about in sociology, they're famous people were written about this, about the performance of gender, about the performance of femininity and masculinity, and when you

perform it so long. So what you're really talking about is like this deep embodiment of masculine performance and a belief and a deep embodiment in what feminine performance is, and then literally being unable to get aroused because your penis does not believe and cannot get past the fact that this woman is performing femininity in a way that doesn't fit these ideals of gender norms. I'm literally stuck

in hegemonic masculinity. I'm literally stuck in a place where I can't get up because a woman is not performing femininity in the traditional ways. So I think that says something about how deep patriarchy, misogyny, hegemonic masculinity. We see them as structures, but it's literally playing out on his body. And I think that that's powerful and real for a lot of people, but maybe they haven't had even the language to be able to talk about it in the

way that he has. Wow, that is so incredibly deep, But I feel like that leaves us in a very precarious position for a lot of women who date men. Something that came up with you, just what you just said, is that historically, right, the ways in which patriarchy has sort of um and and racism has intersected in the lives and bodies of black women, is that like womanhood with something historically that was really preserved for white women.

When sojournal true declared and a woman in one in Ohio, she said this in the context of her blackness being disavowed because she wasn't a man in her womanhood being disavowed because she was not a white woman, and so that history sort of persists. You know, Black women have often had their femininity sort of stripped from them by misogyny and white supremacy and these assumptions that black women

are less womanly and less feminine. Well, I really think it's back to back to what you said about structure, and in sociology, we're always battling between how much does the structure constrain our agency and how much agency do we have. You are example of doing that work and continue to do that work. I'm just talking about hetero sexual women. I cannot imagine the barriers that trans women

are going through as they're searching for partners. It is immense, Right, Intersectionality is gonna tell us that they're going to have a lot more troubles than we are, both structural and agentic. Right, But the thing is, like, you can't give up. You have the cots. They are helpful to you, They help you to live, they help you to serve vibe. So the world isn't going to change that fast, but as much as we can, we're responsible for how we react

to that. And how we walk in it. This connection between sociology and social work is really important because sociology says, this is the structure, and this is how the structure constrains your agency, and then social work says, but let's work together to empower that agency. And part of that is recognizing that there's a structure that you can't deal with, but there's all these other parts of your life that

you can deal with. So I honestly would say that to the man that said his penis can't do it, well, maybe there needs to be some work done there. Right, you can't solve that problem. No woman can solve that problem. And that's not her problem to solve. That's his work to do. So let's leave men to do their work. So we, all of us, white women, black women, we need to call it out every time the structure lets men off the hook and puts more bird in on us.

The reason we are where we are is because black women sojourn or truth men like women like her, They called it out every single time, and they did what they could to make sure that it didn't go on. So that's part of the work too. It's not just this personal journey, you know, to who much is is given. Um, you're just held more accountable. So as an upwardly mobile black women, it's my job to call out patriarchy. It's my job to call out racism, and then to act

in ways that resist that. So that's what I see that we can do. We can't just let the structure overtake our agency. If we have the means to advocate for people, we need to do that too. M Hm. I feel like there's a crisis that men um, I say, heterosexual man specifically sis gender heaterosexual man, let's qualify that are having a crisis that they're having around women's roles

shifting in society. And I I guess there's this promise right from of all races if I am a man, that I should be their breadwinner and I should make more money, and I should do this and this and this and this, and then the culture right that the structure actually of society isn't set up for all men to be able to do that. And so it's it's like we've been lied to, we've been betrayed, and there's this frustration, and a lot of times that frustration taken

out on women. UM, LGBTQ people, immigrants, people of color. There is this set of assumptions and stories that that that men have been told about themselves and if their lives, yes, their lies. I see all this pain and trauma around these sort of expectations around patriarchy. Does your research tell us anything about how men can begin to heal around this? I guess what the work is. I think that's a great question, and my research is primarily with with women.

But I think that this is like some introduction to sociology stuff. Gender is a social construction. I think a lot of people think that what they've been told and what they've learned is natural, and that becomes what they believe. So because I'm a man, I'm entitled to a B, C,

and D and that's the natural order of things. And so if you don't understand that gender is constructed in a particular way where men are at the top and women are at the bottom, and then whoever is deviating from that is even further at the bottom, then it's much easier for you to believe those narratives and to believe those lies because we've been thought that. But we

also in many ways perpetuate this. So called natural order of of male superiority to women, And so it's the work has to start pretty simply, which is, it's actually not true. What they told you was a lie. They made it up so that they could create a particular learn kind of society that operates a particular kind of way and benefits a particular kind of person. So if we understand that masculinity and femininity are construction and they're made real by our performance of them, then that can

help us go a long way. So if you read this article, it's called doing gender. They have this story where they share where agnes Um is a trans woman and she's deating this assist herald man, and he basically tells her, you can't do this because men will think that you're overbearing. You should sit this way, you should

dress that way. So what that man is actually alluding to is trans women are learning the performance of femininity, and he appreciates that because part of that performance means that they're performing as though men are superior, they're performing as the women are inferior. So to heal is to come to the reality that what you're performing, how you're defining yourself is all constructed in a particular way to

serve a particular kind of purpose. Now I don't know how how you move forward from there, but you know, I think it's it's kind of like a you just got to admit this is who I am, this is what it is, So we got to admit first, gender is a construction. So how am I playing into that narrative? And maybe that's where men sis herold men who can find the liberation that they need. And there are plenty of sis herold men that understand this, so it's not like they have to walk alone. So the education is

there if people want to seek it out. If you just want to lie and feel sorry for yourself, you want to you know, grovel in the emasculation and that kind of thing you can, but that's not used in your agency. And literally, humanity is all about being able to use our agency. So if you want to grab onto your your your humanity, then you can learn more about what it is you're feeling and why you feel that way. Well, I think it's not always wallowing in

any masculation. A lot of times it's about blaming other people. It's about lashing out, right. It often functions and lashing

out and get people for various things. And the one thing I'll say about my own men who said they, you know, appreciate trans women sort of embracing a certain kind of femininity, that like the reality of my experience and dating is that even though a man might be attracted to me because he presumes I embraced a certain kind of feminity, wants it, gets to know me and understands I'm feminists and understands that I'm not really interested

in any of anything traditional. I don't want to get married. There are a lot of things I don't want to do, and so it's it's tricky, right, alrighty, it's that time again. A lot more coming now, we'll be right back already. Then let's just dive right back in. So much of my experience as a trans woman has been like sort of being fetishized and being sort of treated this sort of fascination or experiment, and the experiences of so many women of color are also very similar. Right, We're we're

fetishized in a really interesting and specific way. You know, there's so many people over the years who have who I've heard people say that, you know, I'm not racist, I you know, my boyfriend's black or I'm not racist, my girlfriend's black, And I'd like to remind those people that slave owners had sex with the slaves, but that does not mean that they were not engaged in a

system that subjugated black folks. So what I actually think about racial fetish and relationship to trans fedish because I think this we experienced a lot of women of color online and trans women and around being fetishized. What what is your research told you about that? That's what I definitely found. One of the things I really wanted to explore was, well, what does the exclusion of black women look like online? And what is the inclusion of black

and non black women look like online? And so when it comes to you know, in a racial dating, a lot of times this inclusion is about fetishization. When you see someone's full humanity, then your their power is equal to yours. Fetishization is all about wielding your superiority over some other person that you deem inferior, but you're upgrading

them because you think they fit a special category. If you're not seeing people as fully human, So it's all about I think about it as like colonization, right, because we don't really see this fetishization the same way if women are doing it, but with men, it's all about, oh, I'm putting how I view you onto you. You're not

defining your humanity. I'm defining your humanity. So feticization is all about power, and it's all about sis men being able to put their view of what minority women are like and obscuring their humanity at best and at worst, defining it on behalf of women. And that's where the assumptions come from, even when we talk about trans fetishization. So it's like, well, because I think you care about your femininity, this is what I think femininity is, these

traditional ways of being feminine. So once you don't fit that, oh no, but then that's again me putting my assumption of what I think femininity is onto you, and that's a power play and nobody wants that. Yeah. I just

about this thing that I say to my girlfriend. She was telling us a story about this guy they had met online and she had gone to meet him downtown and he was like, um, okay, believe when I say this, but he wanted to go into his car and have sex with her in his car, and she was like, no, you're gonna take me out if you're gonna do this, And I said, girl, you wanting him to take you out and treat you like a human being, that's your fantasy. Him wanting to get you in the car, that's his fantasy,

And ultimately it's about his fantasy, not yours. So he never took her out, right, she didn't. She didn't get in the car. But like so often what I found, Um, it's about their fantasy and not mine. And so one has to be willing to walk away from their fantasy because it's not going to serve as it just that she wanted to get in the car, you know, And I'm not shaming anybody for that. And that's the structure.

The structure is set up so that his fantasy is probably sitized over your fantasy, and you don't have to be about that. You can use your agency to resist the structure and look for someone who wants to have the same fantasy as you. Yeah, the fantasy that can become a reality exactly. So you've talked about dating closet racist. Can you explain what that looked like for you? Oh? Yes, I can. Um, Oh my god, this story is so embarrassing,

so basically I did it. This guy who you know, said he was interested in black women and he was cute, and I was like, I thought he was cute. I thought he was interesting. And with me, you know, within two or three dates, we start to talk about race. This is something I find important. It is important to my own survival. So he's like, well, I think that the idea was that he felt like I was too much like Malcolm X and not enough like MLK. These were the words that he used. So he felt that

racial progress we just have to wait. So he called me militant. I was a militant black person, and that I need to appreciate slow progress. And that's when I knew I was in trouble because I was like, no, one, that's about my humanity and it's about my blackness. It's gonna tell me that I need to wait on progress. And all of the people both Nigerian and African American that have come before me and set me up for

where I am, they did not wait for progress. So that's when I was like, Oh, you might like black women, but you don't like black humanity, so you're a closet racist. Wow, that's really deep. How did it end. Did you say that to him? Did you just like not call him back? Because is there a moment where you thought, let me see if there can be a transformational moment, a teachable moment here? How did that play itself? So I'm ashamed to admit that this casual relationship went on for a

little too long. It was like two or three months. And there had been signs that he might be a closet racist, that he might be someone who's like a social conservative, like people need to make their own money. But I'm like, you're living in an apartment that your parents are paying for, Like what are you actually talking about? Um? And so these things sort of emerged, and so that was the last conversation we had. I dropped him off at his house. Girl, he didn't even have a car.

I dropped to make their own moneys didn't have a car. But yet you want to talk about how people need to pull themselves by the bootstraps, Okay, whatever, So all that emerged. I dropped him off at his house and I was just like, we're not gonna need to get along. We don't agree on things that are very important to me. And then he called me and left me a long message that I just deleted and I never spoke to him again. Hmmm, do you remember what the message said?

I'm really sorry for the things I said. I didn't mean it. I really hope that we can talk again. And I'm not sure that I understood those kinds of things. Mm hmm, blessed. It's hard. He's probably doing the very best two cod ah and and as Berni Brown tells us, if we assume people are doing the best that they can, then we must set boundary exactly. So my boundary was I'm never going to see you again, and I need to really be more careful about white men that I date.

If I'm dating a white man, the signs are probably always there. I just kind of was like, Oh he's cute, blah blah blah blah. But I was just like, oh, no, no, no, no no, no, I need to be way more careful. I think, as if you're dating anyone, that this is that we have to look for, because the information is usually there. People are usually telling us who they are

through various actions, and it's our job. I think that's just part of the process that our job over time is to learn what the what they're telling us and to discern that is faster. And I think the beautiful thing about what you've shared here is that I bet the next time you met a white man or any man, you were more stupid, you were more adept than like looking for those things. And so I think that's how

we learn, is that we have these experiences. Yeah, and that's part of the invisible work, invisible labor that black women are are doing often times, right, this is the work that you don't even know that you're doing it half the time. And everyone is doing this work in general, and when they're dating and trying to make sure that they're not hooking up with people who are toxic for them, But then black women have this added layer of like, am I dating somebody who's about my humanity or not?

So I like to end every podcast with this question what else is true? And it comes from the community resiliency model and the idea of shifting, stay and being in this space of both and right that the world might be very challenging right now, and it might be hard for me, but there is something else that is true. There's something that is positive or neutral in my body and in my life that I can also focus on, and so I'd like to ask you, Dr Sarah, what

else is true for you today? Well? What else is true for me and for all the black women out there and for U Laverne is that black women are enough. That's what else is true, m HM. In a world where black women are devalued and degraded, black women may not feel as fair enough, but their humanity already exists. They just need to wake up and walk in it. Amen. Amen, I am enough. You are enough. Praise being. Thank you so much, Dr Sarah. Where can people find you online?

You can find any of my work, any of my articles on Twitter at love e scold and so everything that I've published is available via link that way, and folks are also free to email me as long as they're not stalking me or sending me bad messages. Um Sarah dot Audienca Scold Audienca hyphen scold at Fermin dot du so. People can reach me there, but Twitter is probably the best way to reach me. If you're looking for me, um it's Dr Sarah a s. You can

also find me that way. So yeah, amazing. Thank you so much for your work, your research, and thank you so much for spending time with me today, no problem. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it, and it was really a lovely conversation. Yea. I wasn't prepared for how difficult this one would be for me. I think it's because it's the piece of weaving in my own kind of personal narrative and how painful a

lot of it's been for me. So I'm so very grateful to Sarah having that sort of courage to be vulnerable and to talk me through it and to give me great data, research and perspective to try to get to something hopefully that is substantial for me and for all of you. Thank you for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. If you like what you hear, please rate, review,

subscribe and share with everyone you know. Join me next week when I talked to Dr Karen Franklin, for forensic psychologist and award winning researcher about why some people target transgender and other sexual and gender minorities and assaults and hate crimes. Knowing why it is the first step to change. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. The Laverne Cox show is a production of Shonda land Audio

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