It is unlikely anyone knows for sure the number of successful or promising Black men who are dating, or are married to White women. All we know is that the number is large; we also know that in some communities, dating or being married to a White woman is considered desirable. On the other hand, it is easy to have an accurate count of the number of thriving White men who are dating or are married to Black women. If the former is twenty-five thousand Black men, the latter may be no more than one hundred and fifty White men.
Actually, one hundred and fifty may be too generous a number. It has been observed that successful White men seem not to have reasons to look elsewhere; but successful Black men always seem to have reasons — flimsy or not — to look elsewhere for mates. Outside of the United States — particularly in Europe and Latin America — the ratio is more encouraging. There are cultural, social and historical reasons for this. In sub-Saharan African countries, however, the numbers are actually dismal.
Sexual attraction is one thing, marriage is another. In fact, what we have in sub-Saharan Africa — depending on the country in focus — can be considered low-risk prostitution, sexual exploitation, or toto-slavery. There are three reasons why this is taking place: crushing poverty; the total disregard for Blacks; and power play. At the other end of the spectrum are successful Africans, who, after years of sojourn abroad, returned home with their wives and children.
From1970 until 1980, or thereabout, the size of foreign-born women married to Nigerian men so alarmed the Nigerian military government that it forbade its military and Foreign Service officers from marrying non-Nigerians. National security and state secret became an issue. Those already married to non-Nigerians were allowed to keep their wives, but for a while, the ban on new or future liaisons with foreign born spouses was in effect.
There are several ways through which the outside world is recolonizing Africa — large scale sexual abuse is one such ways. The dehumanization of Africa through sex is a phenomenon that has largely gone unnoticed. And even where it has been noticed, alarms are not being raised. Civil societies have gone alarmingly quiet on this issue; and so have governments, religious bodies and the intellectual class.
In this instance, I am not referring to the thousands of African women, and hundreds of African men, who go to Europe to engage in prostitution. No. My concern here is the kind of prostitution, domination and abuse, which are taking place within the continent. Of special note is Nigeria, where thousands of women are nothing but sex freaks in the service of non-Black men. For instance, the Niger Delta region is considered the largest sex bazaar in the West African sub-region. Foreign oil workers, the expatriates, have their pick of women — some as young as 15. By the time they turn 25 or 30, they have become connoisseurs of all types of decent, indecent, imaginable and unimaginable sex acts.
By or at that age — 25 through 30 — they have become aficionados of bedroom violence. What’s more, they become carriers and transmitters of all types of diseases. The crushing poverty and acute hopelessness within the region makes the women susceptible to sexual exploitation. And so it is that for the equivalent of five dollars, a foreign oil worker can have two women engage in sex while he watches; for ten dollars or so, an expatriate can have sex with two sisters or cousins; for fifteen dollars three workers can dominate one girl — gleefully doing to her what only the sickest of all sick perverts can only imagine.
Scatology, for instance, is a new addition. Sodomy, especially of young boys, is ancient, but has in recent years been gaining currency. Because Nigeria, like most sub-Saharan African countries is not a statistics-literate country, no one has the estimate of boys/men who willingly or unwillingly engage in anal sex and/or prostitution. Nonetheless, patterns indicate three formations: (1) most of the boys are not gays, their anality is simply a means of survival, a manifestation of the failure Nigeria has become; (2) such activities are found mostly in Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Abuja, and Port Harcourt; and (3) their clients are both domestic and foreign nationals.
The unequal sexual relations that are prominent in the oil-producing region are also present wherever you find a large gathering of expatriates. For instance, Julius Berger Nigeria plc (a subsidiary of Germany’s Bilfinger Berger) has been present in the country since the 1960s. In recent years, it has become customary that wherever you find Julius Berger, you are also likely to find floating and rotating sex pavilions. For a dollar here, and a dollar there, girls of any and all ages and descriptions flock to their terminals and barracks for sexual rendezvous.
Something else you should know: there is a phenomenon that has been present in the Nigerian social landscape for as far back as I can remember: the sexual exploitation of Nigerian women by the Lebanese community. The Indian and Pakistani communities were also part of this treachery, but the Lebanese were the masters of the game: using African women as sexual toys, and never really considering them good for marriage. The local girls, in their estimate, were/are not good for marriage, but are good for fly-by-night sexing.
Every now and then, however, one finds a non-black, especially a European, Canadian or American, who is married to an African woman. A few of such marriages are genuine and borne out of friendship and love. Most, however, are similar to what is known in the Islamic world as Mut’a (temporary marriage). Within the African context, such marriages are, in general, characterized by the fact that (a) The marriage is kept secret to his family in his home country; (b) The wife and the children may never join him when he returns home; and (c) such a union allows the man to play out his polygyny fantasy.
In the end though, a nagging question remains: as a whole, why are White men reluctant to date/marry Black women? As it turned out, the reasons some White men gives for not dating or marrying Black women, are about the same reasons some Black men give for not marrying Black women. Collated, there are a dozen or so such reasons. In the end, the main beneficiaries are White women. And then there are Asian women. Some Black men are now going gaga over them, losing their mind in the process.
Part 3 Coming Soon: Three questions will be answered: (a) why are White men averse to marrying Black women; (b) why a sizeable number of successful Black men stay away from Black women; and (c) what’s the problem with Black women? And more…
8 comments
I have been married 43 years to a woman of color (asian) and my oldest son has been married to a black woman about 20 years now and they have 3 beautiful, smart children .. one is graduating from high school this year and her sister, who was to have been in 10th grade this year, was advanced to 11th grade due to advanced courses she took in 9th grade, and their younger brother is a straight A student and champion junior wrestler. Overall, my son and his wife have a successful and loving relationship. I have seen a lot of successful interracial marriages, having spent 20 years in the military. Not all is bad and I wish people would get off the slavery issue because there isnt one black person in the United States who has been involved in institutional slavery. It has been over and done since 1864. America is the land of opportunity if one wishes to take advantage of it rather than sit around bitching about the white man keeping them down … they need to get off their butts and change their outlooks on life before they can get ahead in life. Just look at the people who come hear from other countries and make it within a couple of years. No excuses … people are responsible for their own lives and do themselves no service by sitting around blaming others for their lack of progress. Adapt and overcome.
I am an African American woman finishing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. I find it so absurd when caucasian individuals say “slavery has been over and done with” , “get over it”….
I do agree however ( to an extent) that we are all responsible for our own destinies.
If both blatant and Very real “undercover ( corporate racism, institutional racism, so called liberal under cover racism ) racism did not exist with such prevelency in 2015, then you can say “adapt and overcome”. In my opinion African Americans have been overcoming from the very start in most countries if not all-even our own mother country.
I do not believe in having a victim mentality and “sitting around”, as you say, blaming Caucasian society for any misfortunes. Nor do I believe in being lazy. However, even successful black people are seen as extrodinary “despite” their race and are only allowed but so far in this country. There is a very real race based glass ceiling which is outright racism.
I have dated white men, because of similarities of interst, etc. Oftentimes though, I observe a very real sexual attraction, rarely a very real respectful interest. This can be said of all men, in terms of sexual prowess but I have noticed that a lot of Caucasian men expect one to accept it and deal because of their skin color, or because they believe that black men treat us that way or worse.
If we lived in a very real society where melanin was not a source of hate and believed differences, then I would agree with your post. Sadly, we do not.
I m married to a nigerian woman. Im white and 28 years older.
We have big collisions about tradition and culture. My reason for marrying her was that ive been married b4 and had only one son.
I want a family and for to do that i need somene younger and fertile.
i hav 30 years left to live perhaps.
And she can as living in Europe, have more opportunities for a better life then in Nigeria.
She s very traditional and x-tian and im an atheist. Im modern by western standards she s traditional.
I m not a moneymaker, and shes not a sexbomb. So non of us can t really get what we dream of. But there s love, but most of all a second chance.
Interacial relationships exhibits the kind of intricacies and and evokes a type to denial-based sensitivity about the history of the issue. African women in the United States began as nothing more than a sexual distraction and hundreds of years later, both sides are suffering the repercussions of past liasons. As slaves, black women were subjected to the sexual wiles of their slave masters, some being raped repeatedly by different members of the same family. It is that past pain that led to the future prejudice during the civil rights movement that made dating a white man taboo (at some point even illicit). Honestly, how could a black woman walk hand in hand with a white lover when the atmosphere of the time was there to remind her that her ancestors had probably been raped and abused by his. It is this sort of attitude that has impeded the progress of interacial relationships in the United States. The history of prejudice, violence, slavery, intolerance, sexual bigotry and deviance has forever stained the perception of other colors and shades in the eyes of many. It used to be rare that one would find a functional mixed race home, however, many factors have changed that. Black women now have educational and job opportunities that they wouldn’t have dared to dream of even 30 years ago. This has taken many black women in America out of their typical dating pool and placed them into a violent whirlpool where their chances at finding love and happiness seem to evaporate right before their eyes. It is hard to find good black men that won’t be threatened by our success that we can relate with and now, we find that we are nothing more than a sexual snack for men of different color. Is there any hope for us at all?
Lol this is so funny but very real there are so many black nigerian women from africa who walk around putting down nigerian men but where are they in the response of this article. Most of our girls who are poor in nigeria subject themselves to this and it a shame. I cant blame them though, they are trying to survive.
another great article…!
I’m a Black American Woman who is married to a nigerian man who would never admit to the sexual deviancy that exists back home… I hate that it’s happening but it needs to be exposed and the underlying cause fit needs to be faced up to and delt with!
I need you to write an article on the so-called “African Witch Children”… i’d love to read your thoughts on the evanglical Chrisitan movement there in Nigeria….
This is just as good as the first part. Well done.
As always I learn something new from your writing. I didn’t know these type of sexual behaviors (e.g. scatology? *puke*) were prevalent in Nigeria or maybe I have just chosen to live in denial but seeing it mentioned here makes me horrified. Who advocates for these young girls and boys whose lives and childhood are being ruined by these perverts?