Readers comment on interracial dating

I always brace myself when I write about race, anticipating the bigots and the haters.

My Saturday column on interracial dating for black women drew the expected invective from online commenters.

But my in-box filled with thoughtful counterpoints from readers who made it clear that race is only a small piece of the puzzle when you’re trying to assemble a relationship.

The end point of my column was that single, middle-class black women ought not to limit their dating prospects to black men from a shrinking eligibility pool.

Many readers agreed, and shared their interracial experiences.

“A mixed-race marriage requires tolerance and good communication skills,” wrote a black woman married to an Asian man. “I learned not to care what others thought, so I married for love,” she said.

Others considered my perspective naive.

“I find it offensive that the take-home message is that Black women would have more success with dating if they were open-minded,” wrote a reader who described herself as an “educated Black female [with] a lot to offer a man of any race.”

She is trying to remain optimistic, but “we truly don’t have the luxury of being that picky when it comes to love,” she said, “for the simple fact that other races do not find Black women to be attractive.”

Perhaps I ought to introduce her to one of the many non-black men who emailed and described the black women they dated or married as beautiful, interesting, strong, smart, exciting…

For them, and most other readers who wrote, the central issue was not race, but the challenge of finding and keeping a loving mate.

I heard from a “61-year-old father” who didn’t state his race but said he prays every day that his daughters — “36, attorney unmarried; 27 MA Ed unmarried” — will “experience the love of a man and a family.”

From a “gay white male who dates gay black males” and tries to keep those relationships from withering in the heat of disapproval from both “racists and homophobes.”

From a white women who never married and still regrets turning down a date with a black classmate 40 years ago. She worried about what her Alabama-bred family would say. She wonders today if that man might have been her soul mate.

And I heard from a fellow in my hometown, Cleveland, who said I got it wrong when I described black women as “the most un-partnered group” in this country.

“That unhappy distinction belongs to men of short stature,” wrote John Lusk. At 5 feet 5, he’s accustomed to romantic rejection. “Would you date a 5’5” man?” he asked. “Be honest. Think about it.”

Honestly, I don’t have to think too hard to remember the last time I whispered to a girlfriend, He’s good-looking, but he’s too short.

So here I am preaching color-blindness, but willing to rule out a man because he’s no taller than I am.

That’s the crux of the problem, I guess. When it comes to relationships, we’re all capricious, illogical and unfair. But our wish lists may not take into account the realities of the dating field.

Issues of race, religion and ethnicity aren’t as defining as they once were, because of the ways we are blending, culturally and socially.

That black woman who wrote about her marriage to an Asian man? She didn’t worry about whether their biracial kids would be “black enough,” but whether their grades would be good enough to get them into the Ivy League.

“Marrying into an Asian family,” she said, “education was paramount.” Her children have NYU, Brown and UC Berkeley degrees. She didn’t say who she wants them to marry.

And then there was the “Mexican-American woman married to a Mexican-American man for 33 years.” One of their sons recently married a Jewish woman he dated for 10 years. The other son is gay “but says he dates only Mexican-American men,” she said.

She’s just happy if her boys are happy. “I think the focus for most people is, ‘Who are we comfortable with?’ ” she said.

Unless you are a single, professionally successful, middle-aged woman. And then the focus just might be: Who is smart and accomplished enough for me?

That’s the advice that Karin McGaughey received from “an insightful friend” upon her divorce: Find a man who’s “smart enough for you” and makes more money.

That sounds harsh and calculating, but research into relationships suggests she may be right. It’s not about relying on a man, but building on a base of equality. “It takes a very special man,” she said she’s learned, “to be happy in a marriage where his wife is more successful, by the standards of our culture.”

McGaughey is “a white, 47-year-old divorced woman” who makes a good living as a set decorator and wants a partner who measures up. “Professional women have set very high standards in their public lives; it’s difficult to compromise in private life,” she wrote.

We are in a similar demographic, forced to calibrate changes in gender roles. While racial taboos may have eased, changes in society have introduced into our romantic lives so many other complexities.

“The ‘rules’ that we have kept and the rules that we have shed make for a really complicated interpersonal landscape,” McGaughey wrote. “I think history will look back on our generation as just the beginning of some great change. Like every change, there will be losses that we regret.”

I think back to something my father used to tell my sisters and me when we were growing up: “There’s a lid for every pot.”

That was reassuring: The odd, the unlucky, the eccentric, the ugly … we were all destined for couple-dom.

Now I’m not sure what to tell my daughters. Follow your heart, but not toward trouble. Listen to your friends, but don’t let them judge you.

Or maybe, simply, you love who you love. And that’s not always easy, or enough.

sandy.banks@latimes.cm