Single Black Women, It's Time to Look Outside Your Race for True Love

Author Karyn Langhorne Folan encourages single black women to look outside their race for Mr. Right and embrace interracial dating.

I came across a very interesting article in the Washington Post about single black women and going outside of their race to find love. According to writer Karyn Langhorne Folan, "black women are in market failure." She adds, "the solution is to find a new market for your commodity. And in this case, we are the commodity and the new market is men of other races." Mrs. Folan, who is the author of "Don't Bring a White Boy: And Other Notions that Keep Black Women from Dating Out," encourages black women to date and marry outside of their race.  The author has joined the debate, which has been raging for a long time, about the state of marriage for single and highly educated black women. According to a 2008 population survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, single black women with college degrees outnumber single black men with college degrees by almost 3 to 1. In short, there's gold in the hills, just look.

My views on the subject is people are free to date whomever they wish. I am not against interracial dating. There is good in everyone and if your Mr. Right is a white or Hispanic man, then so be it. Follow your heart. But I must caution by saying that there are many good black men out there looking for love as well. The reality is that it's time single black women divest and look elsewhere. Black men have been doing that for years -- Sidney Poitier, Taye Diggs and James Earl Jones, for example. A survey shows that about 73 percent of black/white marriages are between black men and white women. According to the Washington Post, there is strong evidence out there -- empirical and anecdotal, that show that an increasing number of black women are expanding their horizons.

I don't view an interracial relationship between a black and white as a sell-out by the black person. I grew up in a family where one's self-worth wasn't based on the color of one's skin, but on the content of your character and your ambitions. I have dated outside my race and it wasn't because I was a sell-out. It was because I genuinely connected with this man on so many levels. Our relationship lasted for about two years before we broke up. Our relationship ended, not because of pressures from people who just couldn't deal with an interracial couple, but because we grew apart. I met my husband, a black man, shortly thereafter. We dated for two years and then we got married in 1994. I must also interject that I spent my formative years in Jamaica and I strongly believe in the island's motto -- "out of many, one people." For me, it's never about the color of one's skin. We are all the same people. We just come in different "flavors." Our differences should not be a deterrent. It should be an asset to be embraced.

Here's my favorite singer, Patti Labelle, singing her hit song "Right Kinda Lover" that is so appropriate for this subject.