While Jemar Tisby and his supporters go around complaining and raging that a college that he once spoke at repudiated one of his messages for being too progressive and having “divisive racial themes,’ the LGBTQ-affirming, openly pro-choice Vice president of his Black Christian Collective Organization is out there explaining that she would advise black people, especially black women, not to enter into interracial relationships with white people.
Speaking as a guest on the April 13 episode of the Bad Seminarians podcast, Ally Henny, who helps run Tisby’s Witness BBC and whom he knows full well has trash views on abortion and same-sex acceptance, told guests that there are too many risks and downsides for a black woman to enter into relationship and then marry and date a white man, and that they just shouldn’t do it.
Host: “What advice would you give to a person entering into an interracial relationship? A white person, actually. And then on the other side of that, on flip side, what advice would you give to a black person entering into an interracial relationship?
So the black aspect of it, particularly for black women: don’t do it. DON’T.
And I feel like that answer needs some explanation, perhaps did some disclaimers or caveats or something like that, but my knee-jerk reaction is: DON’T DO IT
She says this is true for those who enter into a relationship for the purpose of being in an interracial relationship, because “you can create the scenario for yourself where you start fetishizing people based on how they look. And not just on how they look, but on perceived benefits, just whatever perceptions that come with being in an interracial marriage or relationship.” She also cautions black women from using dating apps where they may match up with white men, because there’s no way of knowing if they’ve ever espoused racist beliefs.
What ‘racism’ is undefined of course. For many in this crowd, wanting to limit immigration or voting for Trump, or being pro-second amendment, listening to Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, or even just being a member of the Republican Party is proof of one’s racism.
But I get that, you know, a lot of folks like to use dating apps and you know, maybe just out of ‘I liked this thing on their profile’, or ‘hey, you know, they are kind of cute’, or whatever your decision-making process is... (but) if you are making the decision purely on this person and their race and not on other things, you’re gonna end up in a position where you are going to be hurt or disappointed, or both because of weird expectations, or whatever.
The other aspect of the DON’T’ is it comes with the caution. And I think that this is particularly true for black women in relationships. The ‘DON’T’ is caution because of safety. You just simply do not know where these people are from, you don’t know where they’re coming from. And so if you’re going to enter into that, you got to ask the questions.
You got to ask the hard questions. You got to ask the ‘have you ever used the N-word’ question? ‘Have you ever used the N-word publicly on an app on a website? What are your affiliations? Who do you know? What type of spaces are you in?’
And honestly, like in this world that we’re in, you can Google people and you can dig around and you can’t find everything out. And so there’s just an aspect for me that I say, like, DON’T DO IT. There is again, to the point of fetishes, there are white men out there that have fetishes that regard black women. And so I mean, if you’re into that, then you know, I’m not gonna knock it like if you’re cool with that, but you could just find yourself in a really difficult space with that.”
Henny says that oftentimes, even if the white man is not a racist, his family might be.
I know a lot of people, black women in particular, who have ended up in situations with their in-laws that have been very damaging, and that have been very traumatizing. People who have married into literal racist families. And that’s the thing and then you talk about like you if you’re going to have kids or something like that, and you’ve got, you know, Memaw over here who’s racist, and you’re going to bring your biracial kids, your black biracial kids around the grandparents who are racist?
And you see this type of thing on the internet all the time, where it’s like, ‘his man was racist, and then he has a biracial granddaughter now or his kid adopted a black kid, and now he’s not racist anymore.’
No, he just likes that black kid.
Maybe it did change his heart. You know, I believe in God. And I believe that God can change people’s hearts or whatever. But I’m just always looking at that situation, Like, why would you put yourself in that situation? Don’t put yourself in that situation to be with somebody unless that person is going to disavow their family…
(More than likely) You’re going to find yourself in situations where you’re coddling racism, where you’re coddling racists, where you’re having to deal with that and it just in the long run ends up being damaging and ends up being frustrating.
