So What Exactly Is Game, By The Way?
For many African Americans the urban dating dynamic during the 1980’s was about harsh realities and drastic change. This evolution, if you will, which continues to influence how we date, entered the decade like a lamb but went out like a roaring lion.
By the beginning to the decade a small percentage of African Americans had been quietly dating outside the race for a number of years. Granted, there were those who did so because they preferred the free spirited nature of non-blacks over the highly subjective mores that governed urban dating. You also had those brothas and sistas, many of whom were darker and more African looking, whose goal it seemed was to procreate the preverbal pretty mixed baby. But, for the most part, the reasons were benign, such as love, curiosity, a genuine physical attraction to non-blacks that had nothing to do with any subconscious insecurities or the fact that they lived where other African Americans were few and far between.
It was also during the early 1980’s that a new generation of African American women had to learn that their features, course hair and skin color were not symbols of American beauty. Ethnic products helped to disguise some of these issues but they still haunted many black women on a subconscious level. Thanks in large part to socially conscious hip-hop, many black males responded by incorporating afro-centric ideals into their relationships. But for most black women as long as their black men found them attractive little else mattered. This created a very deep yet, as it would soon turn out, somewhat sensitive bond between black men and women that quietly shaped urban dating.
Up until the early part of the decade, there was a clear line separating black men and women who dated outside the race and those who didn’t. Because of this, interracial dating from a black perspective was still for the most part a genuine endeavor, at least to the extent that those who did cross over lacked ulterior motives. But by the late 1980’s drastic change was on the horizon.
Enter the Game…
Once black females realized they were being hunted for their recourses, erected psychological walls and, in some instances, began hunting black males back, the scale tipped and the Game became what is referred to as tight, which means that viable sponsorship within the race became scarce. There were other factors involved, such as the massive dept and depleting credit scores that accrued from years of individual relationship battles, as well as the defensive mores that were incorporated into the Game to protect one’s finances and emotions from those who continued to hunt.
Once the Game became tight, many African American men—or at least many who lived in integrated markets where dating outside the race was feasible— who up until that point only dated black women became enticed by rumors that white women were freakier, passive, had money and good credit (at least by hood standards), and perhaps most intriguing, were unable to comprehend the Game’s defensive mores. This compelled some to try out this new path in the Game for themselves. But unlike those who began these trails and kept their white girlfriends far away from black social settings and black women, this new breed of black male, playa, if you will, was different. Apparently starved for attention these brothas began flaunting their new white girlfriends, front and center, in once sacred black social circles as if to teach black women how to behave.
For many black women, not only did these perceived acts of betrayal—and I say betrayal because many sistas could certainly argue that even though their depleted credit scores, rising debt, trust issues, walls and children out of wedlock could likely be traced back to one or more black men who gained and then violated their trust, they still didn’t give up on black men as a whole. So, not only did these perceived acts of betrayal conjure up old demons, but it also contradicted many of the afro-centric ideals that had been instilled in them, for the most part, by black men. While most sistas quietly dealt with the perceived hypocrisy, some evolved yet again by embarking down interracial relationship paths of their own.
Two new mindsets stood out
You had a handful of sistas, many of whom were either very dark complected, conceited and or detested life at the perceived bottom of the dating totem pole anyway, and began dating outside the race, not so much to procreate pretty babies, but as a way of usurping a higher socioeconomic platform than what could be acquired within their Game tight race with black men.
You also had black females who chose instead to befriend non-black women who were known to date black men. This gave them the strategic opportunity to attempt, anyway, to teach these non-black women the Game’s defensive mores as it related to treating black men. Of course these women unwittingly paid for the advice they were given in some way, shape or form.
Fortunately, the way these attention freaks and users behave when they’re with a non-black friend or apparent love interest is like a language that speaks volumes to the true dynamic of the relationship as it plays out in a black social setting. Facial expressions, body language, mood, who’s doing the buying, who’s doing all the talking and explaining vs. who’s doing all the listening, agreeing and responding allow the highly observant to determine what the relationship is really about and just how much the non-black knows or doesn’t know of their true role in it.
Now I know that some of you will argue that I am just a paranoid writer who has a problem with interracial dating. Well, you’re wrong. The fact of the matter is once emotions got involved interracial relationships from a black perspective quickly lost its purity. For a small but growing counter-culture of African Americans, dating and establishing friendships outside the race became incidental. For them the purpose of it was (and still is) to further agendas and settle scores that originated in the Game. This can be to the undo benefit or unjust detriment of non-blacks who are unknowingly involved.
The Relationship Shaman wants to know what you think. Am I onto something or just full of it? Leave a response and let’s begin a spirited debate on this issue.
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