Society often dictates who people should date, marry, and have children with, making this deeply personal choice highly emotional and political. Many factors influence our attractions, options, and preferences, including portrayals in media, early childhood relationships, deep cultural traditions, federal laws, and peer pressures.
The concept of who we are becomes more complex when dating across cultures. Through the trials and adventures of friendship and romantic partnership, we can intimately get to know ourselves and appreciate what love looks like in different contexts. If you're determined to date Black men, make sure you're keeping a good reign on your own self-esteem, boundaries, and standards. Dating an African-American man doesn't mean you have to lower your standards and be someone you're not.
Understanding Collectivist Values
Africans are known for their belief in rugged individualism and that’s all well and good until it’s not. The African men I’ve known have a different point of view when it comes to relationships that largely prioritize the collective. There is a strong sense of responsibility to one’s family, to give back to their community, and to create a legacy. Trust and values are also shared. Relationships exist to preserve culture and continuity and engender support. Children aren’t born to fulfill their own dreams and ambitions, but to make their parents proud and pay homage to their sacrifices.
These collectivist values show up in the way they want to be loved and cared for and in the way they love and care for others. In my experience, African men see a woman as not only a partner but as an extension of their identity. There is a role to be played in fulfilling societal expectations that stem from tradition and modeled behaviors.
These expectations can manifest in ways that are loving and inclusive or stifling and restrictive. As progressive and modern as one might consider themselves, it is often through moments of challenge that underlying traditional values surface. And that’s perfectly okay-sometimes, you need other people to show you who you are.
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The Importance of Heritage and Pride
The African men I’ve known have a very tangible and meaningful relationship with their motherland. They carry a deep pride in their food, dance, language, and history - and rightfully so. To some extent, this pride often coexists with shame or resignation. The realities of the world are that African men (and African American men) are often underestimated, discriminated against, and face undue hardship.
There is pride in achieving your ancestor’s wildest dreams and there is shame knowing that a million other people that look like you will never get close, and you both exist in the same lifetime. The men in my life have helped me open the book on generational trauma because they wear theirs so well (or sometimes not so well).
Smile, be kind, and show your natural personality. It is wise to learn about the history and the current social and racial climate of America before you haul off and say something super-offensive to a Black man in conversation. You also shouldn't feel pressured for forced to talk about race in America with a Black male potential partner, because that could be a turn-off, too. Just don't do it.
Why Cultural Differences can Break a Relationship
Essential Tips for Dating African Men
Just thinking about it terrifies those who have never dated someone from another race or culture before. After all, different races and cultures have different customs, values, and beliefs about what is permissible, attractive, and disrespectful. Dating or being newly married to an African man is an excellent example, but don’t worry - I’ll run you through five essential things every woman in a relationship with or married to an African man needs to understand to keep their relationship or marriage healthy.
Be Mother-like
This is not to say for you to be his mama. Nay. When you cross-cultural or racial boundaries, it can feel like the man you’re dealing with is, at times, hard to puzzle. However, figuring out an African man could be relatively easy with a bit of understanding of traditions. Firstly, remember that many women in African cultures are mother-like, independent, and can hold down the home when he’s away.
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If you want an African man to respect you, you should be mother-like, meaning you should be his shoulder to cry on. In bad times, he needs comfort and wants you to tell him that you got his back and will do anything to see him win in life.
Respect and Family
You should have complete respect for African-American men's families, particularly the matriarchs. At the end of the day, unless it's under certain extenuating circumstances, he's always going to take his child's mother's side. Creating a rift with her keeps him from his child. The interest of your partner’s child should be first and foremost for all parties involved. If you deny or insult his child, he will leave you.
Personal Conduct and Communication
No matter what color he is, if he's a good man, he wants to be with a good woman. If you can't go a couple of days without complaining or criticizing your partner with anger and disdain, HE deserves better. Why get with a man you don't get along with? Relationships should have more positives than negatives. It’s up to you to have a great relationship. If you have a problem with the way your man is acting, don't run to your girlfriends or mother. Talk to him! Black men are not unreasonable. If you're in a relationship with an adult, you should be able to have a constructive conversation if you're expressing your concerns in a respectful manner.
Understanding Love and Support
Love and food go together. While some will say you must cook for them bottom line is it just matters that he eats. Who cooks the food whether na chop bar, cookery baffa, your mother, KFC, just check on his feeding and provide and support it regularly. If he is one of those who wants you in the kitchen arrange yourself pretend to cook while you have some one deliver the meal prepared to the house. What he doesn't know won't kill him. Just feed him.
If you love him like for real then collecting money from him when he has not offered it is not correct. Loving him means to free him from the tax of ”gimme gimme” and ”buy for me”. Love means you receive that which is offered but make no demands. In fact to love him means you have go shower him with gifts (you buy for him), and acts of service. Should you find one of those very bookish ones, know that he prides himself in his degrees so loving him means admiring his accolades ever so often. When you are in a public debate or discussion, the expectation is that you must be on the same side. If you love him and he says yay! You say yay! If he says no! You too you say no. When you go home and you are in private where others can not hear then you are free to tell him why his position on the geo-political climate in West Africa is flawed.
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If you love him by all means his enemies are now your enemies and his friends are now your friends. It is team us all day, everyday. If you love an African man please stop this habit. This is the all or nothing love expectation.
When you close your eyes to pray the expectation is that you mention his name, pray for him, pray for his work place, pray for mother, his father, and everything about him. Commit him to God because you must finding blessings for your African love. During sex make noise for him, to show you support him. Celebrate his performance because when you love an African man you must be supportive and you must encourage him. Also make sure you give him angles, as many as possible so he can bless you with his release because when you love you are there for him to release for you.
If he ever steals from his job be it a government job or private company you support him by cursing out the haters who snitched on him and the bad belleh people trying to bring a good man down. Love means even when he does his worst you are there to support him.
The truest manifestation of how you love him is the love you have for his family. Even if he is insulting them behind their back, you never insult them. If he stops speaking to anyone your job is to always be there to amend the situation. No matter what, you are team his family. He may never say but he will appreciate you always for that because deep inside he wants to be a better person even though he fails at it regularly.
Final Thoughts
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable, whether in friendship or romantic partnership, will help you grow and evolve as a human being. This space is one of the few areas where men get to be emotional and that’s a shame. We all deserve to experience love. There is no right or wrong way to love or live your life. If it works for you and the person you’re with, that is precious and should be protected.
