My friend phoned yesterday and I made the grave mistake of asking her how her love life was (silly of me really). She then answered with a diatribe of reasons why she could not find a man. Apparently in London all the good men in the 30-40 year range are all taken (that would be the black men) the rest are all in her words "lying, cheating, pompous arses who were so overrun by women that they did not have to commit and as far as she was concerned anyone over 40 who was not yet married must have issues, were possibly not coming out of the closet or as Oprah put it "on the down low".
I then in my innocence questioned why all her choices had to be black...... a dead silence over the phone ensued for ooh maybe a minute (as if we were on gsm in Nigeria). She then proceeded to ask me what my father would say if I brought a white man home (eerr my mother is slightly pale)? but truth be told my father would actually not accept it as he is very insistent on all his children marrying Naijas. Not that it stopped my brother who is married to a Turkish lady (who is incidentally as Nigerian as they come and gets offended if I don;'t raid her fridge and eat her out of house and home) or my other brother who has been dating a Geordie lass for some years. All is not lost however as one of them is actually marrying a West African soon. Ohh the celebrations we are going to have.
Anyway back to my friend. She wanted to know why she should settle? How could she hold her head up high in Lagos riding around with a white man with everyone looking at her like handbag (ashewo).
I thought the stigma of marrying a different race had long since died for Nigerians. Am I wrong? Answers on a postcard please.
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19 comments:
"...How could she hold her head up high in Lagos riding around with a white man with everyone looking at her like handbag (ashewo)..."
This makes me wonder what people did think of me in 2004, when I visited naija, with my white English friend, who apparently is a native of cheshire alderley edge. This lady loved naija to the extent that she returned to the uk to resign her well paid job. She now works for an international agency in Abuja. If the lady is white, is the black male looked at as her handbag?
The black man obviously is not looked at as her handbag instead, he is looked at as some sort of "Conqueror of the Oyinbo woman".. Double standard? bet ya... we still have a long way to go to get social acceptance when it comes to multi-cultural relationships...
The 'stigma' is not just a white/black thing. Some Nigerians have issues with people from other countries period. I know of a case where a Nigerian father threatened to disown his son because he (the son) wanted to marry someone from the Caribbean. And this is not an isolated case. As a daughter of a Trinidadian mother and a Nigerian father, I still face the occasional prejudicial attitude from some very ignorant Nigerians.
Having said that, I have no problem with interracial/intercultural relationships or marriages; but my personal preference is to date within my race. It's a personal thing and not borne out of any discriminatory assumptions.
I concur with April's last statement..
"I have no problem with interracial/intercultural relationships or marriages; but my personal preference is to date within my race."
Although in fairness with the introduction of the 20th century the stigma has died down a bit..possibly due to people's ignorance being educated at an alarming rate.
In my family for example it took an older cousin 5years for her Oyinbo partner to be accepted into my conservative Yoruba family...since it became a do-or-die affair.. the family had no choice than to agree...So really she has been used as a scape goat for all we younger ones..to bring anything home without any stress...actually who am I fooling???..they will still choose to pass their point across.
The stigma is still very much alive and kicking. I even found myself examining mixed race couples during my most recent trip to Lagos, to work out if the woman was a "handbag" (nice one!) :-)
In my opinion, the problem isn't necessarily racial prejudice or anything like that, its simply the economic conditions/lack of a sense of self worth/greed that forces droves of young prostitutes into the clutches of equally disgusting white men.
Because we see so MANY of those types of couples parading themselves around venues and hotels in Nigeria, we instinctively scrutinise any mixed race couple we encounter very carefully.
Conversely, it doesn't work in quite the same way when the woman is white. Perhaps not because the white woman is a trophy, but because we know that a Naija man would rather DIE than be seen in public prostituting himself to a white woman (or any woman for that matter). Without even taking a second look, we know there's no way on earth he's her gigolo.
I've to agree dat there r no real naija men in Ldn any longer. Dis has even made me to consider marrying out of my race and tribe. Right now, i'd really love to go out with a white or ibo man. lol I'm fed up of yoruba men. They cheat and they're not romantic, in my opinion. Call me arrogant, but it's just d experience and situation i've been in o. Na condition cause am.
I do agree with some people's comment on this but black people generally are ignorant people, am sorry to say, I personally believe that you should go out with who you like/love, there are nice and good looking oyinbos out there and clean ones as well as there are nice yoruba bros as well you just have to dig and not give them money.
So Wienna please help me here..are u saying in all the Naija tribes there are...it's only Yoruba men that cheat?
Dimples, i'm not saying only d yoruba men in Ldn, i meant generally. I'm a yoruba girl and i've got brothers, cousins, even my papa, and experiences have made me come to dat conclusion. Abeg, u can't blame me.
In the younger generation the stigma of marrying another race is much less.I know many Nigerian ladies in their 20s married to white men. I pray everyone comes to see us all as the human race.
You are definitely wrong, I am a case in point!
i dont know abt the stigma of marrying oyibo man and looking like a handbag....it depends on ur family friends and the social circle u belong too...if they are open minded pple trust me it wont mean anything...and to d rest of d pple that would be looking at u as hand bagthat is too bad 4 dem jare
The stigma isnt restricted to different race alone mandy, it includes different tribes from the same country, even in 2007. This myopia is passed on to each generation and a fortunate few have avoided this inheritance. I recently told an Ibo aunty and a benin one that I was with a Yoruba man and the both screamed 'yoruba'! Ha pls oh! and went on to try and presuade me to reconsider. Note that they are both married to northerns, the hipo hipo of the situation was too ridiculous,lol!
I on the other hand seem to be only attracted to black men, I just dont see the white ones, except their native american indians, its the hair lol!. Thats just me and its not rascism as a quater of my family is mixed, so im pretty cool with inter-racial relationships
Cheetarah, I think in general we are genetically attracted to our own types.I watched a programme on tv a while back it spoke about how one man's food was another man's poison literally, how certain food types were not designed to be eaten by cetain races so perhaps this makes mixing unhealthy at times and this is why we are mostly pre-programmed to choose within our race
I have to say that attitudes are the same. I think I'm a reasonably intelligent, young Ibo female doc trained in the US who "happened" to fall in love with a German. I was born and raised in Lagos, and went to school there. It has been war with my mother trying to get them to accept us. Initially I didn't see him as a real possibility for the same reasons she espouses now: I felt people would look at me as a money hungry young woman with no "good Nigerian prospects" - meaning the hot son of a Nigerian minister, preferably from King's College (the kind of person my mom would give her right arm for me to marry). He actually opened my eyes to other things, such as a wide variety of African music, traveling for the fun of it not for shopping, outdooor things. Don't get me wrong, I can make the best onugbu soup and he knows there will be NO German food in my house, except he makes it. We plan to make Naija our home as well. He has made me embrace my African self even more because that's what he loves about me. It hasn't been easy because he wasn't religious when we met and we are growing together in that respect. We just got engaged and are going home this year after a long 2 yrs, to see the rest of my extended family. Keep an open mind, ladies!
abeg o! whats all this generalisation about there not being any good naija men in london anymore? - lets do away with all these generalizations and be honest. the fact that you ain't meeting the good ones, does not mean they do not exist. after all we hear about people who go to london single and ended up getting hooked.
As per the inter racial thingy. i think everyone should just know what works for them. As far as i am concerned, if i fall in love with an eskimo sef, i'll go with him o! in as much as its nice to take advice from your parents, and consider what people would think, i don't think its right to sacrifice your happiness at the expense of what people would say.
@mandy, i love your blog so much. keep it coming.Thank you bellanaija, for letting us into the latest blog on blogsville
hhhmmm, if our ppl could be so and still ignorant, I wonder what they will say when the Chinese Nigerian next-generation will start packing their bags for a return to the fatherland.
When we lived in Lagos, Bibi got called ashewo quite a bit. It was upsetting. But then again, when we were in the UK, one of the first times we were together, some scumfuck spat a mouthful of coke at us on a trip to Cambridge. Nowhere on the planet is immune from small-minded prejudice.
If you are a Nigerian woman dating/married to a white guy and in Nigeria, the trick is to look as little like a prostitute as possible. But do expect to get called a prostitute from time to time.
On a personal level, I have found my Nigerian family to be fantastically warm, friendly and accepting of my foibles. I have a bit of a village mentality buried within a cosmopolitan exterior which gels well with the Nigerian way of thinking..
Jeremy which Bibi are you referring to? Kolex?
Nnebaby
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