# If a woman has a past relationship with a black man she's tainted forever. Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 5, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743 "2013-07-05T18:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/101 "2013-07-06T11:45:51Z")
Mudshark? Hahaaa! Where do racist white folks get this stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/102 "2013-07-06T11:52:14Z")
Same place black people get “cracker” and “honky”? ---
**Author:** ![Tracijo67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@Tracijo67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracijo67)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/103 "2013-07-06T12:11:55Z")
**astro** , I don’t see anyone disputing that racism exists. Your initial OP was an observation of clearly racist behaviors (refusing to date a white woman who had been with a black man) and your obtuse speculating about why that could be. It’s racist. Something so flatly obvious that it need not be posed as a question at all. To a lesser ignorant person, the question might be ‘why is this’ rather than ‘what is this.’ My own response to both questions is that I don’t really care, so long as the bigot has enough sense to keep his ugly trap shut, and he or she doesn’t have the power to turn that bias into the denial of housing, employment, or other measurably important opportunities for people of color. Sit in your houses and stew in your useless rage that the rest of civilized society is at least TRYING to move on. Keep on assuming that something you were born conveys automatic status above another human being. Education has seldom changed minds that are slammed shut; I’d rather treat ‘those people’ as nothing more important than a piece of furniture discarded by the curbside. Insignificant, until they cause any REAL problems, then righteously dealt with if they do. Count me in as one who thinks that you are intentionally trying to stir the shit pot. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/104 "2013-07-06T12:20:24Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > I was at a BBQ type/pool party (casual) get together with about 20 or so people. There was music playing and at one point a Lenny Kravitz song came on and one of the girls next to me said she saw him in concert and how good the show was. I said something about him being really sexy and you could almost hear the proverbial record scratch and one of the guys said “I never would have guessed you for a mudshark.” and instead of hearing people gasping in horror at his nastiness a couple of people agreed with him. Up until that point (although I didn’t know them all that well) I had no idea they were racist jackasses. Live and learn. This is moronic on multiple levels. To the “mudshark” comment (first time I’ve heard that word outside the Zappa-commenting-on-Zeppelin-fan-mythology context, BTW), you should have replied, “No, but I’m a Jew-lover!” (Lenny’s father is a “white” Jewish American.) ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/105 "2013-07-06T12:43:28Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > Oh, I imagine my ex-wife **feels tainted** , but I’m not sure it has anything to do with me being black… That’s nasty. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/106 "2013-07-06T12:59:07Z")
> [@Tracijo67](#): > > **astro** , I don’t see anyone disputing that racism exists. Your initial OP was an observation of clearly racist behaviors (refusing to date a white woman who had been with a black man) and your obtuse speculating about why that could be. > > It’s racist. Something so flatly obvious that it need not be posed as a question at all. To a lesser ignorant person, the question might be ‘why is this’ rather than ‘what is this.’ My own response to both questions is that I don’t really care, so long as the bigot has enough sense to keep his ugly trap shut, and he or she doesn’t have the power to turn that bias into the denial of housing, employment, or other measurably important opportunities for people of color. Sit in your houses and stew in your useless rage that the rest of civilized society is at least TRYING to move on. Keep on assuming that something you were born conveys automatic status above another human being. Education has seldom changed minds that are slammed shut; I’d rather treat ‘those people’ as nothing more important than a piece of furniture discarded by the curbside. Insignificant, until they cause any REAL problems, then righteously dealt with if they do. > > Count me in as one who thinks that you are intentionally trying to stir the shit pot. IMO it’s more than simple racism. There is unique virulence to the shunning attitudes where equal opportunity American racists will be prejudiced against a variety of races and cultures, but will not bat an eye at dating women who have previously dated (for example) an Asian or Hispanic man, however with black men it becomes an entirely different universe. Belowjob2.0’s post or more or less answered the question. There’s almost an “enemy” orientation toward black people for these racists. I had not considered this angle before. I’m glad your questions can be answered with big lazy strokes of “RACISM”. I wanted a more incisive answer and I got it. > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Belowjob2.0 View Post > What astro’s talking about is mainly a US phenomenon. I would go a step farther and say that it’s mainly in the South, areas that received a lot of Southern migrants, and the Mid-Atlantic region. It’s not a sentiment I’ve ever encountered in people from Wisconsin or Minnesota, for example. Never seen it in either Canadians or Europeans either. (I"m not arguing that it’s non-existent in any of these places, just rarer.) > > The US is unique among New World countries in that it established a rigid color line, with strict bans on intermarriage, to support its forced labor system. First in the Virginia and Maryland colonies, and later throughout the Atlantic seaboard. What started out as law became deeply ingrained custom, with the law remaining on the books in Virginia for almost 300 years. > > In practice, illicit relationships between black women and white men were tolerated, but relationships between black men and white women were condemned and harshly penalized. So part of what’s happening is just a continuation of traditional attitudes. > > Some other thoughts: the shunning for interracial dating seems very similar to the shunning of women for consorting with enemy soldiers. At the end of WWII, the public humiliation and ostracism of French women who associated with German soldiers, for example. To the extent that these men see black Americans as the enemy, their reaction to interracial dating isn’t unusual. > > I wonder if dating between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland results in comparable shunning? Or if it dating doesn’t occur often enough to make it an issue? > > Another thought: the shunning also resembles the phenomenon of caste pollution in traditional Hindu culture. High caste Hindus would not allow themselves to touch or be touched by members of the untouchable castes (roughly analogous to black Americans in the US race/caste system.) Violating the barrier would inspire feelings of revulsion in some of the high caste Hindus. > [@](#): > > Thank you for the informative post. Your demographic observations are correct and I think your analysis goes a long way toward answering my question re the narrow focus on black-white. ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/107 "2013-07-06T13:22:02Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Uh oh. I had a lost summer with a black guy when I was 19, and I’m white. Apparently I _did_ have something to confess in Zebra’s secrets thread! > > Except, oops, I just blabbed. Rats. Lost summer?! Pfft! He stole it.🙂 > [@Lamia](#): > > If these women are so unappealing, why are black men willing to date them? She’s White. The stereotype is any White woman’ll do. I think it was comedian Paul Mooney who joked that certain black men want to date old White women because they’ve been white longer. If you go to your favorite porntube site and search cuckold, in a majority of the videos the bull(that’s the other man) is black. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/108 "2013-07-06T14:07:15Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Belowjob2.0’s post or more or less answered the question. There’s almost an “enemy” orientation toward black people for these racists. I had not considered this angle before. Why not? It’s a pretty obvious explanation. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/109 "2013-07-06T15:06:13Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Why not? It’s a pretty obvious explanation. I know, right? **astro** , you are neither young or dumb. You have been privy to years of SD threads on the nature and history of anti-black racism. So while I don’t think you’re trolling or lying, it does puzzle me why you’re so confused about this. Do you understand why some of us don’t understand why you even had to ask this question? ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/110 "2013-07-06T15:10:56Z")
> [@enomaj](#): > > She’s White. The stereotype is any White woman’ll do. I think it was comedian Paul Mooney who joked that certain black men want to date old White women because they’ve been white longer. If you go to your favorite porntube site and search cuckold, in a majority of the videos the bull(that’s the other man) is black. It’s always struck me as racist and misogynistic when I hear of a white man wanting to see his white wife with a black man. (Misogynistic because I think HE probably thinks it’s demeaning, not because I think it is, obviously.) I’m not saying it’s always that way and I know people have weird fantasies, but if I had a white husband who was into that I’d be creeped out (on the other hand though…there would be an upside). ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/111 "2013-07-06T15:17:17Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Can anyone point to a “first rate” (for lack of a better term) white woman who has publicly dated or married a black man? If no one has said it yet (as I am reading the thread in sequential order and want to reply before getting to the end) – Heidi Klum. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/112 "2013-07-06T15:22:12Z")
> [@desertmonk](#): > > I was out with my buddy one night and I met his sister-in-law’s friend, a really cute one too; afterwards she was interested in me but he wouldn’t give her my number because she was a “ **nigger-digger** ”. I confronted him on the bullshit with “you’ve been with black women”, which was the truth. That was different somehow. Snap! The alliteration instantly changes the speaker from a stomach-churning racist to clever w/ just a few letters! Impressive. I imagine your buddy was under the usual sexist impression that women men have sex w/ don’t count for much but the men that women have sex w/ influence that part of those women for the rest of their lives. A woman’s sexual partner is more important than a man’s sexual partner. (Of course, I approach this from a heter-normative view as a straight white gal having no personal experience w/ my white LGBT friends sexing it up w/ non-white LGBT persons or relating their feelings about such.) ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/113 "2013-07-06T15:43:45Z")
I will confirm what the OP is stating, that I have met people who are otherwise not racist at all (or rather, give no indication of being racist), would proudly state they believe in equality for all, and have no outwardly negative feelings toward anyone of any other race, but they have an issue with white women dating black men… and ONLY that interracial pairing. Black women with white men doesn’t bother them at all interestingly, nor does a white woman with any other race or group (Asian, Hispanic, etc.) I am unsure why it is. I’ve considered a few alternatives… I think one is that the person may not even be racist but rather intimidated, since black men are thought of as the epitome of masculine, combined with the size stereotype relating to the penis. I think another possibility is the “tainted” idea, where the man thinks that the woman no longer can even be considered truly “white” or that she is some kind of traitor. As a gay male, I would not have an issue dating a man who has been with a black man, but I’d always be afraid that his preference was truly for black men and he’d leave me for one. Most of the women and gay men I know who date black men, do so almost exclusively, so if one of these men was interested in me, I’d feel weird being the exception to an otherwise established pattern and be afraid I’d get cheated on if I didn’t measure up to expectations. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/114 "2013-07-06T16:00:00Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Yes obviously racism, but this “forever tainted & unclean” attitude does not seem to hold with these racists WRT a white women dating Hispanic, Asian or other groups, only black men. > [@astro](#): > > Blanket racism is not the answer. These same racists do not have a big problem with White woman - Asian or White woman -Hispanic dating. The fury is reserved for White-Black dating almost exclusively. It’s not all that surprising that anti-black racism from white people would be different in its details from other combinations (which would in turn be different from each other). The contamination idea is, if not necessarily unique to white-on-black racism, not automatically found elsewhere. And I’m with the people who thought you were too smart to have to wonder about this. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/115 "2013-07-06T16:20:27Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Yes, that’s the only possible explanation for why she fucks black guys. Thank you. > > Remember, you called her a whore in response to someone saying she was confidant. I’m not even sure what self confidant like a whore even means, but there you go. Don’t back track now, stick to your guns, buddy. You have decided to purposefully misconstrue what I’ve said. And since you have admitted on other message boards that you enjoy trolling this one I shall no longer take you have to say seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/116 "2013-07-06T16:35:29Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I know, right? > > **astro** , you are neither young or dumb. You have been privy to years of SD threads on the nature and history of anti-black racism. So while I don’t think you’re trolling or lying, it does puzzle me why you’re so confused about this. Do you understand why some of us don’t understand why you even had to ask this question? To be totally honest, I’d not heard of this particular offshoot of racism (i.e., despising white woman/black man relationships above and beyond a general racist attitude), at least not in modern times. This thread is both really informative and really depressing. With the anecdotes people are telling, please tell me you cussed those assholes out and dropped them as friends. That shit is unacceptable. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/117 "2013-07-06T16:38:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > To be totally honest, I’d not heard of this particular offshoot of racism (i.e., despising white woman/black man relationships above and beyond a general racist attitude), at least not in modern times. This thread is both really informative and really depressing. I have heard it before. For some reason, many of the people I have met who despise white woman/black men relationships, have no issue with the reverse (black woman/white man). Another argument I have seen given, by one of my aunts, is that white women who date black men tend to be trashy/“ghetto” acting, whereas black women who date white men tend to be the opposite of that and more upscale.. thus, stereotypically the black woman with the white man will act “white” while the white woman with the black man will act “black” (I have these in quotations since I know you can’t “act” a certain race, but that’s what people think). Thus, they perceive the outcome of one of the pairings to be “better”. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/118 "2013-07-06T16:39:21Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > In all sincerity, that’s not how I meant any part of my question. But I don’t think my question is any more inherently racist or outrage-worthy than that of the OP. Your question may not be racist, but the observation reveals some pretty pernicious racism. It’s an inaccurate observation, and the only reason for making that inaccurate observation that I can think of is that you’ve got some serious racist baggage to deal with. Rather than continuing to defend your “just asking questions” nonsense, you’d be better off confronting your attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/119 "2013-07-06T17:22:58Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I know, right? > > **astro** , you are neither young or dumb. You have been privy to years of SD threads on the nature and history of anti-black racism. So while I don’t think you’re trolling or lying, it does puzzle me why you’re so confused about this. Do you understand why some of us don’t understand why you even had to ask this question? No, but only because I’ve accepted that different people are ignorant about different things. **astro** is ignorant about racism. You guys are ignorant about the fact that some people are ignorant about racism. You are ignorant about the fact that some people have different experiences than you and different knowledge sets. And you are ignorant about the fact that you can intrinsically “know” something without understanding why it is. Because, what’s even funnier is that, even though everyone says it’s obvious, no one has actually given the correct answer. Racism obviously isn’t a complete answer. Black racism being different is a start, but still not an answer. The only full answer is completely wrong: people don’t view black people as some sort of enemy. That would be putting them on too equal a footing with white people. The reason for this is because they still see miscegenation as sinful. A white woman who has had sex with a black man has committed a sin. And unless she is sorry for that sin, she’s still sinful, and thus of lower value than a pure woman. (And yes, that gets into the virgin/whore complex.) Come on, people. This is the South we are talking about. Of course the issue is religious in nature. The only enemy the white woman is fraternizing with is Satan. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743/120 "2013-07-06T17:27:04Z")
I believe thier is some truth to Amatuer Barbarians claims but not to the extent he may have indicated. Women are just like men, they have pride and egos. Many of them who were rejected in the dating pool by nice looking successful white men found they could have more success with good looking black guys. This is not to say that many black white relationships don’t have the same dynamics as any relationship but you will find a high percentage of women who were not successful within thier own race so sought love elseware. ``` Some women see the blackman as a source of power and strength, or they might simply be rebelling against the white establishment. Today most of the hook ups I see appear a lot more traditional where two people just meet and become attracted to one another. 40 years ago not so much. ``` [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-woman-has-a-past-relationship-with-a-black-man-shes-tainted-forever-why/662743.md?page=7)