Love Lives - #49 How racism manifests in dating

Episode Date: August 31, 2018

In this week's episode of Millennial Love we're joined by the authors of the brilliant book 'Slay In Your Lane', Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené, to discuss how racism operates in the contemporary landscape of dating and relationships.Yomi and Elizabeth share their own experiences of dating as black women and we discuss the problem with fetishising ethnicities online and beyond.Follow us on Instagram to stay up-to-date! https://www.instagram.com/millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello and welcome to Millennial Love,

the Independent Lifestyle Desk's weekly podcast on love, dating and relationships. Hosted by me, Olivia Petter, Lifestyle Writer. And me, Rachel Hosey, Assistant Lifestyle Desk's weekly podcast on love, dating and relationships. Hosted by me, Olivia Petter, lifestyle writer. And me, Rachel Hosey, assistant lifestyle editor. Dating today is a world away from what it was even just 10 years ago. With dating apps, millennials are finding it harder to meet people than ever before. And even when we do, who's to say we won't be ghosted, breadcrumbed or zombied? So that's why we decided to launch Millennial Love as two longtime singletons in their 20s, talking candidly about all of the things everyone is doing but not always willing to admit. Today we're delighted to welcome the authors of one of the hottest books of the summer,

Slay in Your Lane, Elizabeth Uwe Benene and Yomi Adegoke. Welcome guys! Hi! How are you doing? Good thanks, how are you guys? We're great! Pretty good! We're so excited to have you here because we loved your book.

Oh thank you. And obviously what we loved most was the chapter about dating which we're going to get into but before we do, perhaps would you both be able to tell the listeners a little bit about who you are, your backgrounds and you know what the book's about, why you decided to write it? My name's Elizabeth, you've heard Benene, as I've already been introduced as. But yeah, I am a marketing manager. I'm a co-author of Slaying Your Lane.

And Slaying Your Lane is an inspirational guide to life. And what we've done is interviewed some of the most trailblazing black British women and asked them what it means to be, I guess, black British and tackle different areas. Black and female. And tackle different areas from education black and female um and tackle different areas from education to dating um to representation um to health and essentially how they slayed their lanes essentially i love it i love the name so much so good what about you yomi um my name's yomi adegoke as i've already been introduced as as well um and I'm a journalist currently a senior

writer at the pool and um co-author of my bio is like exactly like but um yeah co-author of Slam Your Lane best friend to Elizabeth and um and um yeah like just to sort of add on to what Elizabeth was saying that like yeah is it as we like, we don't really like the term like self-help book because there's only like limitations in terms of like when you're dealing with institutional racism and like sexism, you can't like slay your way out of it. But we say a lot about like, you know, coming to like a battle prepared. women with this kind of bible and like guide to just kind of show them what they can do like yeah within certain situations and like dating as you mentioned like is a massive sort of I suppose sort of sticking point for a lot of black women not just in Britain but I guess yeah everyone's got their own specific like weird things but yeah like so that was interesting to do so when you were writing it were you you know thinking about you were writing this for fellow black women, right?

But have you found, how has the reaction been to the book? Because like Livia and I both absolutely loved it, didn't we? And I know you guys have been everywhere on the summer. You've been in all the magazines and the podcasts. Like, has the reaction been bigger than you expected? Definitely. Yeah. Summer of slay.

Yeah. Slaying your own season. it has been 100 and it's interesting because it came about because um elizabeth literally just called me one day and was like oh you know i really want to like you know like reading loads of different like self-help books and stuff and was like i really wish there was something that spoke to me specifically so like we always kind of say that like it was initially like because she asked me to write it because i'm a journalist so she was like oh would initially like, cause she asked me to write it because I'm a journalist. So she was like, Oh,

would you like to write this book? Cause she knew I wanted to write a book one day. And so it was very like a very specific demographic initially of like one person, which was like Elizabeth. And then it was like, Oh no, let's do it together.

And then obviously it became about like black women and like more specifically black British women. So we very much knew that there'd be a reaction from like our own immediate community. But I think what's been really sort of amazing is to see how many other people that aren't necessarily black female or immediately represented within like you know the title black girl bible but they feel like it's resonated with them or um if they don't necessarily relate to it they feel like they've learned from it which to be honest i just don't think we we hoped but we didn't necessarily expect definitely it's been a whirlwind for sure it's amazing thank you fantastic um before we fully

get into our main discussion though let's have a brief dating debrief shall we dating debrief okay what's your news living give us an update My dating debrief is brief in that I am dating as I mentioned in my last episode and it's going well and I'm She's keeping pretty shtum. I'm keeping pretty shtum. I can tell

because he can mess up and then you're going to have to come back next week to say here's why you messed up. I'm just always very conscious of the fact that the boys that i date sometimes listen to this podcast and sometimes get in touch and say why did you say this why didn't you say that why didn't you talk about me you should talk about me oh it's so funny so it's quite a weird situation to be in um what i will say is that i mentioned last week and probably the week before actually about this French guy that I hooked up with when I was in France two weeks ago and it was it's just so funny because I didn't

really know the guy at all and I've since followed him on Instagram and just come to realize how far from my type he is he's very much like posting the topless selfies and writing captions like good vibes only it's just so not my thing but I'm really enjoying it I might follow him because he was fit what about you Rachel? well I made the error in last week's episode

we did last week's episode on crushes and I said I had three crushes and then James last week's guest was like well now you need to give an update on your crushes next week so obviously I have to now

don't I to be honest with you though there's not much to update I have had interactions with two of the three crushes

they were positive interactions but there has not been a great deal of progress made there's been slight progress but again you never know who's gonna listen to this podcast i'm loving this vague like thing going on

i feel like a lot of times on the podcast we're kind of saying stuff but it's like slightly veiled like secret messages the thing is it's only veiled when it's currently going on. Yeah. If it happens. Then afterwards, we'll spill all the meat. we're so open. If we're in a current situation, I feel like we just need to try to catch me.

Yeah. When these boys that I'm crushing on all reject me or tell me they're married with three kids or gay or whatever it might be, then I'll reveal

everything about them. So, yeah, I look forward to that, guys. But essentially, I don't have much to update. What I will say is that I moved flats at the weekend

which is terribly exciting I have to say there's something about going to a new area that you know I've just gone from South London to North London and I'm like

ooh a new pool of boys your Tinder location like updates I know exactly even though personalities

it's not going to make any difference at all is it I'm like hmm maybe I'll meet the one now that I'm in North London I don't think it's going to make any difference at all, is it? I'm like, hmm, maybe I'll meet the one now that I'm in North London.

I don't think it's going to make that much difference, but that's that. Okay, let's do a bio of the week. This is a bio from a man slash boy. I don't know how old he is. I don't know what you want to call it. Called Jack. And his bio reads, Let's date a few times, lose contact,

and then view each other's instagram stories until we eventually die oh my god it kind of made me laugh so i was like this is so depressing but accurate very accurate because i think i have like five boys that look at my instagram stories right like daily that i've probably matched on tinder met a party that we don't currently speak speak speak at the moment so do they follow you or do they just be your story they follow and then they view and then when the book stuff came out there's a lot of congratulations yeah so i've got people that i've spoken to on dating apps that don't actually follow me but view my instagram stories because i recognize their name

i find that really weird you're gonna look at my story why don't you follow me you've got to have a fake account that's what i have yeah we were talking about this the other day we need fake accounts to stalk the boys we fancy yeah or we just stalk boys for each other yeah we've done that before but that's quite obvious because we do the podcast together um do you know what's quite interesting one of my best friends that i was on holiday with a few weeks ago she we were doing some um tinder swiping because we were abroad and we were like lol and she she was like i can't be bothered to actually message any of these boys on tinder or whatever so i'm just gonna like even do the swiping she was like i can't be bothered to swipe so i'm gonna put my instagram handle in my bio and her approach was then the boys will just message

her on instagram if they're interested in her and then she'll be like yes no yes no yes how did it work out for that yeah but the only ones who messaged her i think she was a bit like yeah the super desperate ones that actually took the time exactly but she was like well i got some new instagram followers so you, it's not all bad. Exactly. Right. So, guys, the main thing we're going to talk about today is race and dating, the role of race and dating. And, Libby, you actually wrote an article about this last week, didn't you? Yeah, so I wrote an article specifically based on dating apps. Mainly because I actually follow, so I follow this account called Tories of Bumble, which we've mentioned on the podcast before.

Instagram account. Yeah, Instagram account. And it was inspired by that because they got asked, you know, what's the worst thing you've ever seen on the account? And they posted on their Instagram stories a screenshot of someone's bio. And in the bio it said,

always liked to be the big spoon six foot three no African girls and he was like this is the obviously not implying that you know she didn't post it on Tories are fumble because obviously you can't then and behind the Tories are racist but she was just using as an example to see this is all the horrible stuff that people put on their profiles and it really shocked me I've never come across a profile like that before so then i started looking into it and i looked at this um study that ok cupid did in 2014 which you guys cite in the book which basically revealed that black men are 16 percent more likely to contact a non-black woman than a black woman online in the uk and it also found

that black women are the least liked ethnic group on dating sites demographic yeah yeah yeah so it was just it was just really shocking I spoke to a couple of people about it I spoke to a blogger called Stephanie about it she told me she'd been sent some horrific comments by people on dating apps mostly of like a fetishizing nature things like oh my dominant fat black queen and saying that they wanted a taste of jungle fever and I just can't believe that this kind of dialogue goes on in 2018 at all but it's just really shocking um so you guys write so brilliantly about this in your book and where you think this comes from so I guess I guess could you just tell us a bit about what your experiences are of online dating and how you've found it and

where do you think this comes from um I think it's interesting because it's like I think funny enough in the same year that the okay cupid um study came out 2014 um i wrote a piece a while back i think it was for the debrief and it was about um tinder and it was like literally things that black girls have said no sorry what was it things that you only know if you're a black girl on tinder essentially and i remember that i wasn't a black girl on tinder essentially and haven't been until very recently and i think that's probably something that el probably agree with because I don't I don't know what it is but I think I don't want to generalize but I know that it wasn't until quite recently that black women and I'd say potentially the black community started sort of taking into like things like online dating and like using like tinder and

like bumble and stuff because I wouldn't necessarily say it was like a stigma thing but I think it just wasn't something we necessarily used so was like a stigma thing but I think it just wasn't something we necessarily used so a lot of the time when I was having to like sort of talk about like experiences and things um that happened like on tinder and stuff and like um on dating sites I'd have to ask my friends because even now I'd say to this day it's like it's something that i've always experienced through others if that makes sense and like anecdotally and and i think more of the kind of like things that i've if there's anything that i've ever experienced has been more like face-to-face things so as i mentioned in the book somebody saying to me a black guy saying to me what was it university like oh you're the

fittest black girl in the club and i was like thanks i'm the only black girl in the club though i'm not really sure like i was probably standing next to you so that was that's all as usual wherever there's you're me there's me so and and things like that like um you know elizabeth having a black man like say to her like oh like don't give me the black girl chat and stuff and and to be of course it's not just with black guys there's things that you know like white men have said and like um that people of other races have said but in terms of like online dating and in terms of like tinder and like apps honestly i can't really say that i've personally experienced anything that would it's it's funny because even

when I was writing the chapter I was really having to dig deep like was anybody there been like this kind of like weird racist like do you know what I mean like conversations I'm having on tinder but then I feel like I guess maybe because I don't really use it and even like recently when I like sort of became newly single I was like even then I'm still quite hesitant to it, maybe because of the things that I've heard other people have gone through. I mean, I've heard really bad stuff. I've heard people being like, oh, you know, I've always wanted to taste chocolate, as you kind of said a minute ago, and people being massively fetishising.

But it's not something I can honestly say I've personally experienced. It's more been that, and honestly, I'd say even in my own life, like the extent of what I've experienced honestly is in the book because most of the time it's like I haven't, I honestly haven't sort of interpersonally experienced stuff that I'd honestly say is like out and out racist in terms of dating. You've been in a relationship for a long time. Yeah, yeah.

I was even thinking, I used to really look at Tinder and and be like oh man this believe it or not like this is when it first came out but i was like oh wow this sounds so fun like you're just you've got this phone and it's just like filled with these hot sexy singletons and then it's like i was in a relationship for two and a half years and then once i was like spat back out the other side of it and was like right yeah i get to finally experience tinder it was like i'd heard all this stuff like over two and a half years of like how you know like if you're a black woman like a it's like really hard to find matches b matches of quality c like you might be like racially abused or you know complimented in this weird racist way so i think i kind of went into it feeling a bit like

hesitant anyway and then it's meant that like i know that like i know elizabeth will agree like we're both quite um left heavy in terms of swiping like so yeah so it's really difficult right so even when it comes to like you know there are a lot of unread messages and there's a lot of like even now we're both kind of sitting here being like oh you know like we're always kind of like oh maybe we should like re-download tinder like let's have a look at it but then it's like neither of us ever actually do it because we're both like it is a bit of a cesspit so we're like and then it's like bumble and it's kind of like a less a cesspit but still a cesspit of sorts so we're kind of like i think there's that added kind of like um i think most women are kind of

like dubious of those sites anyway but then as a black woman it's like you feel like i suppose even more cautious of using them because the stories are very well known about how people can talk to you on there so yeah honestly all i can say is that like a lot of the things i've heard have been second hand and then like statistical for me anyway yeah it's interesting what about you elizabeth i i yeah which everything you and me said um i was in a relationship for a long time and then when we broke up it was very much like oh let's get on tinder because it was just like you know whole new world um but i'm definitely like a left heavily like swipe person so i don't necessarily like you said a lot of my kind of interactions in terms of it being haven't necessarily been racialized that i into being bad but I think it's because as well I'm quite

tactical and when I do swipe right in the time of like in the type for the type of like black or white guy so I think I look if I really think someone's good looking then I go to their profile and I kind of like sum up just by their bios and I guess stereotypes and how I feel like they're gonna they are and then I make a decision based on that but I do take a lot longer to get to a point where I do swipe right and I think when the kind of the white guys that I've swiped they haven't said anything to me that that's been you know very like rude or anything like that and so with the bad guy someone who looks like they're gonna be a decent human yeah but that's hard. Go on their Instagram. Exactly.

Do a quick LinkedIn search. Got to give them a bit of a stalk first, for sure. So I think, yeah, anecdotes. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on

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Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Do you guys think there's a problem with this stereotype of black women and like relationships or dating type thing um as it i do do we think that like a stereotype exists like yeah yeah like you would say there was this quote in in your book that i wrote down was really interesting you said the idea of black women being undeserving of love begins with the notion that beauty is what makes women deserving of love and that black women cannot be beautiful

yeah oh okay cool so yeah i think absolutely like i don't know if either of you guys watch that um documentary is love racist on channel four yeah and it's like i think i literally bring it up like elizabeth no i bring up like every single time like we discuss the dating chapter because it's like I think I literally bring out like every single time like we discussed the dating chapter cuz it's just to me just so illustrative of what the issue is which was it was basically like you guys remember there was that like um what's the word they did like this experiment that's the word I mean what's the thing when you test things out yeah and they did an experiment which was kind of trying to like see what people's preferences were.

And then it was like, the long and short of it was that every single person that's white, that's black, that's Asian, mixed race regardless, like had a preference towards whiteness. And they were like, even if you essentially are somebody that,

you know, it was just so interesting. It was like, even if you are somebody that isn't white, essentially, you still have a preference towards whiteness and that's regardless of gender and i was like that's really interesting and i think that illustrates like at least in part what the issue is which is that whiteness and especially when we talk about like beauty and stuff and desirability is considered the like sort of ultimate but then i think the reason it's really important to talk about it in terms of black women specifically is because whilst you know that preference for whiteness exists with women as well and women tend to of all races at least according

to that documentary still have a preference towards whiteness when we talk about desirability attractiveness isn't always the kind of primary thing that attracts women to men um there's things like height there's things like money like let's be real like you know there's things like education it's a bit more mixed a bit more of a mixed bag in terms of what we are looking for and what we find attractive in a man whereas with women i would say that like i don't know if i would say like patriarchy would say that it's like the number one thing that tends to be like looked at when we're calling a woman attractive or saying whether she's desirable is what she looks like and if we've got a society which says that like whiteness is what makes someone

attractive whilst men might have and that's black men as well whilst men might have the kind of like um like the sort of edge being able to be like okay i'm not the best looking guy like but i've got money look at every single like musician ever that's like you know i mean got like this beautiful woman hanging off his arm and he's like absolutely like awful to look at um it's like men might have that edge of like oh i'm i'm really smart i'm really educated i'm really rich i'm really tall and they've got i'm really funny like that whole i don't know if women can laugh men into bed i don't know if that's a very few women very few women yeah women are more attracted to like humor exactly just a various like variety of things

whereas like with women it's like so heavily geared towards looks and a brilliant writer and feminist Patricia Hill Collins was talking about how black women for whiteness to be considered like attractive it had to be like juxtaposed against like blackness so like you know for straight hair to be nice it's like you have the other which is like afros and it's like oh that's unattractive then it's like you know big noses juxtaposed against skinny noses so that becomes unattractive kind of thing so what it is I think it's like black women just kind of really bear the brunt in terms of dating because it's like for whiteness to have that thing where everybody kind of looks it and sees it as like you know um preferential you need the other thing that kind of is like the

polar opposite which means that it's like really not attractive. And I think whilst that's something that affects black men and women, black men don't have that, you know, their value isn't entirely hinged on looks, especially not in dating. So it's like when you look at like famous, like let's say rappers and like who obviously like generally, especially in America, like tend to date black women. When you still look at the black women they date, famous like let's say rappers and like who obviously like generally especially

in America like tend to date black women when you still look at the black women they date they do tend to be as close looking to white women as feasibly possible without them being white if that makes sense so yeah I think that's so yeah the stereotypes are real and they're written it just leaves like black women and especially I'm always trying to make this distinction because it's really important but especially dark-skinned black women and black women that for absolute lack of better phrase look blacker at the bottom of the rung and i think that's something that me and elizabeth find really important to talk about

that you know it doesn't just become this thing where we're like we're all in the same boat we we're all we're definitely all in the same boat but it's like we're all at different levels of like different seating plans so it's like the dark-skinned girls are like right at the bit where it's sinking like it's we're already underwater like do you know what i mean and it's like and then there's got like and then the lighter you are and the more the more your proximity to whiteness is the you're still in that boat but you're kind of in the bit that hasn't really been submerged yet you're kind of slowly sinking but like everyone else is like drowning already like that's a very long, what's the word?

Metaphor. But yeah, so yeah, I think it's a real stereotype and it affects everybody, but just to differing degrees. And I think dark-skinned black women are absolutely the come-off worst from it. You're right, you see it all the time in magazines as well with Lupita Nyong'o on that Grazia cover. She had her hair shaved off in the cover it was photoshopped

and you see like black models be whitewashed on covers of magazines and editorials all the time even like love interests as well like i think that's why we loved black panther so much as like black women and john said dark-skinned black women because not only did um his name t'challa choose a he a um a black woman um but a she was a dark-skinned black woman um with essentially did she have like her little afro yeah yeah exactly so i think that was definitely seen for the i can't remember the last the first i can't remember like how many times that i've seen that like in a mainstream thing um as you said when you do see black couples as love interest especially we ask a lot of the content that we do consume as black women and black people is african-american focused there is colorism is at play and it's at the center of that um and it's

hard to have these discussions without making black women sound as victims and i was like and it's perpetual it's it's really hard because i know you want me found it so hard writing that specific part around like um you know black women being despite the least and all of those sort of things and the reasons and exploring it because like it's it can be a little bit demoralizing because you just want to find love yeah like and whatever kind of you know vessel it comes in and and all that sort of stuff you just essentially want to find someone who actually rates who you are yeah thinks you're essentially good looking and buff but also just like your personality and like the before we get there

as black women we actually have so many steps and hurdles to think about we're thinking about oh is he just gonna like me because i'm a if when you think about the black man you're thinking oh what type of what type of does he like black girls if he's a successful black man you're thinking that you know I used to work in Canary Wharf and I'd be walking like you know my lunch break and everyone's like oh Canary Wharf has got good-looking guys and like good-looking black guys successful yeah they do yeah there's definitely that that feel but then you're walking you're walking around you're thinking all this does

this successful black man like black women and that's that's something that you think about because you're thinking oh what type of universities has he gone to but you're thinking oh is it like does he have a proximity to dating only white women and you question those things and um even when it comes to white guys you're thinking oh does he only like me because you know there's a little thing going on or there's so many things you question and like it is a mindful but it's hard to have these conversations without making black women because we're not victims and i think that's that's the kind of like message and it's hard and it's and it's important for us to kind of have these discussions but also make sure that we just don't leave it as like oh yeah so everything's shit for

you and that's it and everyone thinks you're ugly and you're never gonna find love the end bye you wrote the chapter so well though i also like that you pointed out a really interesting point that in the harry potter films lavender brown yeah it's played by is it two different black two different black actresses yeah until it gets to the film where she is a love interest for ron and they replace her with a white act yeah i didn't know that most people didn't yeah and i think it's why a lot of people are kind of with JK Rowling I mean I love Harry Potter so much but it's like with her whole kind of like renewed like interest in diversity a lot of people are like quite skeptical of it because obviously when that happened it was it was there was an

outcry it was a really small outcry because it's like it was in the earth like Twitter wasn't the force it is now and it was from there was an outcry. It was a really small outcry because it's like, it was in the, like Twitter wasn't the force it is now. And it was from very, very specific demographic that didn't have the kind of power that we do now. So it was like a lot of like black British people and African-Americans actually

were like vocally really upset about it. But nowadays, if that happened, oh my God, it'd be like absolutely, the film wouldn't even come out. Like it would literally be curtains. But it's like back then,

people did make it known term and like nothing um happened with it but I think for me because the girl one of the actresses um was my sister's friend's little sister so it was really close to her and she was Nigerian and I was kind of like and I was reading the books alongside like the um alongside the film and I remember being like, oh my God, I can't wait to see who this black girl is that they're gonna cast. And then because I was like,

I knew that Ed, that's the guy, his sister wasn't coming back. So I was like, oh great. Can't wait to see what girl they do put. And then it was just like, oh, okay. This isn't quite how, do you know what I mean? I imagined her to look. Yeah, and I think it just sends quite a clear message

of what, as Elizabeth was talking about, what a love interest looks like, essentially. Yeah, I think you're right, I think it's such a shame. I think it's also, the whole concept of preferences, like what you were just saying about, oh, here's a nice guy, but does he like black girls or whatever? It's so interesting because i wonder how much of

people's you know preferences for who they swipe on who they're interested in who they fancy is subconscious and how much of it is conscious like you know i think a lot of people will say like i fancy people of all different races but then maybe if what they're what when it actually comes down to it maybe if they are only going for white people or a particular race like you know how how much of that is like some sort of weird ingrained thing and how much of it is problematic conscious yeah i think all of it's problematic yeah i think all of our preferences is problematic i like tall guys and all the guys that i've seen in the past or old or i'm like five foot one there's no reason that i should be dating tall guys taller than five five five

five really i should leave that to the tall girls but i have this thing where i just have this thing where it's kind of like oh they have to be tall and that's problematic like not because they're a shortage of talk but it's because i associate i think it's why i associate with someone being tall and i think that's where it's problematic deep down strong man like you know all of those things like the qualities of just a black oh that's a real man all those little those things that i've told myself or i've been able to yeah conditions exactly that way and when it comes to black women those preferences and aren't formed in a vacuum 100% and I think I think it's good that like Elizabeth's even in a position where you know it's not like she's

gonna stop dating tall guys she's not doing that hit me up no way like she's just saying that like letting people letting people know that like it's something that also that she's like aware of and I think that like it is something that like I agree with elizabeth that like it's very rare that a preference isn't problematic and i think again that was another bit that i found difficult to write because i was trying to say that like i'm not trying to get every man out there now to like be like right who is the darkest black woman i can find with like the curliest like the kinkiest afro i'm gonna go marry her like that's literally not the point of the chapter is at all it was just about saying that like as Elizabeth talking about like some kind of trying to work out why you have a preference rather than acting that it's something like it's something that we're born with because when your preferences

I think it's interesting that you were sort of saying that you know like do people are people most people may kind of say oh I like people or races but I'd say a lot at least within the black community a lot of people are quite vocal about you know genuinely not preferring like black women with their own communities they're quite vocal about it and especially when it comes to things like skin tone because I think skin colorism isn't something that's taken seriously it's only taken seriously by those that are affected by it who which are primarily dark-skinned black women as opposed to men you'll hear loads of men being like oh i like lighties that's why the term exists

like it's like a kind of weird term of endearment but also kind of insulting term against like light-skinned women but you'll get loads of come on elizabeth knows like you'll get loads men vocally being like i like light-skinned women and i've always kind of compared it to like how bizarre would it be if like white guys were like i like pale girls or i like more tanned women it's very specific i thought this when on love island this year i don't know if you guys saw it a couple of the girls when they were like they were like what's your type and then the girls were like mixed race i was like like like what does that even mean because mixed race genuinely it doesn't mean white and black it could be it could be anything but you know in what way she meant exactly you know exactly what image she was conjuring because it's like you get mixed race people half

white half black that look like barack obama then you get i've got a friend that's mixed race who's literally white passing like you'd never guess that she was mixed at all. Well, it's like, you know Meghan Markle and her character in Suits? People were kind of, I remember reading there was a thing that said

people were outraged when her father was introduced Yeah, was cast as black. Because she could pass as Hispanic. People hadn't realised she was mixed race. Absolutely. She's essentially,

if not white passing, definitely ethnically ambiguous. And I think that's why we're very much like nobody's telling you that like you can't have preferences it's far too late especially for like our generation where we're like complete adults that like emerge in the dating world but what we want is for people to understand where they come from because if not and if we don't question them it it is bizarre that people that are black say things like I prefer white women if you're like

I am open to I like white women I'm open to dating white women that's absolutely fine in the same way that like I like white guys I date white guys but I could never have the confidence to kind of say I prefer them because then I'm like what does that I have to really understand why because preferences don't form in a vacuum and I know that I am not so subtly being sent loads of messages that say that white is essentially right I I think that's the thing is that when we talk about like you know preference people kind of like well why are you telling people not to date interracially and it's like of course that's obviously not what we're

saying because we date interracially but it's important to you know understand why you why you would prefer especially when it's like when you look the other way around it's like very rare statistically speaking for white people to be like i prefer something other than another white person i mean statistically it's like i can't remember the actual number it's in the book somewhere like in those million pages but it's like statistically speaking it's very it's much rarer for white people to be like i prefer someone that isn't white but then even if a white person was like as the girls were in love island i prefer mixed race it's i it's like it it gets my back up a little bit because i just want to know why like it's nothing wrong with finding somebody attractive it's like trying to

understand where that stems from if that makes sense is it because you have you know ideas of what masculinity is that make you think that like black men and are more virile have bigger dicks or whatever and because of colorism you don't want a inverted commas black black man so you want a mixed race man there's all kinds of stuff that you know even with i guess on the flip side with the um the women the white women on love island who said they did prefer mixed race i found it odd as well when um samira said that her type was blonde blue eyes that also got my back up because those things just it's just it was weird to me um because she's a black woman so i think with preferences it isn't us black women saying everybody must date black women or minority women

it's really not that it's everybody interrogating and knowing that these preferences that we do have don't aren't formed like in isolation essentially like when I was younger I used to find it really like I didn't understand why I would watch loads of different programs and loads of dating shows like you had like all those dating shows on channel four channel four were great for them um was it burning k but yeah um and I didn't understand why all the time all these men would come on the show and say that and if you ask them oh blondes or brunettes it was always blondes and brunettes I didn't because I it was weird because I was quite young so i was like yeah but they're black girls i didn't understand why it was only blondes and brunettes and then when i got yeah

but didn't even really yeah exactly exactly and then i think when i was like i guess early my early teens i was trying to work out i was like do i is it because i want to be you know objectified as well like do i want black women to also be as part of that because they're not necessarily saying oh you're you're smart they're looking at them so what i'm saying is essentially like all of these it's very complicated yeah so it's not even about wanting to be objectified though is it it's about wanting to be seen as somebody that can be part of the dating pool yeah don't be invisible yeah and that's how i felt yeah and when you when all you do have as women we are so held to what we look like that of we i think we'd rather like as you said it's not about people

saying oh we're smart we'd rather that but in a world which tells you that your value literally is just about how you look it's like you end up i remember i read this post where this woman was saying that like she it was really sad like she was talking about how she used to feel jealous that people got catcalled and it's like mate like being catcalled is the world like you hate it you absolutely women have said that to me as well and that's so like complained about getting catcalled and they're like oh you know enjoy it while you still get it yeah no thanks yeah and like in certain environments like you know just getting like you know treated in a particular way and objectified which just feels so like you like you hate it but then you hear these i saw this woman who was like overweight and she was talking about it on twitter and she was saying that like she's really conflicted because because that's where women's value

likes like whether we admit or not whether we agree with it or not that's where society tells us our value lies so she would genuinely feel sad about it and i was like god man that's bleak like do you know what i mean and i guess like i hear what elizabeth's saying like you you don't it's not you know you want to be like oh i want black girls it's like like i used to say the same thing about rap videos that like when they started phasing out black women i was like wow like i'm happy because now black women aren't being objectified but it's not they haven't been phased out because people have decided they want to respect black women it's because they decided they don't want to objectify them anymore because they're not the most attractive so it's like we can now afford to objectify white women and ethnically ambiguous women and I was like if

there's a world that means that like you know you get kind of weirdly offended that like you're not being objectified it just shows how much it's letting down that demographic and making them feel like they're not part of like you know the dating pool as soon as desirable exactly desirable is the word exactly yeah it's fascinating and i think it's i think a lot of people you know who maybe haven't read your book yet or haven't you know read much into this i think a lot of people will be really really like fascinated to hear everything you guys have just said do you think like i know we need to wrap up but do you think progress is being made are things getting better or not um i'm still single so probably not um

so we're all yeah all four of us i'm literally like so do you think it's getting better i think do you know what i think the dating pool is generally so rubbish but one of the things i do and for everybody but one things i do always say to my black female friends um is like i guess broadening your horizons more because i think that's where we we struggle more than I guess other um other other ethnic groups um so I encourage um just I encourage my friends the who don't date open different races I think me and Yomi were very much open we've always been like that since we're quite since we're quite young I think my first kiss was a white boy um it really was um so I didn't so I think in terms of getting better I

think it's hard to even say from a kind of like big macro way I think individually or like I can I think some of my friends are becoming a bit more open because they realize that like the ideals of like just dating I think that when they read the stats and it's kind of kind of there and it says oh black men are more likely to xyz and colorism and all these things then when you it's almost like all of these things are stacked up against you but i don't like to kind of put it like that i just kind of want to encourage them to kind of like date different types of people and give people a chance for who they are the same way i want black men and white men to give black women a chance for who we are not necessarily just like a kind of thing that you date a person you date for a little while just a kind of like on your way to marrying who you

want to marry who will probably be white or whatever so that's my kind of like response I think that's great advice and I think think, cause it's really interesting. Cause I like, earlier this year I was dating an Indian guy and all my friends were like, Oh, I've never dated an Indian boy. Like, does he have a really small willy? And I was like, wow.

I can't, I couldn't believe it when one of my friends asked me that. he did not. It's just like, she didn't mean it in a malicious way or anything but so blinded yeah i think you know when she's after the words come out of her mouth i think she was a bit like did i what did i but you know it just was that was the original like thing that came to her head and i was like and that's the thing like you found out by dating him and like even for a very pleasant surprise so it's very much like but yeah i think like yeah people can be like massively you know ignorant it doesn't

always necessarily come out of like maliciousness and and it it only becomes malicious when you're like sitting in that ignorance knowing your ignorance and being happy in it and people reveling in it that's exactly reveling it like a pig in shit and it's like okay that was wrong what you just said if she'd have just gone oh well is it that's me throws up her hands and it's like whatever but then i think that's why we mean this with like to try and have these conversations they're not always easy to have they can be very demoralizing and they can be very like kind of like and you like we don't try to sugarcoat it but it's just important to be had because I think it makes people take a step back and look at themselves a lot and be like,

like, you know, who are they like kind of excluding from a dating pool and why? And as I said, like, because I don't, I honestly cannot say that like my dating preferences after writing this book has like changed in any way. Like Elizabeth, I'm still like, oh, I want like a tall Nigerian man. But it means that like I'm a more like aware

of myself and like prejudices I've had and be just less likely to cut my nose off to like spite my face by being like I'm not going to date this person because I've never dated this kind of person before if that makes sense yeah well but what I think is so brilliant is that we're all having these discussions yeah you know you've written a book which has got a lot more people talking and I think that's amazing thank you thanks guys we could literally ask you questions for hours but we really have to wrap up sadly

so we won't do a dating dilemma today oh I really want to do a dating dilemma do you want to squeeze one in should we squeeze a quick one yeah a quick one we'll squeeze in a quick dating dilemma thank you for sending this one in, and here's how it goes. Hi.

As a young listener of your podcast, I was wondering if you may be able to touch on this in a podcast episode. I'm nearly 16 and have been going to an all-girls school my whole life. This has resulted in me not being able to communicate well with boys as I immediately get flustered, even if I don't like them. It's so frustrating as I just want to be able to talk to guys as i would with girls and for someone who was quite shy i was again just wondering if you had any advice oh i know i love this oh my god i find this like relatable to be honest i went to an all-girls school yeah okay then i'm gonna say

what do you think oh see i i went to a girl's school for like five years and then i went to a college that was mixed and i had this exact problem i think i fancied everyone i fancied everybody like that was in my class because they were just boys and i found it hard and i found it weird when they fancy me back because i was like well i'm i fancy you i'm a girl i'm a girl exactly so how did i oh you know what I think as I just buried my head in the books this is not good advice because I honestly was just like in turn I don't know how to give advice because I just oh I'm like gotta cut all this out but um I just started becoming rather than seeing guys as like people that I had to fancy and not just

fancy because I wasn't sure why I fancied them, they were just boys, I think a lot more just had conversations with them because I didn't necessarily have a lot of male cousins so I didn't necessarily, I wasn't necessarily exposed to having normal conversations with guys that weren't crushes in primary school and essentially secondary school from afar so I think I just saw them as friends and I think that helped me just have normal conversations and then I realized I didn't fancy 99% of you because you guys are definitely weird um because boys are weird most of the time um exactly so I think just being friends with them and just ask and then connecting with them on just like normal things and just being like oh what do you think of this on your weekend?

Just being normal. Like I would be with my female friends. That helped. And then when I realized I did fancy someone because I found them hot and they, I find, yeah, found their personality quite nice. I sent them a rose and that didn't work out. So on Valentine's Day, I honestly did. It was like, don't do that was like don't do that bit don't do that but um but i think my biggest advice just treat them as you treat your female friends

just they're not they're not big scared they're not scary yeah that's what i was saying i actually find this terribly relatable because i remember through school and i just want to say that i've always been more of a girl's girl i've always had more girlfriends than boyfriends and I I always like at school and I was very much like I don't know how to talk to boys even though I didn't go to a girl's school I still just wasn't very good at talking to boys and um I I was like I don't know how to flirt and to and I still feel a bit like I'm not that great at talking to boys but But I will say that I've got better. Like, as I've just got older, I mean, granted, I'm 26 next month. It's taken a while.

But, and I'm still only good at it when I've had drinks. Jokes, don't drink alcohol. But I would say that if you're anything like me, you'll just get more confident. And the more you talk to boys, the less scary they'll seem. And then they'll just be like, oh, these are actually just humans and probably morons yeah it's tricky because you kind of have to push back on the narrative that we're always fed that men and women can't be friends and this this girl saying that is proof that that is ingrained in you from such a young age because

it's not even crossed her mind the fact that you know she could just befriend she said even if i don't like them she gets gets flustered. Yeah. Because you're sort of conditioned to view, you know, as a straight woman, from any age, you're conditioned to view any man as a potential partner. As a potential partner, exactly. So, of course, you're going to be terrified. I'm quite literally, like,

best friends with, like, the ex-boyfriend that I had that kept me off Tinder for two and a half years. So, I'm like, so, if you're listening, girl, yeah. And I'm like, so, like so I completely know that like the whole boys and girls can't be friends is bollocks because I'm like I'm like literally best mates with who I lost my virginity to so it's very bizarre but it's but then I guess it's not because I look at it more as like if I spent that long with somebody and like he's literally in the acknowledgments of the book like because we're very close and it's very much a thing of like if I spent that long with somebody and I just hate the narrative the idea that like he didn't do anything wrong to

me I didn't do anything wrong to him but because we've seen each other naked that it's like we can never speak again and I'm like we were very big parts of each other's lives and the beginning of the relationship was based on friendship anyway we were friends first weirdly kind of and then you went out and then we broke up but there was no malice and i've always seen it very i've always seen it as a weird thing i'm friends to be honest most of my exes like i'd say like three out of four and it's very much thing where i'm kind of like i don't really prescribe the idea of like just because you've been with somebody unless they've cheated on you or hurt you in some significant way relationships yeah which exactly i think that's the thing is that so many people break up like maliciously but honestly as elizabeth can attest like i most of

my breakups have been even if they've been messy at the start like they've always been fine at the end so i'm like wow i spent this long with this person i cared about them to me it's honestly we'll look back in like maybe a few years time in life and go don't think it's strange that like you kind of cut this person out of your life. Not necessarily because they've done something wrong, but because you're not with them anymore. I'm just kind of like we've had like partners since. And I don't know. I'm just kind of like I we don't love each other. So I'm just like, why can't we just be mates?

And yeah, we have. We are. And it's like completely fine. So I'm like boys why can't we just be mates and yeah we have we are and it's like completely fine so I'm like boys and girls can be friends exes can be friends everybody can be friends it all works out nice note to end on um guys thank you so much for coming in oh thank you you've been so so so fabulous um where can everyone find you guys like online or anywhere else for that matter I mean don't like

give out your address yeah at Selenium Lane across all social media platforms and yeah up to date news everything

via those forms and the book's out now yeah two months almost two months wicked and it's a beautiful cover as well

I have it in my hands thank you hot pink I mean I'm living for this it looks so good on my bookshelf. It was very intentional. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening, everyone.

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We're so out of time. Thanks again so much for joining us have a good week everyone bye and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash.