Love in Black and White: The Triumph of Love Over Prejudice and Taboo by Mark Mathabane, Gail Mathabane Page A
Authors: Mark Mathabane, Gail Mathabane
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sexually threatened by one; others grow to fear them simply out of rumors, the whispered warnings of their mothers, spouses, or boyfriends, and social innuendoes. Try as we may to be open-mmded, liberal, and accepting, I doubt there are many white women who can honestly say they have never felt uneasy or terrified at finding themselves alone in an elevator with a black man.
When I attended Brown University in the early 1980s, I never wondered why blacks sat on one side of the Ratty (the cafeteria) while whites sat on the other. I never considered taking a course in Afro-American studies; those, I thought, were for blacks. Only once did I set foot in the Third World Center, and I quickly retreated when I saw black faces look up and stare at me, as if demanding an explanation for my intrusion. I was intimidated by militant black fraternity members who marched single file around campus and had orders not to speak to whites. When I became interested in feminism and started using the library at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, I did not question the absence of black women.
It surprised me that so many students were arguing, shouting, gesticulating, and generally getting themselves all worked up and angry over the debate raging on campus about Third World Week-a special orientation week for minority students held at Brown each fall before white students arrive on campus. Many white students argued that Third World Week was unnecessary and contributed to campus segregation by allowing minorities to make friends with each other before whites arrived. Blacks retorted that they needed the extra week to prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for life at a predominantly white institution. I did not take a stand one way or the other. I was convinced that whites would inevitably befriend whites and blacks would stick with blacks, regardless of Brown’s orientation system.
Segregation was too deeply ingrained in all of us, both black and white, to be removed by eliminating or lengthening something called Third World Week.
I had many friends, but none of them was black. When one of my best friends, Carol Abizaid, told me she was attracted to a black man, I was horrified. Carol was a beautiful young woman of seventeen when I met her, the daughter of an American woman and a Lebanese businessman who had met at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She had the looks and build of a high-class model. She was raised in a huge house in Beirut until she was fourteen, grew up amid the booms and blasts of bombs and machine guns, and was often protected by armed guards. She spoke English to her mother, Arabic to her father and his friends, French to the maids, and Spanish to several of her relatives. When I first saw her she was driving a jeep around the Brown campus with a black Labrador puppy in her lap and her long brownish blond hair flying in the wind.
We became close friends. She lived with me at my parents’ home in Minnesota the summer after our freshman year. We roomed together sophomore year. The summer following our junior year, after I had spent a semester at the University of Budapest, I visited Carol in Paris, where she was livIng in the plush apartment of a vacationing couple. Carol wanted to be a professional dancer and was doing all the things such aspiring performers often do: She deprived herself of food, trained vigorously throughout the academic year, and took classes in Paris during the summer.
One day I was resting in the apartment after a tour of the Pom padou Art Center when Carol came home from dance class, threw herself onto the couch, gazed up at the ceiling and murmured, “He’s gorgeous.” She grinned.
“Who’s gorgeous?” I asked.
“A black dancer in my class.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s exquisite. Huge, really built. I’ve never seen a finer specimen of manhood. You should see him move.
You can see every muscle in his legs, arms, abdomen… . And he speaks perfect
When I attended Brown University in the early 1980s, I never wondered why blacks sat on one side of the Ratty (the cafeteria) while whites sat on the other. I never considered taking a course in Afro-American studies; those, I thought, were for blacks. Only once did I set foot in the Third World Center, and I quickly retreated when I saw black faces look up and stare at me, as if demanding an explanation for my intrusion. I was intimidated by militant black fraternity members who marched single file around campus and had orders not to speak to whites. When I became interested in feminism and started using the library at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, I did not question the absence of black women.
It surprised me that so many students were arguing, shouting, gesticulating, and generally getting themselves all worked up and angry over the debate raging on campus about Third World Week-a special orientation week for minority students held at Brown each fall before white students arrive on campus. Many white students argued that Third World Week was unnecessary and contributed to campus segregation by allowing minorities to make friends with each other before whites arrived. Blacks retorted that they needed the extra week to prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for life at a predominantly white institution. I did not take a stand one way or the other. I was convinced that whites would inevitably befriend whites and blacks would stick with blacks, regardless of Brown’s orientation system.
Segregation was too deeply ingrained in all of us, both black and white, to be removed by eliminating or lengthening something called Third World Week.
I had many friends, but none of them was black. When one of my best friends, Carol Abizaid, told me she was attracted to a black man, I was horrified. Carol was a beautiful young woman of seventeen when I met her, the daughter of an American woman and a Lebanese businessman who had met at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She had the looks and build of a high-class model. She was raised in a huge house in Beirut until she was fourteen, grew up amid the booms and blasts of bombs and machine guns, and was often protected by armed guards. She spoke English to her mother, Arabic to her father and his friends, French to the maids, and Spanish to several of her relatives. When I first saw her she was driving a jeep around the Brown campus with a black Labrador puppy in her lap and her long brownish blond hair flying in the wind.
We became close friends. She lived with me at my parents’ home in Minnesota the summer after our freshman year. We roomed together sophomore year. The summer following our junior year, after I had spent a semester at the University of Budapest, I visited Carol in Paris, where she was livIng in the plush apartment of a vacationing couple. Carol wanted to be a professional dancer and was doing all the things such aspiring performers often do: She deprived herself of food, trained vigorously throughout the academic year, and took classes in Paris during the summer.
One day I was resting in the apartment after a tour of the Pom padou Art Center when Carol came home from dance class, threw herself onto the couch, gazed up at the ceiling and murmured, “He’s gorgeous.” She grinned.
“Who’s gorgeous?” I asked.
“A black dancer in my class.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s exquisite. Huge, really built. I’ve never seen a finer specimen of manhood. You should see him move.
You can see every muscle in his legs, arms, abdomen… . And he speaks perfect
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