In a contemporary literature class in college, during a section on The Harlem Renaissance, it was posited that the perfect counterpart for a white man is a black woman. In terms of the roles they prototypically assume in their respective races, they are the most suited, it was suggested, to go toe to toe in a battle of wills. White culture [and I must heavily qualify this post by assuring everyone that I am speaking in generalities... that I am sharing a literary argument I once participated in, that I am feeling my way through, based on what has been observed in these two cultures], for the most part, is patriarchal. Black culture, for the most part, is matriarchal [perhaps, on some levels, detrimentally so, when you think about how black men report feeling emascualted by white men and black women].

During Slavery, you had two compelling figures, both intimately involved with the affairs of the household. The "master" and the "mammy." Between the two of them, the delicate balance of power teetered and tottered, never seeming to rest in one direction for very long. Obviously, it takes a kind of weird dignity to let someone else think that he is always in control, if it better serves your immediate purposes (i.e., escaping a beating, not getting sold, or causing someone else a beating,etc.). So while one would not readily look at a kerchief-clad slave mother with a heavy black skirt and white apron and think "power," she does bear a second look.

Power, you might say, is having your finger on the pulse of a situation, and knowing how to steer the course of events to effect a desired result. Whether you are simply trying to get dinner ready by 5:00, or if you are trying to save your life, it takes an unnamable intellect to make someone else think it's his idea to facilitate your efforts on your own behalf. In this sense, perhaps, an oppressed, disenfranchised black woman had some semblance of control over her surroundings.

The Mistress of the house, upheld as the standard of beauty and purity, operated as something of a figure head. Often, under her very nose, her husband, so openly hostile to his subjects and contemptuous of their purported inferiority, released his animal urges in the shacks around back with earthy, acceptably [temporarily acceptable] sexual African women, thereby adding another dimension to this intriguing relationship.

What does this years-old conversation from my class have to do with me now?

I have always been attracted to thin, bookish, white boys [now men] who wear glasses [okay. maybe the glasses are optional].

This image of masculinity that comforts me and attracts me could not be more divergent from the physicality and spirit of my birth father and my stepfather. Both of these men are of a medium brown complexion, motivated by rage, rule by intimidation, and are intimidated by my intellect. At some point in my youth, I made a conscious choice to reject, sexually, spiritually, and emotionally, what they represented to me.

Does my choice in men say anything about my concept of the power play in relationships?

At the same time, my attraction to what my mother calls "skinny white boys that look like Woody Allen" is effortless, visceral, real. Is it possible that I am at once acting out the old drama of "master vs. mammy," rejecting my bogus dads by picking an image at the other end of the spectrum, and flowing honestly toward my destiny--all these truths colliding, layering, and leading me to the heart of the man with whom I want to share my soul and my spirit?

Lately, I have seen some very beautiful men on the train. Most of them black. This is new for me--to be able to see beauty in a black man's face--where I have only previously seen their ability to induce terror, shame, and had only previously felt contempt.

And then I think about Mr. Renaissance--the poster child of all the white men I've longed to have love me, to redeem me--and I realize that his beauty to me is not objective, and is separate from any concept I have of his "whiteness." He may be the first in a slew of girlhood crushes to be the very mold I decided to want, but who transcends that mold, and who has been able to be to me, simply who he is.

When you find the other half of your heart, it is not about social roles, or psycho-social phenomena, even if those implications exist, they do not supercede the higher truth involved. I am relieved to have made this discovery. How hollow to waste all this energy on a man who simply fit my idea of safety and escape. How imprisoning and myopic if that was all it was.