down with the flavor

today my (white) dentist revealed to me that his wife is black. this took me totally by surprise. i could tell there was something kind of hip about him but i wasn't sure what, and he didn't really strike me as a guy married to a black woman. I have yet to meet a white guy who's married to a black woman who is not super-hip. and i don't mean that in a Kevin Federline, Vanilla Ice, hip hopper-wannabee kind of way. it's just kind of a cool, relaxed, friendly kind of way. hard to explain. but why is that? Are black women just naturally hip, and it automatically spreads to who we're with?

one of my girlfriends and i have a term that we give to white men that are married to or dating black women. we say that they are 'down with the flavor'. i mean, if you're white and you're with somebody black, you can't NOT be down with the flavor. because for a white guy, it just means so much. he's instantly cool and accepted. it means that he chose to be with someone black despite his white privilege and despite society's image of beauty being blonde and blue. and, that he's accepted our HAIR. yes, they know it's definitely not like theirs, and they love it anyway. and, they don't care what people think, specifically other white people who can't understand why in the world they'd cross that line. and, while i am a skinny mini, a lot of black girls are not, so another thing is that a white guy with a black girl is not one of those guys who thinks a size 2 is fat.

but what's weird is that it's different with a white girl and black guy. the dynamic is just totally different. but that's another post altogether.

so back to mr. denitist. he knew my husband is white, which i really don't think about most of the time. i mean, i don't walk around thinking or wanting everyone to know he's white. but the dentist and i started talking about places to live and he said something to the effect of portland being one of the most interracial-couples friendly places, and how he and his wife rarely get any strange looks from people. i was like," huh?" thinking his wife was white. even though i thought something was different about him, i never would have guessed he was married to someone black. but it made sense. so, of course i had to ask. "is your wife black?" he said yes. and then, all of a sudden it was like we were in cahoots or something, like he knows- that i know- that he knows- what it's all about.