I spent my second day in Mostar, a small, fairytale town in the southern Herzegovina part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, surrounded by lovely people. I met one of them, Nikola, on Grindr, and he picked me up in front of my hotel at 7pm for a scenic drive around the mountains overlooking Mostar.
When I announced that it was my 49th birthday, he nearly drove over a cliff.
“What?” my 34-year-old (according to his profile) date said, looking away from the amazing landscape ahead of us to re-evaluate the middle-aged guy riding shotgun. “I never would have guessed that. You look so much younger.”
I waited for more… and waited. What? No “Black don’t crack”? Nothing about how dark skin ages better than white skin?
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Nope. That was it. I didn’t ask Nikola what age he would have guessed (45? 40? 35?), because what he hadn’t said was the sweetest birthday gift, topped off by a bottle of Bosnian liqueur when he dropped me off two hours later. By not making my agelessness about race, he made me feel special as well as younger.
Related: Why the gay me at 40 wouldn’t recognize the gay me who’s pushing 50
Take note, boys. This is how you do it. Sadly, when talking to black men on Grindr and in life, some non-black men won’t even pretend to be color blind. If they’re not overtly connecting everything about us to race, from our youthful glow to our athleticism to our body odor, they’re approaching us with racially coded greetings like “Chocolate” and “Black stallion.”
I’ll never take a “black c*ck” comment as a compliment, and every time I reveal my age to a shocked white person (usually gay, always male) who says “Black don’t crack” or something similar, it makes me feel old and cranky. For us, the frustratingly ungrammatical saying is a vernacular expression of black pride, but coming from a white guy, it sounds patronizing, as if he’s qualifying black beauty, or putting it in a box labeled “Other.”
I know I’m not alone in my distaste for all the “Chocolate” talk. I’ve logged lots of time with gay black friends both in the U.S. and abroad, rolling our eyes and sharing the silly “black” messages we receive on Grindr, Tinder, WhatsApp, and all the other virtual realities where people say ridiculous things they’d never say in person.
Sure there are black guys who don’t mind being regarded as the “black” guy. Some of them even incorporate their race into their Grindr names–which is their choice, not someone else’s. But I suspect there are far more who would rather not be singled out by non-blacks with words linked to the color of their skin.
The biggest problem with racially coded hookup talk is that, in addition to being hackneyed as hell, it immediately segregates and separates us when a simple “Hello handsome” would suffice. The last time I checked, I was neither equine nor edible. I don’t even like the taste of chocolate!
We get it. We’re black. And in places like South America, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, and Eastern Europe, there aren’t too many of us walking around.
Related: Are you an unwitting sexual racist? Find out.
It’s cute when a teenage guy at a smalltown bus station in Bosnia or a group of tween girls outside of a mosque in Sarajevo approach me for a selfie. They’re curious kids, and since I might be the only black person they see in real life this year, it makes sense that they’d get a little starstruck.
Their interest may be contingent upon my race, but they never openly make it about the color of my skin. And it doesn’t get old or annoying because it happens infrequently enough not to.
There was a time when I felt the same way about “black” this, “black” that from gay white men. When I first moved to Buenos Aires in 2006, I was so shy and intimidated by the foreign language that I was thrilled when locals approached me in English, even if one of the only words they knew was “black.”
“Is it true what they say about black men?” didn’t really start to grate until I was hearing it for well over the millionth time, in Argentina, in Thailand, and even in places heavily populated with native English speakers (and occasionally black men), like Australia and South Africa.
It’s the repetition that makes all of the “black” talk so frustrating. I know it’s not malicious, and I don’t believe it’s necessarily racist. Still, whether the guys who lazily go there realize it, “Chocolate stud” and “Black beauty” (yep, another equine reference) sound as ridiculous as calling us “exotic.” They’re just different ways of categorizing black men as “Other.”
Thankfully, fewer guys go the “black” route than not when it comes to my incoming Grindr messages. And when they do, I no longer feel compelled to gripe in response, which in the past has led some of them to hurl the N-word at me.
The last few times I complained about racially coded come-ons, one guy told me to “be grateful” for the attention and another replied with incredibly telling words: Man you are a black. We (whites) are gift for you.
I decided to graciously accept his “gift” and say no more. Then I tossed it into the garbage along with “Black stallion,” “Chocolate,” “Black don’t crack,” and the rest of the “black” trash.
I prefer Nikola’s gift. The only color involved–red–belonged to the Bosnian liqueur on the side. Cheers.
Related: It’s time to retire the term “BBC” and stop fetishizing black men
Vince
Ha. I’ve heard the saying “black don’t crack” and chocolate this and that by more black people than whites by allot.
I’m glad he looks great at 49 but I could never be in the same room as this guy. He seems to be pretty humorless and I can’t imagine the eggshells you’d have to constantly be walking on.
Tracy249
Agreed
Tête Carrée
For a minority, gay people can be pretty obtuse.
1898
i just opened Scruff on my phone and here are the usernames of the black guys near me:
ChocolateXL
BBC TOP
chocolate4u
BlkMagnum
BBC4U
chocolate4twink
HungBBC
chocolate
BBC4UNOW
50shadesofchocolate
chocolate papi
yungBBC
if these names are problematic, take it up with your community ¯\_(?)_/¯
OrchidIslander
@1898, I’m black and none of those names are problematic for me. In fact, a few of them sound downright tantalizing. So, as a part of their “community” I’d be glad to take it up…..
DarkZephyr
Why is it never acknowledged at this site that this racial fetishizing goes both ways? I get called “snow cone”, “white chocolate” and “marsh mallow” by black guys rather routinely. Just saying.
1898
and clearly there are some people who like being fetishized and want to be fetishized, as evidenced by the usernames I posted above. not everyone wants to be fetishized or enjoys it and that’s fine too, but it’s silly and unproductive to blame it on others, and it’s disrespectful of the people who enjoy it. they have rights too. if some guy wants to call himself DarkChocolateBBC or whatever, and that makes him feel good, who am I to judge? and who is Mr. Helligar to judge? if someone else chooses to call himself SmoothWhiteTwinkWithASmallD, is that an affront to all white people? of course not. everyone just needs to be more respectful and understanding of one another, which is stating the obvious but sometimes it needs to be repeated
CastleSF
It’s time to acknowledge that most of us have some forms of fetish in our psyche and that we don’t choose what we fetishize about on a conscious level. For those gay men who are into twinks, there are many others who would roll their eyes. Guys who fetishize about larger than average penises, we say those organs are merely visually delightful and nothing more. You can’t reason with the subconscious desires but they do exist. I suppose it is OK to express them with people who can appreciate them.
DarkZephyr
@1989, one of my ex boyfriends absolutely adored it. He’s black and it was ALWAYS “chocolate this, marshmallow that”. He got off on it. It wasn’t my cup of tea and he and I had a frank discussion about it, but I certainly didn’t condemn or judge him for it. People like what they like. Sometimes the thought police have to get their say in though, I guess.
Hussain-TheCanadian
The most important thing about this article is……who is the delicious stallion in the picture??
edwardnvirginia
also STOP the age-bigotry coded ‘daddy’, ‘boy’, ‘twink’ naming
OrchidIslander
@Black Pegasus, how dare white guys notice he is black, when, in fact, he is black! What does he think? If not mentioned it doesn’t exist? This brother has some issues with race, mostly his own. Sad to see the major need for such narrowly defined validation.
OrchidIslander
@fashionisto7, that racially based self-loathing comes through loud and clear doesn’t it?
I’m black as well and there are certain worthiness-defining aspects of the gay “community” that I wouldn’t cry to see go away. However, this brother’s neediness and low self esteem is not about white men, its about the miserable way he views himself and, sadly, the way his personal worth is dependent on the attention and affections of someone white.
I really can’t get to somehow blaming white men when they don’t properly assuage his fragile ego.
He is his own problem.
PresidentTogekiss
It’s perfectly normal for people to prefer people of their own race. We are all more or less wired to prefer people who look like us (or, more accuretly, our parents). Even when partners are of different races, they tend to look more or less similar in body structure, height, weight, etc. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions.
1898
every once in a while i’ll encounter a guy with red hair who writes several paragraphs in his profile about how awful it is to be fetishized for having red hair. and you know what? for every profile like that, I see 10 profiles of redheads who have some variation of “ginger” or “red” in their usernames and seem to be quite proud of it and seem to enjoy the attention it attracts
OrchidIslander
@1898, I’m not going to lie. I’m black and at times I dig the attention of being different. Of course that depends upon who is observing my difference. Here in Hawaii – my home – it is way cool. Lots of people with generous melanin in their skin and very little racial animosity towards black people. But, back in the day, when I lived in Corona Del Mar, California – a totally different and threatening story. A lot of it comes down to how good you feel about yourself. No matter what. The author of this piece – a brother, like me – seems to be OK as long as a white guys validates that in the way he demands. His life, his deal.
Kangol
Good point. The difference, however, is the larger social and political context of racism and white supremacy. So on an individual basis, of course, being “ginger” or “wearing glasses” or any other aspect of who we are is a personal issue, but we don’t live in vacuums. In the US, at least (and much of the Western hemisphere), we are in a society profoundly shaped by roughly 250 years of chattel slavery, sustained genocide against and dispossession of Native Americans, 100+ years of legalized and de facto racialized segregation, brutal racist terror for over a century (lynching, etc.), forced expulsion of Mexican Americans, legislated exclusion of Asian American immigrants and the illegal internment of Japanese Americans, and so on, with the larger ideological framework of anti-Black racism and white supremacy as the backdrop. So “ginger” has a very different function in this system than terms that refer specifically to racial characteristics or skin color.
PresidentTogekiss
South America has a lot of black people actually. Brazil is a black majority nation (second only to Nigeria in number of black folk), with 90 million black people (this is because of the huugw slave trade: Brazil imported ten times as mant slaves as the US). The city I was born into is actually 80% black. We also have whites (such as myself), asians, native americans and the largest arab community outside the Middle East. I just L.O.V.E when North Americans automatically assume we are all mestizos, or that we all look like Mexicans (or in this guy’s case, Argentinians).
PresidentTogekiss
Also, I love how his first pick when going to LA is Argentina, THE whitest country in LA, and place where people are VERY vocal about how much they love to be white and european. If he didn’t want to be fetishised for his race, he should have come to Brazil or Colombia.
MacAdvisor
“Is it true what they say about black men?”
Isn’t that a famous line from Blazing Saddles?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9JqbCH4aVw
“It’s twue, it’s twue.
CastleSF
Honestly I just can’t find anything wrong with what he says in the article. Do I hear you right when you say that a gay black man should date another black man or at least he should be attracted to men of his own race? If that’s what you have been saying all along, you haven’t convinced me one bit why that should be the case. Frankly speaking, I find your narrow-mindedness offensive and your notion of exclusivity of black men only dating black men preposterous. My words would have been so unmusical to the ear if I have not felt restrained in my contempt for your opinion.
Godabed
I don’t know if reading is also a problem for this community too, or people just like deflecting from issues.
This man has clearly traveled the world & has been with all kinds of men. He has stated plainly he is not representative of all black men. Black men are not a monolith. What works for some, doesn’t work for all. And black men referring to themselves as whatever they like has nothing to do with, white or other men fetishizing them. When someone outside of a given group uses a term, it can have very overtly negative/racist connotations. We know this to be true in several different communities, so why try to make a point about how you’re not offended by the terms??? Completely missing the point. Just proves your not really an ally of that community, and probably just another bigot. Black men are products of the same broken racist system that oppresses them.
So to put it plainly no one gives two f@cks about what you think or feel about this man’s personal opinion on this manner. He is certainly entitled to it. Just as you are entitled to your. But some opinions are best kept to your bigoted self.
ProfessorMoriarty
I’ve never used racially-coded talk and it would never occur to me to start. So if I solemnly swear to continue my non-transgressions into the future…
…can I please have the contact info for that gorgeous man in the article header?!