This blog post is about one of the first articles in the history of this blog, Jungle Fever: The Relationship Between African Men and White Women

A couple of things happened this week, that made me think about the Jungle Fever article:

1) The Direction of the Blogging

I am almost at the end of my blogging course, Blog Mastermind. As such I am thinking more and more about just what I will do once I have laid the foundation for this blog and have fully determined what this blog will be about.

After being in the blogosphere for a while I have seen that there are a few categories that are almost always guaranteed to get a lot of readers:

1) Sex and relationships: You can’t go wrong with this one on the Internet, you just can’t. Sad to say, but the cruder and more graphic you can be, the better.

2) Politics: I believe that if the Devil were to spit bile and mix it with the intestinal stew of a skunk, it would look a little bit like tribalism and irrational hate filled discussions about politics. However, there is no doubt: you want faces to come to your blog, talk about a controversial political issue.

3) Religion: This one surprised me. People love to talk about religion whether Eastern, Western or lack thereof.

4) Money: The key component to this one appears to be credibility. Once you have built credibility behind a particular brand and begin to talk about how people can make money or hustle a little smarter,  you will get face time.

Back to the Set

Anyway, there I was sitting in a bookshop reading a book about blogging (I hope the irony of my spending my offline time studying the online world has not escaped you) I started to think about just how popular the Jungle Fever and other relationship articles had been.

I have talked in the past about spinning off the Displaced African and starting up a blog which is dedicated entirely to the exploration and discussion of foreign and mixed race relationships. I started thinking about this again, and thought it might be a good idea. Who knows? Watch this space……..

2) I Sent a Letter to an Editor

I have been sending emails to newspapers and online magazines and radio stations to try and get some publicity to the blog. I am not too proud to admit, I am doing it all wrong.

My microtest of about 15 media houses has produced below-mediocre results. If anyone has any tips on how I can approach African mass media right and get some publicity for the blog, hit me up on masmilele(at)thedisplacedafrican(dot)com

Anyway, one of the letters I sent to an online publication proposing that we discuss the Jungle Fever article on their publication. Their very courteous response in short was:

Thanks for the email. We think your article is a little too offensive and one sided for a publication like ours.

And so just like I responded to them, let me say to all of you:

It is BECAUSE the article is so offensive and one sided that it must be discussed

I Was Surprised

No one was more surprised than me by what the reaction so far has been to that article: whereas many white women have stopped by to tell me how narrow minded and stereotype-supporting the article was, the reaction from the African community can only be surmarised as:

a) Quite agreement

b) Outright support

Does that mean that we all agree that African men are pretty much scraping from society’s barrel as far as relationship and sexual partners are concerned?

Did I just verbalize something we all knew: that on the totem pole of society, African men are kissing the lowest part of the pole?

It’s one thing to stereotype and it’s another to point out the truth. So, read Jungle Fever now and you tell me, is it true? Does it resonate with your experience?

Secondly, how does the idea of a foreign and mixed race relationship blog sound? Does the blog exist? Leave a comment below with the link.

Have a great day/night,

Mwangi

]]> http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/07/a-few-quick-thoughts-about-jungle-fever/feed/ 19 http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/05/jungle-fever-2-the-relationship-between-white-men-and-african-women/ http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/05/jungle-fever-2-the-relationship-between-white-men-and-african-women/#comments Sun, 11 May 2008 16:23:21 +0000 Mwangi http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/?p=280

One of the first articles I ever wrote was Jungle Fever: the Relationships Between African Men and White Women. It’s not my proudest achievement, but if you type ‘mandingo fantasy’ in Google, I will be among the first few search results (and ironically, by using that term again in a post, I pretty much solidify my standing on page 1 of the term’s search results).

For that reason, that article get’s read every single day somewhere in the world. Since I am constantly going back to the article to moderate comments, I noticed that I promised to give my take on what happens when the Women of Chocolate meet the Men of Vanilla. So here we are.

Considering that I was not blessed with the ability to breastfeed and am a member of the group that pees standing up, the most I can do is give a very pedestrian take on the relationships that take place between African women and white men.

Aside from sex, the other reason it’s difficult for me to go into much depth on the matter is because of the top-secret-wouldn’t-share-it-if-you-tortured-me-inquisition-style approach that a lot of women take to their love, and especially sex, lives. However, a few cracks have shown through and I encourage you to leave some comments and fill in any gaps.

White Men are in Demand
If you are a Caucasian male….welcome! You are going to enjoy (or not….just read on) the next couple of paragraphs. Significant numbers of African women across all age groups want to take a sip from the masculine tree of Caucasia (wow, isn’t that poetic? I like that, and you can use it for any race ). Now the reasons vary across age groups and socio-economic lines a little like this:

Poor Young African Women
This one especially applies to a sub-section of young women who tend to be very rural, but have had enough of Western influence to believe they have a hang of the Westernized culture (much to the amusement of some of us pretentious middle and upper class folk). They tend to work as hairdressers or prostitutes. These women want Caucasian males for money and the benefits that money will bring them. They are poor. They don’t have nice things. They want the money and the nice things.
They are also motivated by something else that I will discuss a little further on, but for now let’s move to…..

Middle and Upper Class African Women
Some of these women are motivated by money, but it doesn’t play the huge factor it does with the poor African women. These women in addition tend to be motivated by three things.
The first is a simple desire for adventure and exploration. The same thing happens to African males when they land overseas happens to our African sistaz: they want to taste and experience everything in the shop.
The second one I thought was a joke, but once I heard it a couple of times, realized that people really believe it. That saddened me. Some of them go for Caucasian males either because they love Caucasian skin and/or want to have beautiful babies. Love for Caucasian skin, no problem, there are some pretty fascinating things about the skin that amaze me, like how the skin gets red when you apply pressure then loses the colour when you ease on the pressure.

However, because you want beautiful babies?! Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the subtext of that statement that half-black, half-white kids are superior somehow to a typical black child. With all the self-esteem issues we already have as a race, do we need this one too?!

Now, granted, half-black, half-white babies do tend to be pretty good looking – Shemar Moore, Barrack Obama, Lenny Kravitz, Jasmine Guy and Halle Berry just to name a few – but seriously!

In this day and age shouldn’t we be working on sorting out our inadequacies and insecurities as a race rather than making partner selection on the basis of something so superficial. AND NEVER FORGET, standards of beauty are taught. Shouldn’t we want to bring kids into the world who won’t look at other black people and think of them as hideous. But I digress…….
Reason number three, which is the same reason the poor African women traverse into the Vanilla milkshake aisle, is discussed below

Mature African Women
After the childishness and the silliness of youth (though a huge number of African women skip this stage all together) you are ready to settle down and build a life. Many African women at this stage are intelligent, hard working and have some form of material achievement. So when they look out across the globe at their prospects, they select the Caucasian male for a reason I know a lot of brothers won’t like:

They Treat Women Better
Feminism hit the West hard! In fact my two cents on it is that in this day and age, as far as relationships are concerned, the power is imbalanced heavily in favour of women.

Men have been taught that women are divine creatures that should be pampered, wined, dined and consulted when making any major decisions.
Of course this isn’t universal, there have been some horror stories of abuse of all sorts, but enough men do this that it counts. Even when the man is simply after some sex from an African girl, he’ll take her to dinner and treat her like an absolute gentleman on the way to the bedrooom.
On the flip side, majority of African men wouldn’t know romance if it was King Kong on top of the highest building. And that’s for a good reason: Most African men don’t care. A lot of us still believe very strongly in tradtional roles, chauvinism and sadly far too many still believe that wife beater isn’t just an article of clothing.
And so they decide I’d rather my Pink-hued prince than my Cocoa-brown wife beater any day.

My Feelings On It
I could lie and say that I am fully in support of this form of interracial mingling and it makes me feel good and fuzzy inside when I see a good African woman with a great white man. I always just feel sad. I feel like we all landed on the island to fight a war together and we have lost another soldier.

Call me corny but I honestly believe that all of us Africans here are part of the same body with the same history and struggles and when one part of the body is lost, it saddens me.
Don’t expect me to join any groups against interracial love, but if you are going to bring me your brand new White husband, give me some time. I am not used to it quite yet.

If you want to join me in further exploration of African immigrant relationships, make sure you stay subscribed via either RSS or email.

If You Want Love, then Make it,

Mwangi

PS: What is with Asian women and white men? You would think one is Michael Jackson and the other a sequin glove…..can anyone explain this to me?

Part seven of the 10 things I wish I knew before leaving Africa

From Wikipedia encyclopedia: Jungle fever- a slang term for interracial relations

It was my last week in Kenya and I was just about to be shipped off to Australia. There I was, casually sauntering through Carnivore trying to convince older women that I still wasn’t being breast fed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a friend of mine, drunker than a depressed brewery worker, come staggering down. He staggered directly to me, plopped his hand on my shoulder and delivered a monologue that I will probably never forger until the day I die. I paraphrase:

“You guy as you ship over, remember something….(dramatic pause) Those Western women love black d***. These chicks wait at the airport with signs just chilling for the next black dude to step off the plane..(At this point, I drifted off into fantasy land imagining the possibilities of what he had just told me)”

You can’t even imagine what that did to me. As I stepped on that Kenya Airways plane, I had a pep in my step and I wasn’t looking back. And then I arrived!!!

So What Do I Know Five Years Later?

I am glad you asked. I have been in boarding school in the country, Christian schools, public schools, different cities, different states and different Universities. I have hung out with Kenyans, Zims, Tswanas, Ugandans, Asians, Indians, Caucasians the whole shebang (btw what type of word is shebang? who came up with a word like shebang?). My observation is pretty simple. African men being mighty conquerors who head on over to Western countries and can seduce any Western woman they want because they all swoon over him: by and large that’s a myth!

There are in general five types of Western women who get jungle fever for African men:

1) Girls with low self esteem

2) Girls who are ‘kilogramically challenged’ aka a tad bit overweight

3) Girls with drug problems

4) Girls who wanna ‘be down’ (think double-entendres here)

5) Girls who watch too much interracial porn or spend way too much time in fantasy land

Low Self Esteem and Overweight

I have put these two together for one reason. Now ladies, please, correct me if I am wrong: I have noticed that as far as woman are concerned, even in this post-feminist age, majority of women still pretty much value themselves on the basis of their beauty and/or their desirability to potential suitors.

If you don’t believe me, Google ‘Weight loss’ and see how many results come up. Go to the supermarket and check how many of those magazines talk about fabulous dresses and ways to please your man. Finally, tell a girl she is stupid and unemployable and watch her reaction. Finally tell her she is ugly and no one will ever find her attractive.See which of the two derives a stronger reaction (btw please don’t actually do this experiment to see how hurt someone gets, I can tell you right now in my experience it’s the ugly comment that hurts the most)

So let’s assume you now agree with me. Now out here in the West, fat women aren’t generally considered beautiful. Therefore if women feel they are not beautiful and desirable they tend to feel pretty worthless and have self-esteem and self-confidence issues.

Cue the African Man

I won’t even bother explaining and philosophizing on it……I’ve got two stories for you:

The Story of the Fully Stocked Fridge (An African Man’s Take on Why We Sleep with Fat Western Women, again I paraphrase. Actually anytime I quote someone, assume I am paraphrasing and not giving you a verbatim quote unless I state otherwise): So you’re in the club and you know, you are not there to preach. You have three missions, chill with your boys, grab a cold one and finally maybe leave with a little something something…..

So you check in the club it’s maybe 9:30pm, sit down and start vibing with your boys. The pints start coming and a good time is being had by all. Then around midnight,you start to feel your soldier down south telling you it’s time to go hunting.

So you know, there are a few mirooz(Africans for the uninitiated) around, so you begin campaigning. You ask to the left, is nothing. You ask to the right, nyimwad (denied).

Then you notice something out of the corner of your eye but you push it aside. Around 2:30 a.m. that thing that was taking up just a corner is now taking up the ENTIRE space of both your eyes. She’s a big woman and you’re like, “There’s no way…there’s just no way.”

At 3 a.m., you rewrite your rules and draft a new constitution. And so you look around and say to yourself, “Enyewe njaa ni mbaya (the hunger is bad).”

3:15a.m., you are there with your hand outstretched, asking her if you can connect the dots. Talking is just a formality and after a quick convo, you leave together.

Now the great thing about sleeping with a big woman is come the next morning. You have finished your work. Now she’s a big woman so you’ve just put in overtime on that shift. But when you go to the fridge…..”

“….Fully loaded! If you’re a broke or a student, it’s like going to heaven. By sleeping with big mamas you save $50 in shopping every week.”
So What’s the Game Plan?

The Book Review (This is another friend of mine telling me about a book he had just recently read):

“The guy who wrote the book is a bright guy. Now anytime you look at a group of chicks, there is always either an ugly one or a fat one, sometimes they are the same person. Now other guys will be campaigning for the other chicks, but you, you’re a time saver. You compromise on quality for the evening and you slide on in to the unattractive often neglected friend. A bit of flattery, make her feel beautiful and boom, you’re in.”

Btw both stories are true, a bit exaggerated but very very true.

Has a Drug Problem and Wants to Be Down

Again these two are very much related. These women tend to be the women who are knee deep into the hip hop culture and think that African is one big country where we ALL listen to hip hop and act like 50 cent-Ask someone who’s been in the West a while and you learn this stereotype is surprisingly common.

So after listening to enough Bone Thugs n Harmony, they begin to sample marijuana, or a bit of cocaine or speed or whatever. And soon enough they become addicted. What do they do?

1) First they seek people to smoke with. (btw I kid you not, for those of you who haven’t found enough odd things on the Internet, there is actually a dating site for marijuana smokers. I guess we all need love…..)

2) And then they seek someone to sell them the drugs on a regular basis

Cue the Black Man

This spot is reserved for the African brothers who are also knee deep into hip hop. In my first couple of years here, it was quite common for people to stop me and ask me if I had any drugs or any pills. So if a white girl finds a brother and he can fulfill he narcotic cravings, it’s a match made in heaven, or grown in a coca farm in Bolivia.

A Few Problems Though

1)Some of these women tend to take this trying-to-be-African-American-thing a bit too far and even decide they will try to be drama queens like, “some of the sistaz they saw on TV.” This pretty much guarantees that a quiet night of socializing turns into a session where she huddles up with ‘her girlfriends’ to talk about, “men aint worth s……”

2) When she tires of the hip hop lifestyle or she outgrows it or the consequences come knocking, she will dump a brother and leave him cold and alone faster than you can say, “She’s my woman and she’s gonna stand by her………”

The Mandingo Fantasy

In truth, this fantasy probably plays a role in almost all cases of Jungle Fever. This fantasy basically reduces all young black men all over the world into strong ebony love-making Gods with elephant trunks swaying between their legs and the love-making skills of Don Juan in his prime. Women who strongly by into this fantasy tend to have either watched too much interracial porn or too many movies that talk about how, “brothers are packing down south.” Now I am yet to meet an African man who is willing to argue against this fantasy or attempt to disprove it in any way. I am not about to but it’s definitely something that’s there and you should know about.

However, if you wanna know what type of women regularly try to test out this fantasy to see if it matches reality, generally they have characteristics 1 through 4 in the list above.

So What’s the Point? What Should We Do?

Well this depends on what you want. What my friend promised me at Carnivore is true. If you are coming to Australia just to get laid without regard for the type of person you sleep with, you can. All you have to do is hang around the night clubs and flatter people here and there. In fact a friend of mine’s strategy consists of him going to a club sitting down, drinking and waiting for a white girl to come and flirt with him.

However, if you want good quality relationships, as is always the case, it is very difficult to find. What I would advise is you best be bringing something else to the table rather than a promise of a trunk long enough to choke a gorilla. The people who get the quality tend to be very interesting special people; They may be good looking. They may have a very endearing idiosyncrasy. They may be so smooth they can skate on sand. They may be extraordinarily gifted at business, writing (that’s me lol), sports, academia whatever. I think the solution to the quality problem is, as much of a cliche as it is:

Know what your passions are. Pursue your passion with vigour and intensity and if you grow a garden beautiful enough, people will come. In truth, from an empirical standpoint, I am not really sure what the solution is. However,I will definitely make it one of the points of this blog to answer that question. I really hope this blog has served.

Before you leave make sure you leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts. Until then, stay off the porn.

If you want more articles that talk about the African immigrant experience, make sure you subscribe to the blog for either free email updates or to receive regular RSS updates ( Click on this link to learn just what the heck RSS is )

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

For the women reading this, your situation is a lot different from this from what I have observed and studied. This will definitely be a topic of future posts. If you have any thoughts, any ideas, any thing, you think you missed, either leave a comment below or contact me and let me know.

Update: Many months later I did write the article: Jungle Fever 2: The Relationship Between White Men and African Women