Posted at 5:00 p.m.
“I’ve always dreamed of sleeping with a black man”, “I would never go out with a black man”, “is it true that black people have a big one? “. Jean has heard everything. And he is now disappointed. Disappointed to be reduced to that: a color. Interview neither embittered nor frustrated, but disenchanted.
“I’m not angry, I’m not frustrated”, he gently nuances, and several times, during a recent virtual interview. I just find it disappointing. […] Racism in romantic relationships, it exists, and it’s just boring. »
“Flat” because Jean also believes that it has harmed him all his life. Now 40, he is still single. He never had a long-term relationship, actually. Never really been in a relationship for very long. He who dreams of having children.
Originally from Haiti, Jean was adopted as a child. And when he was very young, his adoptive parents also warned him (warned?): “I was taught that I was different, he remembers, and that I could be the victim of racist remarks…”
He grew up in a small village, in the region. From primary school, he still remembers, a teacher gave him the same warning. And then conversely, and at about the same time, a girlfriend tells him that what she prefers are blacks. Downright.
I found that strange. Me, I want a life partner who loves me for me. Not for what I am: a black man. I’m not just a black, fantasy. I am a person !
Jeans
We don’t really know if the reflection dates from the time or has been matured for a long time. All his testimony also oscillates between reflections and lived examples, often pell-mell, although always speaking.
Moreover, he puts it back: “It is a taboo reality. We live either from fetishization or from racism. […] I lived it 110%. »
Rather shy and reserved by nature, he saw his high school as a series of “rejections”. “In high school, we want to connect. And for me, it was more difficult. ” Why ? “I suspected why, but it seems like I didn’t want to know, until a girl told me clearly: ‘I don’t want to go out with a black man, I’m not interested.’ Ouch. “Of course it’s annoying, confirms Jean. It plays on self-esteem. It’s not fair ! I think I’m a nice, respectful guy! »
Parenthesis: that a girl is not attracted to him, Jean can completely admit it. He too has his “preferences”. “But eliminate an entire category of people? he asks. It’s still racist…” End of parenthesis.
Around 18, Jean ends up meeting online (via mIRC, the ancestor of texting, remember?) his first girlfriend, with whom he spends two nights. “It’s been great fun, a great relationship. But it was short…”, he drops. We understand that what he was looking for (and is still looking for) is the long term.
At CEGEP, again, he feels rejected. As soon as he approaches a girl he likes, the answers are “fuzzy”: “Either no answer, maybe, or I’m busy,” he recalls. And it came to undermine my confidence. »
Even if, it should be noted, we never really tell him why:
But at some point, you realize that’s it. There is a discomfort, a feeling. Intuition.
Jeans
And then intuition also tells him that his color attracts elsewhere, and especially for other kinds of relationships. One evening, in a bar, more or less at the same time, a young girl “a little in a state of inebriation” took his crotch and told him very explicitly this time (“it’s raw and racist, warns he, I don’t know if you’re ready for that?”): “My dream is to suck a black man…”
Reaction? “Come on,” he replies. Whatever. No, I’m not interested. Moreover, for him, this is the other “side” of the same coin. “For me, it’s all the same. You have rejections. Or fetishization. »
Once, only once, he gives in: early twenties. With a woman 15 years older than him, he recalls. “She told me: ‘My fantasy is to sleep with a black man.’ This time: “Shit,” Jean said to himself, “even if it’s against my principles, I went there anyway.” Even if, inside me, I found it racist…”
The years go by. Jean lives, somewhere through the university, an adventure of a few months with a Colombian (“we were on the same wavelength, she had experienced discrimination too”). In bed ? “Very good, but she was a bit Germaine. You know, Latinos…” he laughs, suddenly realizing that he’s not above prejudice either. Like what. “Yes, I too fall into these traps,” he concedes. She was like that, but I know she doesn’t represent all Latinos. […] And I am aware of my cognitive biases. »
If the adventure gave him back his self-confidence? Yes and no, he replies. “She was Colombian. Not Quebec. So that doesn’t solve the problem. »
After university, Jean enters the job market. He has a good job, a nice condo, his business is going well. Except in love, always. He tries on dating sites, but it is not more conclusive. And then ? And then that’s all. The last time Jean slept with a woman was two years ago, a one-night stand with a friend of a friend (“a firecracker, he recalls, but she didn’t want a romantic relationship”) .
Balance sheet? “I would have liked to have a family. Children, he said. I’m not embittered, just disappointed. Honestly, I did the best I could with what I had. […] But my life has been a series of short, fleeting and non-fusing relationships. […] So here I hope to make native Quebecers aware of what is called sexual racism. […] Yes, racism exists, racism in love relationships exists, and it sucks. […] Me, I just would have liked to have a stable, long-term lover. A lover who loves you for who you are, not what you look like…”
And no, if you want to know everything: “It’s not true that all blacks have a big penis!” “, he slips, smiling.
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity.