Just because society has identified whiteness as some sort of marker of success doesn't mean that white women view themselves as an “upgrade" for black men.

Cut that number in half to account for the black children, now that's 10.75 million.And sometimes you surprise yourself and end up being attracted to someone you never thought you would be because they're not traditionally your “type." My white friend who is married to a black man said, “it's just him I fell in love with. " There's this stereotype that white women who date black guys are trying to “show off" or to make white men jealous of black men. Plus, all the males in my family are white and I have nothing but respect for them, so how can I think I'm better than them?The same goes for black men; their mothers and sisters are black, so they shouldn't think they are above black women by dating white women.In my eight years of dating white men, I've had equally good and bad experiences, but there was not one single event that made me decide that I'm no longer into white men.Sometimes people just get bored of dating the same race and want to explore, especially if they grew up in a town that was predominantly one race.Dating outside of my race has opened my eyes to how much work we still have to do as a society to combat racism, both blatant and masked.On a hot summer day in August 1955, a 14-year-old black boy was hanging out around a grocery store in Money, Mississippi.These are just some observations I've made and they obviously do not apply to every interracial dating situation.I always knew that race was a problem in America, but I didn't (and still don't fully) realize the intricacies of it and how deeply it extends to dating culture.This is new territory for me, but I think it speaks volumes that I've already discovered that it comes with certain stereotypes attached.These are some of the stereotypes I've witnessed, along with things people have actually said to me, or things I've read online.I've always been a "Daddy's Girl" and I would never intentionally date a specific race in an attempt to “lash out" at either of my parents.While it's true that a woman is more likely to date and marry someone who looks similar to her father, it's also true that she'll choose a life partner who shares the same qualities as her father.I'll start off by saying that I don't intend for this article to speak for all white women/men or all black men/women.I exclusively dated white men for many years prior to very recently entering the interracial dating scene.