At the beginning of 2018 I made it my New Year’s resolution to be more selective about who and what I give my Maxine Waters side-eye to (because in Trump’s America the list of worthy candidates is just too damn long).
But Taye Diggs may have just acted like enough of a donkey to bring me out of retirement.
In a recent interview on Van Lathan’s The Red Pill Podcast, Diggs blamed his mama for convincing him to date white women, then blamed Black women for “shaming” him into coming back to us.
READ MORE: BLACK TWITTER DRAGS TAYE DIGGS OVER DATING ISSUES
“When I was 13, I was reading a magazine and there was a picture of a Black woman and I said, ‘Oh, she’s pretty, I want to marry her.’ And my mom said, ‘Oh, honey, you’re going to marry a white woman.’ It hurt my feelings, but she was right,” Diggs said.
*Pause*
What’s Mom’s Position?
First of all, before we continue I have to ask – where is Taye Diggs mama?
Can someone please give Marcia Berry my info so we can get her side of the story? I need all types of receipts and context for this anecdote because my Spidey-sense tells me he’s leaving out a world of details.
And secondly, if that one comment was really all it took for him to acquire a lifelong obsession with white women – his mother probably saw something in him well before she spoke up.
Anyway, back to this ill-advised interview that his publicist should have talked him out of.
Diggs, who was previously married to actress Idina Menzel, then goes on to admit he’s insecure about his dating preferences and now essentially feels pressured to date women of color.
The hour long podcast goes over a range of topics – including what he calls ‘an age of new-blackness’ – but the gist is basically this: After getting divorced from a white wife, and reading the comments section of every blog post ever written about his ‘love of the swirl’ – Taye-Taye is now standing, passport in-hand, seeking re-entry into Wakanda.
He’s come back to us ya’ll!
Just please don’t remind him that we weren’t really his first choice.
“To this day, I still get, ‘I thought you only like white girls?’ ” the actor laments, wishing people would give him brownie points for being in a relationship with biracial actress and model Amanza Smith for the past few years.
“It doesn’t matter how I explain myself,” he said, “there’s always going to be someone talking.”
Yes brother – if you build your career on the backs of Black women’s fantasies by starring as the chocolate heartthrob in almost every 90’s romantic comedy, but consistently refuse to date anyone darker than almond milk – most people will take notice.
What did you expect?
The ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’ star’s real love life couldn’t be any more different from the ebony covered romances he built a fortune off of. A quick search on IMDB will show that this is a fact. But instead of seeing that critique as par for the course – he admits that he still harbors some lowkey resentment towards the black community.
Granted he didn’t resent us enough to bail out on cashing that big ole check from The Best Man: Holiday, but I digress.
A Squeamish Conversation
Listening to Diggs talk about his newfound (and begrudging) appreciation for black-ish women is like having a vegan friend who weeps with envy every time he smells bacon. No matter how much tofu he tries to eat in public – deep down we know what he really wants (i.e white meat.)
Look, all jokes aside I actually don’t have any beef with this man. And considering we’ve been following each other on Twitter for years I’m sure there’s a chance he may even see this post. (Awkward!)
But what I do know is, that the last thing we need right now is another black man who doesn’t even like black women – acting like he’s doing us a favor. If this is truly meant to be ‘The Year of The Woman’ then we deserve to be a celebrated first choice, not a disgruntled backup plan.
Ya’ll can have him back.
Seriously.
Follow Blue Telusma on Twitter @bluecentric