One of the most painfully ignorant comments that I’ve come across in a while comes from a girl called Shannon, over at the SB’s site, where Sarah has a racism in romance post up.

Shannon writes:

OK, I might just be pulling this all out of my ass, and sorry if I offend anyone, but I’m just throwing down some of the random thoughts I’ve been having as I read comments.

Does anyone think that the reason only 20% of black women get married is a cultural thing? Because from what I’ve seen of “hop hop” culture (admittedly not a whole lot), it seems that promiscuity in men is glorified a great deal, and women who are willing to wear skimpy clothing and shake their ass, etc etc are the ideal. So those two things together there, if its a widespread cultural thing (and it seems to be in my school, which is possible Whitest School Ever yet still manages to bring that over), then could that be part of the issue? All those bad standards and behaviors that arent conductive toward happy monogamous relationships keep getting reinforced as positive?

Oh dear. What are these schools teaching their students?

Marriage is a cultural phenomenon?

Promiscuity in black men is glorified?

Black women who shake their asses and can dance are the ideal, yet the aforementioned behaviours are considered negative as far as marriage is concerned?

Hip-hop is to blame for the lack of monagomous, happy marriages amongst black people?

Sigh. There was more:

Also, I found the comment about romances with black characters reinforcing negative black female stereotypes interesting. Historically, IIRC, it was always black male sexuality that was feared (with good reason, there be some damn good looking black men) by white men. So could this be a case now of white women fearing black female sexuality? There is always this idea in people I’ve talked to and media I’ve seen that black women are just more sensual and sexual (not in a bad way), better dancers, better lovers, and yeah, more wild in bed…but is that necessarily a bad thing? To me it seems like black women got a reputation for things that arent necessarily bad, and maybe white women felt threatened by that.

To be fair, I think she feels as if she’s being politically correct, and saying the ‘right’ things, but she exposes her ignorance with her words.

She continues:

And just wondering here, but why is there this idea that it is mostly black men who are gay, adulterous, felons, etc etc? Seems to me that it isnt race that makes you any of those things, its personal choice.

Not only has she suggested that being gay is a personal choice, but that it’s on par with being a criminal. I have to say, I really didn’t realise that it’s mostly black men who are gay. That shit’s news to me.

I have a feeling she’s very young, and just doesn’t know any better, but still…