Why I’m Not Excited About The First Black Bachelorette

Rachel Lindsay is the first black bachelorette for season 14 of ABC’s show, The Bachelorette. Lots of people are very happy that The Bachelorette is finally a black woman. But, unfortunately for me, I’m not as excited as other people are about it. 

And I’m not excited about it for two reasons. The first being the fact that it took this long to cast one in the first place. The Bachelorette has been aired on ABC for FOURTEEN YEARS! It shouldn’t have taken that long to cast a black one if they really wanted to cast one. 

Also, I now realize that there is no reason to be upset that certain groups of people (in this case, black people) aren’t included in a show, movie, or whathaveyou because it is their show. They are supposed to cast their own people or whoever they want. Every other racial group that has TV shows, movies, etc., casts their own people and do it without a problem. It’s time for us black people to start doing the same and stop worrying about if and when white people will cast us in something they created. 

The second reason is because she will most likely end up choosing a white man. Most (if not all; my brother used to tune in and watch it. I never did, but he would tell me what was going on. And he only watched it because he’s a wrestling fan and one of the black contestants was a professional wrestler. After he was eliminated and there was only one black man left in the show, my brother stopped watching it and telling me about it. So, I don’t know if the last black man has been eliminated or not) of the black men have been eliminated. And my brother told me about how one of the black men on the show said that she hasn’t had any one-on-one’s with any of the black men, but she had them with plenty of the white men on the show.

I knew when I first saw her that she would be more likely to choose a white man. First, because she’s on ABC, a white owned network. Second, she’s on The Bachelorette, a white created show, with a bunch of white men. More white men than black. Plus, something just looked off about her. She gave me a weird vibe. Something about her made me think she would more likely choose a man that wasn’t black.

Now, I’m not against interracial dating. What I’m not happy about is that very few, if any, of the white Bachelors and Bachelorettes on the shows have chosen to be with a nonwhite contestant, especially a black one. But the one and first black Bachelorette we have has to be more likely to choose a nonblack contestant? That just doesn’t sit well with me. 

I had this same reaction with Disney’s movie, The Princess and The Frog. After all these years Disney has been around making movies and all these princesses they have created and they are finally creating a black one? And she, too, was with a nonblack man in the movie. How many of the white Disney princesses were with black men? Don’t worry. I’ll wait.

I find it odd that after years upon years of not casting someone black on a show, they finally do and they put them with someone who isn’t black, most likely a white person. That just doesn’t feel right to me at all. Something is very wrong with that. 

I feel that instead of us being happy that a white show finally casted a black person on their show after years upon years of being on air, we should stop waiting for them to cast us in their shows and create and be happy with our own shows. Let’s stop waiting on white people! No other group of people wait on other people to create something for them and neither should we!