Dating After "Love & Basketball"

“What do you know about this?”

Black Stetson students may have grown up tucked in the corner of a living room couch as their parents watched the likes of “Moesha” and “Martin”. No doubt, those same parents hope the family values in these old network shows rubbed off on the next generation as we watch “Love & Basketball” or stream “Insecure.” The shifting portrayal of Black love in the media from homes to ritualized situationships has been noticed, but what does this translate to off-screen? 

“I feel like social media definitely [pushes] through the algorithm, like you have to be basically slim-thick, short, this [X] inches, [X] inches of hair … this specific curl pattern or this specific complexion in order to be loved or be in a relationship … I can really count on one hand the YouTubers I watched [growing up who] were dark- skinned, Black females. Most of them were light-skinned or brown …Speaking from my perspective of being a dark female, it's not really that much positive [representation] …nine times out of ten, the male is the one that's dark [skinned], and then the female is a lighter skin reflection. So that inherently just tells people, ‘This is the standard.’”

-Melissa Ndiaye ‘27 M.S.  

“I'm not saying we don't have real love today, but I think there was a lot more depictions of a strong family unit … back then, that isn't shown a whole lot now … Think about reality TV, and you're seeing people cheating all the time and having kids while not being married. I'm not some kind of conservative in that regard, but I do think when you're seeing that so often, it becomes normal, now and then.”

-Josh Dennis ‘26 M.B.A.

“This whole persona of people in Black relationships being like, ‘Oh, we’re going to stick together. Get it out the mud.  I’mma be down for you no matter what.’ That whole thing is crazy…I feel like if you’re dating someone and you don’t have your stuff together, then you shouldn’t be dating someone.”  

-Chesteria R. Purifoy ‘27

“I feel like for a lot of people, there's a sense of entitlement that comes with relationships, ‘Well, if I dress up for it, then that means XYZ should happen,’ or ‘If I am the one texting them, then this is what should happen afterwards.’ So I think I put [my foot forward in] relationships [both platonic and romantic] with the more grateful approach of just kind of understanding that this is something that's supposed to add to the human experience and not take away from it.”

-Soleille Vertus ‘26

“To have so much divorce and breakups in these Black celebrity relationships just made a lot of women feel, ‘Damn, is Black love even real anymore?’ Nowadays, it’s always interracial love, and there’s nothing wrong with interracial love, but it's going to be [a] problem if the colorism stigma is there … you have dating books … Why is the Black character always in a gang? Why is the Black character always a baby mama? Why is it always ‘thug love?’ Why can’t Black people have the same type of love white people have? ... When you read books, especially on the Kindle … [Urban is] probably not a bad word, but to me, it equals a bad word in the sense of, ‘why do we have to say this word, and why can’t we say this word’ – Urban Love. I feel like, why can't we say ‘Black love’? I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. [Authors use the Black love tag for interracial love]. Interracial love is not Black love. Black love is two Black people.”

-Bianca Smith ‘27

Are there any good [X] out there?

As Generation Z has navigated their fair share of once-in-a-lifetime moments, their taste for apocalyptic predictions should come as no surprise. Love, unfortunately, is not immune to this predilection, and a scarcity mindset may be at the center of some romantic woes. Where there is the perception of a lack, some Black students and staff may find that being at a predominantly white institution (PWI), like Stetson University, amplifies existing dating dilemmas. While others find it to be a unique opportunity for exploration. 

“There was this guy who sent me a request [on social media] … Basically, in his bio, he was saying, ‘Oh, I'm just a white guy who you know has a fetish for Black women.’ I just find that very disgusting, because I'm not saying as a white man that you can't prefer Black women. … It's the way you go about it.”

-Tashema Andreas ‘27

“I'm not sure how many people can attest to this, but being at a predominantly white school, you get a lot of weird stares. It almost makes you uncomfortable to the point where you wouldn't even want to push to have a relationship with anyone. Not saying it's everyone, but those stares make you question.”

-Jamcy Laplante ‘26

“ Being the only … dark-skinned girl on the cheer team … I definitely experienced colorism here, in the sense that some football players … people who I interacted with from freshman year — who don't go here anymore — thought I was ‘loud and ghetto’. They thought that all because I was dark-skinned, because I was Black … but it's like, you can't make assumptions about me because of my skin color when you don't know me.”

-Bianca Smith ‘27

“It definitely does hinder it a lot because you don’t see a lot of people that look like us, so it’s interesting because that’s my type.” Purifoy said, laughing, “I like people that look like me … It’s also — you have to think about the culture, like blending your culture with other people. It’s difficult to explain how you grew up versus how someone else grew up, and for them to understand it and validate it. It’s just that sense of community you have between people that are like you.” 

-Chesteria R. Purifoy ‘27

“ I honestly think it gave me a broader scope of what's out there. I don't think I would have had the experiences, dating wise, at an HBCU compared to somewhere like Stetson …Yes, this is a PWI, but there's so many different people who come from so many different cultures here. When you go to somewhere like FAMU or Howard, those are still excellent schools, but they're predominantly Black for a reason, so you're not seeing a whole lot of difference. Not to say that Black people are some kind of monolith or anything like that.”

-Josh Dennis ‘26 M.B.A.

“In the UK, you see a lot more biracial couples… I don't really see that a lot in [Stetson’s] campus, and that's okay, because I know people are entitled to [their] types. So that was kind of like a shift, because I don't have a type, personally. I had a boyfriend that was white before I moved here. So just seeing that, it's kind of, I don't want to say hard, but rare for you to actually know if a guy genuinely likes you or [if] he has a fetish or something.”

-Natasha Aniobi ‘27

“I realized there still needs to be a sort of likeness that we both [in a relationship] share … I mean like values and outlooks on certain things…we're getting individuals from all walks of life. So there's not just that personality likeness to it. There's also the fact that their family might not like Black people or they might not care to learn about your culture [etc]...Social politics in the world right now, I think it makes you have harder conversations before you're even able to know the person, because… I feel like you kind of have to know [politics] before even getting there. Especially now, because it's becoming a bit more dangerous.”

-Soleille Vertus ‘26

“I also attended a predominantly white institution myself in college, so I kind of go back to that experience, and I think those same mindsets that are kind of promoted in [the] culture of ‘There aren’t that many good men. If there are good men, there's only a few.’  All of those things felt very real while I was in college, because it was a small Black community, and as somebody, like, unashamedly [so], I wanted to marry a Black man … I think it really was a scarcity mentality around men … And then around, like, visibility and invisibility, feeling like both were true as a Black woman at a predominantly white institution. It felt like hypervisibility and invisibility at the same time..”

-Alexandria Belk, Associate Director of the Cross-Cultural Center

Love me … Love me Not 

Despite mixed messaging, Black students and staff alike are attempting to define what love looks like for them. Especially when it does not adhere to traditional scripts.

“'I’m bi-curious. I think specifically as a Black student that is a little bit difficult … There's already a stigma about being a Black man. There's even more of a stigma about being a queer Black man. So I often feel like I have to show that I'm still just as masculine as a straight man… Black people in general, we kind of have a stigma about queerness… I went to a party… at Lambda Chi Alpha, and I was dancing with a guy. I [had] never danced with a guy in such a public space that wasn't designated for queer people specifically. And for the most part, no one said anything … But I do recall a group of Black men, making remarks like, ‘Oh, that's what we're doing’. And not that it made me stop, but it was just kind of, ‘this is why it's hard to be in these kinds of spaces.’ At the same time, some of those men be ‘DL’ anyway.”

-Josh Dennis ‘26 M.B.A.

“I struggled [for] the longest time being like ‘oh my gosh, I’m a bigger girl, so no one’s going to like me.’ That’s not the case … the people I have dated have always encouraged me to be myself … It’s never been a downplayment of my personality or my looks, so I appreciate that.”

-Chesteria R. Purifoy ‘27

“Growing up in my household, it was ‘no boys at all, until you're 18.’ And I turned 18, and everybody was like, ‘Oh, do you have a boyfriend?’ So it was like I couldn't do it and then suddenly, I could, and nobody told me … I feel like I don't really know how to approach men or what to do when I'm approached … I've learned, I would say, that I still don't really have a desire to really [date].”

-Joi Turner ‘27

“[Of things I prioritize in relationships], I think the biggest one is being healed or healing. I think there's not much good from two broken people being together or one broken person being with someone who's farther along in their healing journey. While there are cases where you know that healing kind of rubs off on the other partner… the thing that I learned that became non-negotiable was that it is not my job to heal you in our relationship. We should be two relatively whole people coming together, not to have [or create] the whole, because I feel like that creates insecurity and just conflict within relationships.”

-Soleille Vertus ‘26

“I remember being 20 years old, and having, what I feel like for me, was an encounter with God and [Him] being like, ‘you want somebody to choose you so bad, you have to know that you're already chosen.’ I don't have it within myself to love unless I'm able to, at a great rate, receive love and [God’s love]  that is for me, perfect love.”

-Alexandria Belk, Associate Director of the Cross-Cultural Center

“In a relationship, I feel like … we all go through a phase where someone like our significant other would do something, and it'd make us feel a certain way, but we try to brush it off.  Because, you know, we love that person, or we feel a certain way towards that person. But I would say, if you feel some way, trust that instinct …It's there for a reason. I don't want to say act on it, but I would say, trust that instinct.”

-Jamcy Laplante ‘26

“A lot more communication and understanding of one another, because I feel like we have a communication problem. Knowing how to love yourself…because even that kind of self-hate comes into the relationship, because then you're getting paranoid or jealous… but that's stemming from  the insecurities you're holding within yourself. [Also], patience. I feel like a lot of people are just on ‘go’, we don't take the time to slow down and just be present. Don't get all caught up in the social media facade of what a relationship [is] supposed to be like. Monetary wise, [for example], because that’s just setting unrealistic expectations…when you can really grow with the person.”

-Melissa Ndiaye ‘27 M.S.  

Black students deserve….

“I would say reading groups are more important than dating…What if instead of dating, people focused on what these topics are … you're dating to find love, but you haven't even defined it. You don't even know what it is specifically, right?... I would go and argue that you'd have a better chance of finding it if you're just focusing on, like trying to understand the concepts, [like vulnerability and love] themselves.”

-Montaque Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

“Just know yourself before you try to figure out another person. That's all I have, because I feel like a lot of people don't know themselves before they start dating and then try to find themselves while dating, which is not a good combination.”

-Melissa Ndiaye ‘27 M.S.  

“Talking about like Black women and dating, I don't like the fact that people are always like, quick to say, “We're aggressive” and “We're too much.”... They put that label more on Black people, well, Black women, actually. I just feel like maybe, if that stopped, it would be easier.. I know a lot of people actually want a genuine connection, and they don't want to be judged.”

-Natasha Aniobi ‘27

“I think there's a stigma on both sides of the aisle. Whether it's Black men or Black women, or Black in between, you. And it kind of goes to what we see in media. People might say, ‘All men do this,’ or ‘All women do that,’ and then they go into these relationships already having that preconceived notion about someone else … I feel like Black students specifically deserve to be able to see each other for them, not see each other for what society says.”

-Josh Dennis ‘26 M.B.A.

“When I first started working at Stetson…in Student Development and Campus Vibrancy…I really [hoped] to be able to inspire students in courage and to really help just cultivate that … because that's what we need … I think one of the most underrated things in the world is friendship. I think that … emphasis is put on romantic love … so much focus is put on that that I feel like friendship is like one of the most underrated joys, intimacy, connection points, strengthening points in the world. I heard somebody say, ‘we all have baggage, but if you learn what's in yours, and you're able to communicate that with other people, a little bit better, things go a lot better for you,’ and I believe that. And so just the things that help us not to avoid the mess of being human, but to get into it, and to actually start to love it.”

-Alexandria Belk, Associate Director of the Cross-Cultural Center