It’s Possible! The Importance of Telling Black Love Stories
By Kristin Hopkins
Since I was a little girl, I always wanted to see myself reflected in the characters that populated my television screen. I still remember the night when Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997) starring Brandy and Whitney Houston premiered on ABC. My mom made a big deal out of it, and rightfully so. At the time, my favorite Disney Princess was Pocahontas because she was the only princess with a skin tone closest to mine. Seeing Brandy as a Black Princess impacted me and so many other Black girls because it was truly the first time where a Black princess was showcased on primetime television. The movie’s casting for talent, without respect to race, intensified the notion that love is love, regardless of color, and that Black girls deserve the most beautiful love stories where their Prince Charming would search to the ends of the kingdom to find them.
Fast forward to June 2020. The world is three months into a global pandemic, George Floyd’s murder has sparked protests all over the country, and America is having a reckoning on how Black people, especially those who descended from enslaved peoples, are treated. Then, Matt James is announced as the first Black Bachelor. Before going on the show, I never watched The Bachelor because the show wasn’t made “for me.” With Matt’s announcement, I was excited about the possibility of showcasing the beauty and nuances of what it means to find love as Black person in America on the same channel Cinderella premiered on. I was hopeful about what my season had in store.
Despite this hope, I don’t think anyone was ready for what happened during my season. The country was taught that it’s not enough to not be a racist, but you must be anti-racist in your daily life. Love as a Black person is complicated. Race plays a factor in every aspect of our lives. We have to talk about it with our significant others, regardless of their race because of how, in America, it infiltrates the way we move through the world. My season was an important one because it highlighted how race, like love, is not just Black and white. It’s nuanced, it’s colorful, it can get a little messy, but in the end, it’s beautiful.
While I didn’t get the Black love story on The Bachelor I was expecting, I have a feeling my Prince Charming’s kingdom search for me will be coming to an end very soon.