I recently saw the new cover of Ebony magazine featuring Djimon Hounsou with his new wife Kimora Lee. What's up with black men flocking to these exotic looking women? Are black women not good enough any more?

Ms. Concerned and Mad

Okay, we're busted with our in the nookie jar of assorted flavors. You might as well turn on the sista-girl sirens and tell us to slowly back away from the "exotic looking" chicks. Never mind the reality that 97% of married black men are wedded to black women. That's just a conspiracy to make black women think we're into them, but apparently the jig is up. You got us.

Real talk. What's up with the handful of black women, like yourself, who still feel the need to call foul every time the ball isn't hit your way? See, even though you have grossly generalized black men, I want to be careful about not making a sweeping indictment of black women. From what I can tell, it's really just a few of you who are still harboring these ill feelings. If I were to take the temperature of black women across the board, it's actually not running that hot when it comes to this issue. Black women seem to be getting past the racial resentment of seeing a black man with a woman who's of another background. They no longer feel obligated to deliver the stare of death. Times have changed and so has the climate. Maybe it's the cooling effect of living in Obama's "post-racial America"? Yeah, it's probably not that but it's something.

I will admit, however, that a good number of black men like their dating pools to be of the Olympic variety, in size and international scope. Before marrying my wife who is African American, I took a few laps myself. Nevertheless, by and large, black men still prefer black women.

Furthermore, you say that you're "concerned and mad", but are you sure that it's not concern and confusion? That fact of the matter is Kimora Lee is half-African American, half-Japanese. That makes her of mixed heritage – not what you refer to as "exotic looking", a term that tends to make me cringe when it's used to describe women who aren't strippers named Destiny with albino boa constrictors draped around around their necks. Besides, Kimora, happens to be as black as President Obama, who is also of mixed heritage, and I don't think anyone wants to refer to him as the "exotic looking Commander-in-Chief". Okay, Harry Reid might but that's just Harry being Harry.

Some, however, may refer to Kimora and individuals like her as "Blasian", a popular term to describe people, women in particular, of black and Asian descents. I can't lie. I've used the term in the past, but I'm not too terribly fond of it any more. A part of me thinks it's mildly offensive. Another part of me thinks it sounds like a better description for a new sauce at KFC. A bucket of blasian hot wings would be hard to turn down. So would Kimora for that matter...you know, if I were single and all.

Bottom line: we like what we like. And 97% of the time it's black women we marry. If we choose to diversify our dating pool from time to time, don't look at us like we just unraveled 40 years of civil rights progress. Dating or even marrying outside the race is not an act of racial treason. And this has to go both ways: what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Black women shouldn't feel bound to black men. In the end, I think the 97% of us who find love and happiness with each other is more than enough to preserve the race, if that's what you're worried about.