I always thought, “there’s something beautiful about two black people being together.” Their skin is rich like cocoa butter, smooth as silk, and glistening like the sun can’t wait to shine on their melanin beauty. Or, at least, that’s what I thought it looked like in We the Urban’s Instagram photoshoot with actors Ryan Destiny and Keith Powers.

“That’s what black love is,” I said to myself when I saw the photo on my feed. This rich, tantalizing love you can’t see anywhere else. It’s so urban.

When I define a relationship as urban, I don’t mean urban like the word’s typical definition—a city or a metropolitan area. Historically, black families and individuals were forced to migrate to the city to find better economic opportunities during the Great Migration. In this 54-year-period, African-Americans faced various social, economic, and political challenges as they tried to build a home for themselves, thus creating black urban culture in the process. This culture included food, clothing, music, vernacular, and most importantly, love.

Urbanized love is Beyonce and Jay-Z, Will and Jada, Ayesha and Steph, Michelle and Barack. Urbanized love is your everyday black couples, the mother and father of a black college student, even me and my ex-boyfriend Sam.

When I saw Ryan Destiny and Keith Powers’ photoshoot, this idea of urbanized love became more clear to me; it is only possible with a black man. Black women and black men share the same struggles. We relate. We click. It’s almost as if there’s something intangible or magical about being with a black man that I feel there isn’t with a white man or another person of color.

Naomi Davy, Harvard University ‘22, agrees with me. Growing up in a majority white community, she was mostly attracted to white men until she came to college and interacted with a diverse student body.

“I feel like I can relate to [black men] more,” Davy says. “There’s things we can talk about that I can’t talk about with white men. I love white men too, but I think I make stronger connections with black men [in] friendships and romantically.”

Emerson student Jada Osgood ‘22 has a different experience. While she’s never been in a relationship before, she has had a few sexual relationships and situationships, predominantly with white men.

“I definitely don’t have a preference but being somewhere where there isn’t a lot of people of color affects how many people I am with that are white versus other people of color,” Osgood says.

I don’t think white men are unattractive. However, growing up in a predominantly black community, I rarely saw white people and never formed an opinion on the attractiveness of white men until I got to Emerson.

At a college with a limited black student population and even more limited black male population, I had to venture outside my dating pool in my first year. I no longer disagreed when my friends said a white Emerson student walking down Boylston was cute. White men were the majority on campus and as an eager, young freshman, I was ready to try something new.

So I entered the “talking stage” with a white guy named Micheal. We talked about the usual things: food, family, hobbies, studies, interests—common topics when people are getting to know each other. It was nice for a while. But I began to miss that intimate connection of being with a black man. There was nothing physically wrong with Micheal. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall with muscles and a charming personality. But Micheal, or the white men that followed, weren’t what I preferred.

After Micheal, I met Ben, a black Boston University medical student. Whereas my relationship with Micheal consisted of surface-level topics, I was able to talk to Ben about the struggles of being black at a predominantly white university, living in a majority white city, and how I felt I didn’t culturally belong in Boston or at Emerson. While our relationship ventured on and off romantically and sexually, being with Ben reminded me of home—of why I prefer a black partner in my life.

It’s like Davy says, “Black people are fun to be around.”

Finding urbanized love is great. But once you find it, it can be pressuring for some black people. There’s this presumed idealistic view of what a black relationship is supposed to look like. People are always looking at you and critiquing your relationship to determine if you’re beautiful enough to be together. Take Beyonce and Jay-Z, for example.

“He’s too ugly to be with a woman like her,” my friend Ashley* would always say. “I mean, she’s Beyonce, and he’s this rapper with dark skin and big lips.” As if Jay-Z has to look a certain way or be of a certain caliber to be with a woman like Beyonce.

“There’s pressure there when you think about black relationships, especially being [at Emerson] where we reflect on the black people that are dating,” Osgood says. “‘Are they with a black person?’ and ‘Do they look cute together?’ Those are some of the questions.”

Aside from the pressures of looking like an “it” black couple like Destiny and Powers, there’s this newfound difficulty of finding urbanized love when black men seek out white women and other women of color.

Everyone’s preferences are their own. It’s absurd to think black men will only be attracted to black women and vice versa. As interracial relationships become normalized in today’s society, individuals become more comfortable in seeking out other races.

Emerson student Taylor* thinks preferences lie in personality and the community an individual was raised in. Taylor, who grew up locally in Boston, has dated one person—a black man—but has had sexual relationships with mostly white men.

“In this day and age, I feel specifically black men, don’t look for black women,” Taylor said. “I don’t think there’s a problem with [interracial relationships]. It all comes down to personality rather than looks for me.”

Regardless, I still crave urbanized love. Experiencing it is like the first taste of strawberry glazed cheesecake—sweet, savory, and delicious. And nothing is stopping me from going back and getting some more.

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This article appears in the October 2019 print issue of Your Magazine.

Urbanized Love: Black on Black Relationships