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Conversation Starters w/ Zamara Perri

I had the chance to interview Zamara Perri of Black Lesbian Love Lab and decided to post my favorite parts of the interview here. The questions from me are in bold. Zamara is wonderfully hilarious and currently in need of Facebook friends so don’t be afraid to add her! And like the site’s fan page!

In one of your videos, you mentioned how you started the blog because you needed relationship advice.

Yeah, I did. I knew from the very beginning that I liked women. I was like three years old and I was messing around with other girls but I was very closeted. Deeply closeted and very much into the church. My family members were a part of the church and I didn’t find a lot of support or acceptance from them so I felt I needed to hide myself. So when I was coming out of a really important relationship I couldn’t find anything besides cute pictures and I was like I really want to talk about the issues that I’m struggling with and I couldn’t find anything else about relationships. It would be either advocacy groups or gay white men decorating their cute house that they’ve gentrified. So I just couldn’t find anything that related to me and I was struggling really hard. It was hard for me because I didn’t have any real lesbian friends. I didn’t have that kind of community. And my straight friends even the ones who were accepting...there are just some things that they don’t understand about our culture. So I was just like I’m going to write a little diary online maybe no one will know and then one of my exes was like you really should do this. And so I kind of kept going.

Have you been on a dating app?

I haven’t. I mean the last time I was single was 2014 but I did a lot of internet dating.

So you wouldn’t have any advice for people on dating apps?

I would have advice for people who were online dating. I’m actually in the process of writing an eBook on online dating because I feel like I keep getting these crazy stories of people who meet and fall in love and are engaged with someone they’ve never meet. So I do have advice for people who are online dating. It doesn’t matter if you’re using an app. The long and short of it is that online dating… using apps for black lesbians it’s going to be abysmal.

It’s pretty dry out there.

It is. Most people meet people on Facebook or Instagram. But a dedicated app for black women who are interested in dating other women… the apps are just kind of sucky. Because number one those apps have men who are interested. I don’t know what they think is going to happen when they find out “oh you’re actually a man, this isn’t what I wanted but since you’re here I’m going to change my mind.” I don’t understand it. And a lot of it is really white. And even if I want to date a white woman maybe I just want to have some options.

Have you dated a white woman?

No. I tried but… I’m not interested. I love black woman and that’s what I want to date.

What’s off-putting about that for you?

So what’s off-putting about it to me is as a black woman I don’t want to have to compromise or curtail my conversation because I’m a minority. I don’t want to be a minority in my own family. In my own house. I don’t want to go to family events and have to be careful about what I say because it may offend some great aunt somebody who’s white. It’s just not my interest. I mean there are people out there who do it and we showcase interracial couples on our site all the time and it's a wonderful thing. I think love is beautiful wherever you find it. But me personally I prefer to date and be with black women because I think we are amazing and that connection is beyond anything I’m going to have with another woman from another race and it’s not just… I hate when people say stupid things like you’re being narrow-minded. That’s not true. For many centuries we couldn’t choose who we wanted to be with and how we wanted to live our lives and how we wanted to love and now I’m choosing it  and I’m choosing to be with somebody who looks like my mother, looks like me, who looks like my aunt, who has the same struggles.

Have you experienced relationship problems specific to the fact that you are a black lesbian?

Yes. So one of the things my partner and I talk about all the time is the fact that women are emotional creatures. I think men are too. I’m not going to say that men aren’t emotional but it’s just that they’re socialized differently so they’re not as in touch with their emotions as women tend to be. So we have the issue of…I honestly think that a lot of black women are depressed so you have sexism, you have depression, undiagnosed depression or mental illness and then you also have the fact that you are basically an outsider in every way. So I think that sometimes makes the relationships a bit more difficult. You’re excluded from… basically excluded from church for the most part because they don’t agree with your “lifestyle”. Your parents are disappointed because you’re not married to a man and then you don’t realize that your emotions are probably flat in some ways like you might not realize that you’re depressed. On top of that you have to go work and if you’re a femme you have to like play along and pretend that you’re interested in you know like some guy’s flirtation because you’re trying to keep your job and you’re trying to be like the chill co-worker. So I think all of these things come together and they can make it a little more difficult for us. Those… all those things I think, that unique combination is unique of course to black lesbian women and so that can make it a little bit of a challenge for us.

There is a lot of internal homophobia in the black community…

Absolutely. In every community not just in the black community it’s just that were more intimately familiar with it because we have a culture that’s very oppressive and very puritanical. The internal homophobia thing, the reason that that’s a problem, and I talk about this a lot on my blog and on my show as well, our bodies are not betraying us. Our minds are not betraying. But we’ve been taught to think a certain way and because we’ve been taught to think a certain way when our bodies align with who we are we feel betrayed and so we have people who want to be in a relationship with someone of the same gender but the indoctrination that they’ve had since childhood and just from society overall makes it very difficult for them to be who they really are. So that being free in who you are and loving yourself and loving who you’re with, it’s tough for us. I mean there are a lot of black women who discover late in life that they are a lesbian or I don’t think they discovered it later in life…

They accepted it?

They accepted it. Right. Not to say that somebody can’t go their entire life and not realize they like women. I think maybe they didn’t take it seriously.

Didn’t you just have an article about that?

I did. But what I’m saying that some people. You didn’t think it could be a possibility so you just didn’t entertain it. I had a very rich fantasy life as a child so I fantasized about being with women all the time. But there are some people who wouldn’t even dare let themselves do that. So when it got to a point where they’re like “oh wait I can actually do this and it’s not going to be as horrible as I thought it was. Let me give myself permission to accept the fact that I like women.”

In your eBook, you talked about all the advice you’ve got from all the couples you’ve interviewed. Is there one particular tip…? I know communication is super important but besides that what do you have.

Off the top of my head, I would say compassion is the most important part of having any successful relationship. A lot of times we can only see things from our own perspective and if you’re only looking at your own perspective then, of course, your partner is always wrong and they’re always the bad guy. It’s really easy to… we all star in our own movies. We’re the superheroes of our own movies. We’re always the wronged one. But I think one of the best things we can do is realize that most of us are just doing our best and so if we look at our partners with compassion, you know just stop for a moment and think “okay clearly this person isn’t trying to harm me.” There are some people who are but I think most of the time it’s not about this person being the villain its’s just really that they have a different perspective and it’s up to you both to do the work to try to understand each other.

#black lesbian love lab#zamara perri#black lgbt#black queer women#queer women of color#lgbt#black lesbians#lesbians#black women#lavandnoir#black qwoc#interviews
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The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The seminal novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author features a protagonist involved in a same-sex relationship. Steven Speilberg, the director of the film adaptation notoriously toned down the lesbianism included in the book. 

#alice walker#steven speilberg#the color purple#black queer characters#celie#celie harris johnson#shug avery#celie harris#black lesbian charactes#black writers#black authors#black women#lesbian characters#queer characters#lavandnoir#pulitzer prize
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Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou

This moving autobiography of novelist, folklorist, anthropologist, and oft-rumored bisexual Zora Neale Hurston recounts her life from childhood to adulthood. The deluxe edition of the book includes a forward elegantly written by poet and activist Maya Angelou.

#zora neale hurston#maya angelou#black queer women#dust tracks on a road#black writers#black women#black lgbt women#lgbt women#queer women#lavandnoir#autobiography#their eyes were watching god#black queer writers#black female writers#queer poc
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Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel

Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the hour-long documentary examines the life of the first African-American performer to win an Oscar. 

In her heyday McDaniel is said to have been a part of the Sewing Circle, a group of closeted Hollywood actresses. 

#hattie mcdaniel#black history#black history month#whoopi goldberg#oscars#beyond tara#gone with the wind#black queer women#black women#black women in history#lgbt#lavandnoir#black queer history#african american firsts#black actresses#black lgbt#lgbt women#black lgbt history#old hollywood#black actress#black oscar winner#black academy award winner#the sewing circle
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