Matthew Knowles’ is back with another book #Roommates, “Racism: From the Eyes of a Child,” and he’s giving readers a glimpse of what his life was like growing up in the deep South, and how he ended up with his now ex-wife Tina Knowles, which may come as a shock to some of you.
Matthew did an exclusive interview with Ebony and touched on how his experience with colorism led him to Tina.
How have you and your family experienced colorism?
“When I was growing up, my mother used to say, “Don’t ever bring no nappy-head Black girl to my house.’ In the deep South in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, the shade of your Blackness was considered important. So I, unfortunately, grew up hearing that message.”
“I have a chapter in the book that talks about eroticized rage. I talk about going to therapy and sharing – one day I had a breakthrough – that I used to date mainly White women or very high-complexion Black women that looked White. I actually thought when I met Tina, my former wife, that she was white. Later I found out that she wasn’t, and she was actually very much in-tune with her Blackness.”
“I had been conditioned from childhood. Within eroticized rage, there was actual rage in me as a Black man, and I saw the White female as a way, subconsciously, of getting even or getting back,” he said. “There are a lot of Black men of my era that are not aware of this thing.”
