The Other Woman: The Racial Tragedies of Desire

The other woman will always cry herself to sleep

The other woman will never have his love to keep

And as the years go by

the other woman will spend her life alone.

Nina Simone’s rendition of “The Other Woman,” 1969. Written by Jessie Mae Robinson.

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Nina Simone movingly sang this song, originally written by Jessie Mae Robinson and sung by Sarah Vaughan, as a darker skinned Black woman in the midst of the racially turbulent tornado that was 1960s America. Historical recounts of this period typically focus on the more obviously political occurrences of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the marches, sit-ins, overturned laws, and other such public-facing moments of racial contention. But the struggles of racist America made reverberations beyond these visible public moments, shaping the intimate worlds of Black Americans.

“The Other Woman” is itself a song that reflects this intimate dimension of anti-Blackness––particularly, how anti-Blackness has seeped its way into how Black women experience romantic desire. Though Simone does not mention race at any point in the song, her existence as a Black woman during this crucial time in the U.S. invites us to listen to the song while remaining aware of her ever-relevant context. In the song, Simone sings about a man’s mistress who tries her best to be perfect for him, but ultimately fails to win his love. When in her solitude, the mistress, otherwise called “The Other Woman,” is achingly aware of the melancholic reality that she will never be the man’s ‘Main’ woman––only his object of momentary lust.

When I listen to the song, I struggle to separate the lyrics from a conversation about race. As a Black woman, I know romantic desire is not as simple for us as it may be for white women; it’s not just about being jealous that another woman has better style, more charisma, or other surface-level characteristics like so. For Black women–especially darker skinned women–romantic desire is war against a world that seeks to label you as the epitome of undesirability.

Our pursuits of love and lust, things that are supposed to be innocent, exciting, and seemingly untouched by the evils of the world, are stained by race. Anti-blackness has created a social ranking of desirability that most people unfortunately participate in, even if they may be unaware of their involvement. Meaning that desire is not simply composed of race-blind attraction for one’s personality or unique beauty, but that it has become commonly determined by racist definitions of what is desirable––lighter skin, looser curls, eurocentric features, and other attributes that hold proximity to whiteness. Racist ideologies have seeped into our very feelings of attraction, which is devastating once you understand how uncontrollable feelings seem. We can do everything in our power to be actively anti-racist, but desire is one of those shame-inducing things that can’t easily be altered. So, when Simone sings about what it means to be ‘The Other Woman’, I can’t help but situate it in the tragic reality of what it means to be an undesired Black woman within your own Black communities––an often unspoken, intimate issue that gets nowhere near the amount of attention more obvious manifestations of racism get.

Passing, a 2021 film directed by Rebecca Hall, exemplifies this achingly intimate experience of racist standards of desire. The film, set in 1920s New York City, follows Irene Redfield, a light-skinned Black woman living in Harlem who happens to run into her childhood friend Clare Bellew. To Irene’s surprise, Clare now passes as a white woman, as some light-skinned Black folks chose to do at the time. Throughout the film, tension arises as Irene watches her own community fall in love with Clare, seemingly because of her fabricated whiteness.

Some of the film’s most strikingly evocative moments entail the use of bodily language, rather than verbal dialogue. During a particular scene set at a dinner party of sorts, Redfield walks into a room where her husband and Clare, who have grown progressively closer during the film, are having an exciting conversation. Irene, evidently pushed over the edge by her husband appearing so enthralled by Clare’s company, drops a teapot that’s in her hands, shattering it on the floor.

The shattered teapot is a culmination of Irene’s repressed inner turmoil and melancholy over the fact that even her own husband seems to find Clare irresistibly attractive, devoting more of his attention to her than to his own wife. Irene’s husband, kids, and friends evidently enjoy spending more time with Clare than they do with Irene––the reason, we can assume, being that Clare passes as white. It’s heartbreaking to find that your own community, who undeniably loves you, ultimately cannot resist the tempting racist hierarchy of desirability. Racism has spoiled romance and otherwise non-romantic love, leading Irene to feel as though she herself is The Other Woman.

Passing zoomed into the personal worlds of two Black women living in an overtly racist world, shifting viewers’ attentions towards a less talked about dimension of racist America. Being desired may sound like an insignificant thing in comparison to other racial problems in our world, but I consider it to be one of the most pressing issues in a path towards anti-racism. Racist standards of desire are designed to be so ingrained in our psyches to the point that they are often hard to detect––we frequently don’t even realize that these standards are at play when we feel attracted or unattracted to someone. This subtlety is what makes this such an important problem; a racist force that is difficult to identify as racist is a dangerous force. When these standards are not recognized as racist, they maintain their legitimacy in our supposedly anti-racist societies.

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I wondered if whiteness were contagious. If it were, then surely I had caught it. I

imagined this "condition"affected the way I walked, talked, dressed, danced, and at its most advanced stage, the way I looked at the world and at other people.

Danzy Senna, Caucasia