Stephanie Ilodi, a 37-year-old nurse practitioner from Cleveland, arrived in New York on Thursday. By Friday night, she was strutting through a crowd of revelers on the second floor of Our Wicked Lady, a bar in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where a dance party centering Black love was underway.
She had texted her cousin about the event shortly after seeing it advertised on social media. “I’m like, ‘Yo, you want to go to New York for the weekend?’ And she was like, ‘Say less,’” Ms. Ilodi recalled.
In all likelihood, she saw the event, “A Black Love Party,” on the Instagram page MeAndSomebodySon, a meme account dedicated to highlighting images of attractive Black couples in aspirational settings and, one imagines, in healthy relationships. Like many attendees, Ms. Ilodi was searching for a long-term partner, and it was all or nothing.
“I want a Black man. I want a Black king,” she said. “That’s what I’m attracted to.”
Both MeAndSomebodySon and its offline offshoot, “A Black Love Party,” were created by Zemirah Moffett, a 27-year-old copywriter on Long Island. Since the first “Black Love” party, held in May, Ms. Moffett has hosted eight more in cities including Chicago and Washington, D.C.
The name of Ms. Moffett’s account nods to a familiar term of endearment. By identifying a man as “somebody’s son,” you are explicitly positioning him in the context of a family — representing not only himself, but also a mother or a father. For women, it can be an optimistic label: With more on the line than his own self-respect, the thinking goes, a man will be less likely to play in your face. The term, which is often used in jest, has become so popular that the Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage released a song in 2021 of the same name.
Ms. Moffett started the account in 2019, when she was a senior studying Africology and African American studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. “I know that Black men and women want each other,” she said. “I studied it, I know that there’s statistics behind it, so let’s make it fun and show people that this is real.”
Some of those statistics are more encouraging for Black love than others. The so-called education gap is especially wide between Black men and Black women, potentially accounting for some difficulty in finding a match, and Black men are twice as likely as Black women to marry outside their race. Still, 83 percent of married Black adults have a Black spouse.
Ms. Moffett rejects suggestions that her account or her events could be exclusionary to groups like interracial couples. “MeAndSomebodySon is a platform dedicated to the love between Black men and Black women,” she wrote in an email. “That has always been integral to our brand and has been a part of our message since the inception. We don’t knock anyone for their choices on who they love, while focusing on a very specified story that often gets marginalized.”
When assembling her posts, Ms. Moffett scouts for lovey-dovey (or sometimes steamy) photos of Black couples online, overlays the images with meme-like text and frequently pairs them with inspirational captions. She sees the posts as reminders that Black people are indeed still falling in love with one another and maintaining healthy relationships.
Other Instagram accounts with similar names — Me and Somebody Daughter, Me & Somebody Queer Kin, even another Meandsomebodyson — existed well before Ms. Moffett created hers. But she said she saw room for another account dedicated to the yearning for Black love through the eyes of Black women.
“I absolutely loved the content and how these creators were able to express and showcase love from their perspective,” said Ms. Moffett, whose account has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram. “But I also was like, there’s a piece missing from this story.”
On Friday night, more than 200 guests who paid up to $20 for entry were given different colored wristbands at check in: yellow if you’re single, black if you’re in a relationship.
R & B music blared through the speakers as partygoers made themselves comfortable wallflowers, moving only to grab a drink at the bar or to freshen up in the bathroom. Daniel Lester, 29, a project manager living in Queens, was standing near the bar with his friend. Currently single, Mr. Lester said that he had wanted to come out and be around Black people but that he had no expectations.
“Usually I find someone, we rock out for three to four months, then something happens and there’s a shift and I’m back on the dating market again,” he said. “I guess I want to meet the right person, but no rush on that.”
Despite his stated interest in having connections “happen as organically as possible,” Mr. Lester doesn’t do much approaching in real life. “I’m going to be honest, I don’t talk to women outside,” he said, adding that he will approach them “once in a blue moon.”
The party, which sold out of advance tickets, kicked off around 11 p.m. The late hour was an intentional choice by Ms. Moffett, who said she wanted to avoid the job-interview vibes of traditional dating events, which can often feel serious and intimidating.
“I want people to come and feel comfortable,” she said. “And when you’re coming and you’re comfortable and you’re singing and you’re dancing, you’re more likely to vibe and chat with the person next to you.”
For Dashawn White, seeing “Black Love” in the name of the event is what drew her to it. She said that although she hadn’t been dating for the past few years, she had come on Friday in search of a good time without the pressure of finding a partner.
“I’m very much pro Black love,” said Ms. White, 36, a teacher in the Bronx. “It’s the most beautiful thing, in all of its ways, whether it’s romantic or platonic.”
“I think it’s an honor to be loved by a Black man,” she added, “and vice versa.”
It was nearing 1 a.m. when the vibe of the event became more lively. Smoke from various recreational substances clouded the air, and the D.J. shifted to Afrobeat and Caribbean music. Some couples clutched each other tightly, swaying their hips to the beat. Dancing was in full swing for others, with the second-story dance floor shaking throughout the night.
One man who gave his name only as Lex, 34, said he was attending as “moral support” for a friend who was in the midst of exploring her sexuality and wanted to go out and mingle. (The friend ended up getting cold feet and never showed up.) For his part, Lex said he hadn’t dated in more than a year and wasn’t interested in meeting anyone.
“Trying to find someone emotionally available in New York is nearly impossible,” he said. He was wearing a Sailor Moon T-shirt that had the words “Boys Are the Enemy.”
When asked what would it take for him to start dating again, he said a woman would have to “randomly fall” into his lap. About an hour after our conversation, he was talking to a girl at the bar.
As 2 a.m. approached, I got caught in the middle of a hand-reach by a man who wanted the attention of a woman waiting in line at the bar. She returned his advances and they chatted for a bit before exchanging phone numbers.
Another couple wearing black wristbands were hugging in the corner, the man clasping his hands over her lower back, her hands around his neck while she sang along to “Heated” by Beyoncé in his ear. He grinned until the end of the song.
The post The Best Place to Find ‘Somebody’s Son’? Try ‘A Black Love Party.’ appeared first on New York Times.
