When I first read 27-year-old Olandria Carthen’s post-“Love Island USA” interview in Vulture, I knew exactly what she was trying to communicate to the American public about being in a highly visible, interracial relationship with Nicolas Vansteenberghe, 24.
The couple, deemed “Nicolandria” by throngs of obsessed fans, went viral on the seventh season of the must-watch reality dating show. Since the season wrapped on July 13, Carthen and Vansteenberghe have become a full-fledged “cultural phenomenon” and “beloved part of reality television history.”
There’s no doubt the pair will be in the spotlight again when the “Love Island USA” Season 7 reunion airs on Peacock at 8 p.m. CT on Aug. 25.
Per Lisa France at CNN, they’ve spent the past two months sparking headlines, fan accounts, and long-overdue cultural reckonings about interracial relationships — and what it means to be a supportive partner.
As a dark-skinned Black girl from Texas, I’m glad everyone else has finally joined this conversation.
I was only 13 years old when I was first pulled aside and told about the ways I had to navigate dating differently than my fair-skinned classmates.
One of the first pieces of advice I received was not to date Black men. And this came from the mouth of a Black man, my older brother.
His words were not rooted in anti-Black sentiment; they were about my protection.
The year before I started high school, a Black male classmate propositioned me in the band hall for my DSL (dick sucking lips). As one of the few Black students in a predominantly white school district in North Texas, I did not share what happened to me, out of fear of disciplinary action by school administrators. Black girls experience higher levels of sexual harassment than their white counterparts, and when they do come forward about their mistreatment, they are often met with opposition or subjected to punishment, such as expulsion.
When I told my mother and older brother what happened, they sat me down for a talk about my body, in relation to sex and dating. My brother, who is seven years older than me, said young boys, specifically Black young boys, would be interested in being sexually intimate with me, but nothing more. My dark skin rendered me undateable, but highly fuckable.
Like many teenage girls, I neglected my older brother’s advice. I was defiant.
My first high school relationship was with a Black teenage boy in the 10th grade. He brought me gifts, such as a plush animal from the State Fair of Texas. We had the same extracurricular activities, like marching band. Our teenage relationship was good, until he started to pressure me sexually. First, over text. Then, in-person, until I complied. Unbeknownst to me, he shared this with his friends on the track & field team, who jokingly made fun of my sexual experience — or lack thereof. Then in Kanye “Ye” West à la “Gold Digger” fashion, he left my ass for a white girl.
As I cried my eyes out to my mother, my older brother had a few words for me: I told you so. Then proceeded to play “Gold Digger” at full blast as a way to put salt in my wound.
The next person I dated after that was a white teenage boy, who eventually became my high school sweetheart. He was kind, patient, and understanding. He loved me in public, and he established a relationship with my mother. Most importantly, he got my older brother’s approval, which meant the world to me. Although I did not have the language at the time to articulate it, I was highly aware of how I was perceived as a dark skin Black girl, in relation to sex and dating.
According to teenage boys, and later men, my value was based on my fuckability. My purpose was to prepare them for the white woman who they would later marry.
Sex and dating is not an apolitical act. For Black women, specifically dark-skinned Black women from the South, whose sexuality and bodily perception is deeply rooted in the racial and gendered stereotypes left behind from Jim Crow and Antebellum slavery, dating is an extremely risky endeavor.
Author, philosopher, and scholar Amia Srinivasan says the “sexual marketplace is organized by a hierarchy of desirability along axes of race, gender, disability status, and so on.” In a piece aptly titled “Does Anyone Have the Right to Sex?” she argues the “personal preference” one has in dating is influenced by “racism, ableism, transphobia, and every other oppressive system.”
It’s the reason why users on Grindr, the LGBTQ dating app, had “No fats, no femmes, no Asians,” in their dating profiles. (In 2018, the app announced a zero tolerance policy towards racism, transphobia, and discrimination on the platform.)
It turns out, all dating apps are racist — even when they are trying not to be.
There’s evidence everywhere you look, and even reality television isn’t exempt.
As I watched the seventh season of “Love Island USA,” episode after episode took me back to this awareness. That women like me must be hypervigilant when we’re dating.
“Even if I would have met him in high school, being that I’m from Alabama — a very traditional state, if you know what I mean — I wouldn’t have felt that he was going to be into me,” Carthen said in that Vulture interview. “A lot of guys at my school weren’t into people that looked like me. Which is why I decided to go on the show. I was like, I’m going to open my mind to this experience. Let me stop writing myself off.”
Hidden within her words are the remnants of an antiquated ideology that dictates that a dark-skinned Black woman, like Carthen, would not be seen as desirable by a physically attractive white man, such as Vansteenberghe.
Texas shares a lot of similarities with Carthen’s “traditional” home state. Alabama still engages in racial segregation within its school system, contrary to federal legislation. The University of Alabama, the state’s first public university, prevented Black women from joining white sororities until 2013.
In Texas, school segregation is growing and at last check 36% of Texas schools are intensely segregated, Axios has reported. Greek organizations at schools like the University of Texas are also segregated based on the populations they serve.
The Deep South, a geographical region that consists of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, historically have been hubs of political conservatism, rooted in the maintenance and upliftment of colonial beliefs around race, gender, and class. While Texas is not technically a part of the “deep south,” it shares many beliefs with states in the deep south, like trying to rewrite history to omit slavery and cutting back on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. We may not all be part of one distinct region, but we can all agree there’s significant overlap.
Texas does differ slightly when it comes to interracial dating in that the Lone Star State’s slightly above the national rate. But even nationally, journalists and readers are still grappling with what interracial dating looks like — the ethics, the diversity of experiences ~60 years after interracial marriage became legal, and “the shadow of modern politics.”
But the Birmingham, Alabama metropolitan area — where Carthen is from — has one of the lowest rates of interracial marriage in the United States, according to Pew Research Center. Carthen’s alma mater, Tuskegee University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) has a predominantly Black student body, so the likelihood of dating someone outside of her race was highly unlikely. Her reluctance was made clear during her time on “Love Island.”
“Although I liked what I saw, I didn’t really know if Nic liked what he saw. Some guys that don’t look like me, they don’t mind being physical with you, but actually valuing you as a woman, actually taking it to the next level and being in a relationship with you and marrying you is something totally different,” Carthan said on the Sorry We’re Cyrus podcast. “Dating outside of my race has always scared me because am I a fetish to you? Are you fetishizing me?”
Her fear is valid.
Racial fetishization, colorism, and misogynoir are commonplace for Black women in the pursuit of love. On reality television, these societal and cultural norms are exemplified by heightened conditions and implicit bias from their fellow participants, thus giving the outside world an inside look into the dating conditions that plague Black women.
Carthen isn’t the only Black woman who’s had reservations on how vulnerable to get in dating shows. In their time since the villa, Serena Page and JaNa Craig (Season 6 of “Love Island USA”) have expressed their experiences of colorism on the reality dating show, such as being overlooked by Islanders in pursuit of fair-skinned contestants. Rodriguez, Craig’s ex-boyfriend — who placed third with her on the Peacock series — was accused of being an alleged racist. There were also reportedly messages on his phone expressing his disdain towards Black women.
I Love My Texas Ass
There is no greater love than the one that exists between a woman and her ass. And there is no greater ass than one from Texas. Yes, I know Georgia is infamous for their peaches, but take one look at Megan Thee Stallion. And let’s not forget Beyoncé.…
“With more ‘Love Island USA’ fans gravitating towards Black women — and the cultural fetishizing and appropriation they face — they’ve become central players on the show the past two seasons,” wrote Taryn Finley in R29Unbothered. “But still, they experience the same misogynoir they would’ve otherwise and face double standards and ridicule when they stray outside of the boundaries others want to keep them in. In other words, it’s cool to be a Black woman until it’s time to be with a Black woman.”
“Nicolandria,” as the couple has been lovingly called by their fans, may be different.
It’s clear that Vansteenberghe wants to be with Carthen. He wants to be with a Black woman. I see the way he has already helped her reach her goals and aspirations. Whether that be taking her to Disneyland for the first time or incorporating her into his latest brand campaign for Kulani Kinis in Greece, his consistency and prioritization of her is evident.
“I’m so happy that I was blessed with this guy who allows me to bask in my femininity, you know what I mean? Allows me to be soft. You know what, he takes the wheel. Usually I’m a control freak; I let him do everything. The support that I have from this guy is unreal. It allows me to be the soft woman I’ve always wanted to be, so I’m so grateful,” Carthen said on Watch What Happens Live.
Call me sick, but I love to see a Black woman being loved out loud.
This is the reason why the world has fallen in love with Nicolandria.
The support she’s received from Vansteenberghe — and the world’s embrace of it — has felt like a balm to the wounds that many Black women like myself have experienced in our pursuit of love.
Dating a white man is not the solution to generations-long mistreatment and dehumanization of Black women. (If it was that easy, our world would look a lot different.) Nor is that what fans should take away from the overwhelmingly positive reception and response to Carthen and Vansteenberghe in the media.
The reality is that Black women are worthy of a healthy, genuine outpouring of love by an individual who values and sees their humanity — and acknowledges and intervenes when people push back.
For many, “Nicolandria” is a glimmer of hope, and that is the one thing that is more powerful than all of the systems of oppression combined.