“Is It Racist to Primarily Date Your Own Race?”
Staceyann Chin asks — and can’t quite answer — the question at OurChart.
I’m not talking about the overt, idiotic bigot who sees other races as inferior, or dirty, or sub-human. I’m talking about the liberal, fair-minded person who believes that people are people, but has a general preference for familiar skin color against your own. Or a cultural leaning that does not look foreign. And, more specifically, when we seek a life partner, is race a serious consideration?
In your intimate life, in your bed, in your body — is race a consideration for intimate relationships?
I think part of the difficulty in answering is that we don’t often make a conscious choice. (Although with the boom of online dating, I guess some folks do.) We just like who we like.
One could look at my dating history and draw a conclusion about what my preference is, but I’ve never consciously chosen or not chosen someone because of their race. And, counter to Staceyann’s experience, I have typically not ended up with partners who outwardly resemble the nurturers in my life. But there’s also the part where the folks I typically encounter in my every day life, without going out of my way to surround myself by specific groups of people, don’t resemble the nurturers I grew up with, either. Apparently I’m just fine with that discrepancy.
UPDATE: I put the question to my peeps on Friendfeed and they had plenty to say.
UPDATE #2: I’ve recently come by some better understanding of related topics, and I posted the following comment on the original post.
1. We should not confuse race with culture/ethnicity. Race is a social construct, where labels and meanings are applied to persons by the white majority. Race as most Americans understand it disappears when you leave the U.S. Culture/ethnicity are part of your identity, no matter where you go and what people call you. Is it unreasonable to be attracted to persons of a certain culture/ethnicity that you may also identify with? Absolutely not.
2. Oppression (all the -isms) = Prejudice + Power. By that definition, a non-white person in America can’t really be racist, because they have no power structure through which to inflict negative consequences upon someone not in the majority (though they can still perform acts of prejudice). So no, your dating preferences are not (necessarily) racist. Is it prejudiced to prefer someone with particular physical characteristics? Maybe.
3. The images we see in our media that tell us what is “attractive” are powerful and insidious. It does not absolve us for our choices, but it’s something we should
be fully aware of.
