I found this interesting blog post today: BaltAmour: Preference or racism?. It’s written by Maryann James, a 20-something black lesbian…and a cute geeky-looking one at that! (Any Baltimore geek lesbians in the house? Check her out!)
The original question:
Is online dating racist?
Ms. James comes to the conclusion that this isn’t the right question and suggests this one:
Do racial dating preferences make you racist?
I think both questions are a bit far-fetched. I do not consider myself to be racist. I have friends ranging from super pale (my boyfriend!) to chocolaty brown (fave coworker!). However, when it comes to the type of men that I am attracted to as romantic partners, I find that I am most attracted to white men, followed by Asians (especially half-Asians!) and Latinos.
Would I date a black man if I met one that piqued my interest? Sure. Have I, in my 13 year dating career (my first boyfriend was when I was 15), met a black man I was interested in as a romantic partner? Nope. Does this make me a racist? I should hope not!
But the question presents itself… if you are open to the possibility of finding someone with similar interests and passions who is a different race than you, why not put “Any” under your match’s ethnicity?
I guess it’s the same reason why we put preferred gender (men only!), age (26-36), height (6’0″+), education (BA/BS or more!), income (steady job with growth potential, please!), family (no kids and don’t want ‘em either!), etc, etc etc.
We’re looking for that perfect match.
Does that make me a hater of lesbians, old men, shorties, dummies, McDonalds employees and breeders? Nah. (Ok, I do harbor a certain antagonistic attitude towards stupidity, but that’s another post.) It makes us dreamers… am I the only one?
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Hello, just randomly stumbled onto your blog.
Category options like gender, education level, occupation, family status, etc. are viable because they really tell you something about the other person. Of course, if you’re a college graduate, you’d probably have goals, values, and opinions that are similar to other college graduates. And are you saying that dating say, an Asian man, for you would be the same as becoming a lesbian? Is it THAT different?
Picking the race of the people you want to see on a dating site (where you don’t even have to meet/talk to this person) is admitting that a racial category can tell you whether or not you would have commonalities with another person, and that is flat out WRONG. If you could see the possibility of dating someone outside your race, why exclude preemptively? It just seems like an unnecessary step.
Thanks for commenting!
You definitely have a good point – I had a real LOL moment over the Asian man = lesbian question. I don’t think I intended it to go quite that far!
Well, I think that Asian man = lesbian is fair enough. I mean, gender doesn’t really matter either, right? Putting what gender you are interested in is saying what you’re attracted to. Man parts or girl parts? If you had two people who were exactly the same in every way except for their gender, which would you pick to have a relationship with?
And likewise, I think it’s alright to specify what kind of man-looks you are interested in. If you had two men the same except for their looks, obviously you’d pick the one you were more attracted to physically to have a relationship with. I don’t think that’s racist any more than I think being attracted to the opposite sex makes you homophobic.
“Does that make me a hater of lesbians, old men, shorties, dummies, McDonalds employees and breeders? Nah. (Ok, I do harbor a certain antagonistic attitude towards stupidity, but that’s another post.)”
No, but your classification of people that have not completed a BA/BS as “dummies” certainly says something about you. A bit elitist, among other things, no? Heh, things like that is why my wife can’t stand “geek girls” of like mind.
I had been giving this site the benefit of the doubt. But I believe I’ll be moving on to less intellectually snobby pastures. You’ll probably just say, “good riddance!” Fine by me.
@ Silent – Bye!