Poll: Is Not Dating a Certain Race Racist?

[BrainWalker]

What is happening in this thread? Yes, refusing to date black women is absolutely racist. It's not "kill all the Jews!" racist, but he's making a determination of an entire population's worth based entirely and solely on their race. There is no way that is not racist.

Examine the language. He said "I'll date any race except black chicks." That is a wholly different sentiment from "I'm not usually attracted to black women." It eliminates the possibility that a black woman, however well-educated, however well-employed, however well-whatever-his-other-requirements-are, could ever come along and sweep him off his feet. If a smart, funny, charming black woman asked me on a date, I would be flattered; I wouldn't point downward and draw her attention to my super-classy "No black chicks" t-shirt.

To people who are saying this is the same thing as the typical white guy who likes Asian chicks: it is not. This would be like a white guy who dates only Asian chicks and refuses to date any woman who is not his fetish.

All that said, though, it's definitely good for black women that they won't end up on a date with this racist misogynist asshole.

 

[stormeris]

What is happening in this thread? Yes, refusing to date black women is absolutely racist. It's not "kill all the Jews!" racist, but he's making a determination of an entire population's worth based entirely and solely on their race. There is no way that is not racist.

Examine the language. He said "I'll date any race except black chicks." That is a wholly different sentiment from "I'm not usually attracted to black women." It eliminates the possibility that a black woman, however well-educated, however well-employed, however well-whatever-his-other-requirements-are, could ever come along and sweep him off his feet. If a smart, funny, charming black woman asked me on a date, I would be flattered; I wouldn't point downward and draw her attention to my super-classy "No black chicks" t-shirt.

To people who are saying this is the same thing as the typical white guy who likes Asian chicks: it is not. This would be like a white guy who dates only Asian chicks and refuses to date any woman who is not his fetish.

All that said, though, it's definitely good for black women that they won't end up on a date with this racist misogynist asshole.

"kill all the jews" isn't racist.
That's anti-semitism

 

[Stabby Joe]

There are two answers people can give: "I don't find so and so people attractive" or "I find so and so people MORE attractive".

I hear the latter much much more and no one seems to raise an eyebrow at that view, regardless of which people. People tend to view as a gay man saying they "prefer men", NOT saying they "hate women" because they mostly likely don't. It's their preference.

 

[Forobryt]

I cant say i have ever found a very dark skinned girl attractive, but thats because i have never known one personally so i never see the personalities.

I used to not really see attractiveness in the mid-ground skin tones like those of indian descent for the same reason but after having met some people of that tone and seeing the personalities the skin tone stopped being an issue and i can say that i know some damn attractive girls of that skin tone now.

So whilst yes the skin tone does matter it is only in the same was some people like girls having massive tits or a thin waist, its just a physical thing.
If you get to know the person the tone or any physical aspect will not have the same importance.

But as other people have mentioned if you dont date the colour simply because "all black girls are x" or "all asian girls are y" then yeh racism as its not because of the colour its because of the preconceptions you have of that race.



TLR - If you wont date because you dont find the colour attractive its ok, if you dont date because "all x are y" then no thats bad.

 

[Soundwave]

People aren't arbitrarily not attracted to individuals of a specific race "as a general rule" without some (though they might be unaware of it) inherent racism. People are unintentionally racist all the time. Just because you don't know better doesn't mean it isn't racist.

Actually that's exactly what it means.

Again, racism is "a series of actions or beliefs that subdivides humanity into distinct 'races' and then establishes one race as superior/inferior to another". Note the key part there, actions and beliefs, both of which are controlled by your conscious thought. Yet who you are physically attracted to is not an action controlled by conscious thought, it's controlled by your genes and hormones.

Certainly you can decide to ignore your attractions and date someone you're not attracted to. The decision of who you date is a conscious decision you make yourself. But saying that a person is "unintentionally racist" because their body doesn't get excited when it sees a black person is nonsensical. Human bodies cannot be racist, only human minds can be. Biology isn't inherently racist. >_>

And different races have inherently different biology. Their bodies are designed slightly differently. A white person's physical makeup is slightly different from someone who is black, who also differs from an Asian, etc. And different people find different physical features attractive. It is entirely possible (in fact, quite probable) that a person would find certain features of a particular race unattractive and would find it harder to date that race in earnest than other races. That doesn't mean the person's body is racist. Especially since that means that not every single person of said race will always have the exact same biological features that you dislike (meaning you may very well still find THEM attractive, even if you don't find most of their race attractive).

Now, if that same person is saying he doesn't want to date that particular race because of some stereotype or preconceived mental bias against them, THAT is racist. But that's entirely different from someone not being attracted to a particular race because of the way that race is physically "built" in general.

In other words: there's a huge, huge gap between someone saying something reasonable, like "I don't tend to date black women because I'm not as fond of women with black hair or darker skin tones", versus someone saying something obvious racist in nature, like "I don't date black women because they're too talkative in movie theaters". And it's honestly downright criminal to act as if these two things are identical or even remotely related.

The way this thread is going, some people seem to subscribe to the idea that unless a person runs through a "dating checklist" of every race, they're instantly and inherently racist. That is such a silly position that I'm not sure it's worth giving any time on the debate floor to address. Especially since I strongly doubt many of those saying "yes it's racist" have dated every single race before.

Sorry, I don't buy that. There's too much variability within how a person looks (within their ethnicity) that not finding a single one that you're attracted to speaks more of some internalized racism.

 

[mrblakemiller]

Oh, well there is your problem. Why the hell would it be racist? Not attracted to a certain race? Who fucking cares.

Yep, and this is why I called the OP out on misrepresenting the topic in his OP. Because he presents an inaccurate version of events, in which some poor beggar is stigmatized by a bunch of uppity feminists and PC nutbags for daring to have dating preferences.

The guy being discussed is against mixed race relationships (something about it making the girls involved "filthy"), compared sleeping with a black girl to committing an act of beastiality, said black people looked like "apes, monkeys and gorillas" and openly pondered whether or not whites were not obviously "the superior race" because they weren't "on a plantation picking cotton for 400 years".

OP, if you're curious, this is why removing HALF of the context of a discussion and then leaving the rest in is bad.

I disagree. I left in what I left in because the article itself has pictures and paragraphs that loudly insinuate that just not wanting to date a black woman is racist and, furthermore, despicable. Later on in the article, they showcase his more overtly racist comments, but that idea is clear in the beginning. Besides, it doesn't matter that this is a real story with a larger background behind it. If I'd just said, "Imagine a website that blasts a man for not wanting to date black women," it would have been a valuable story to start the discussion.

In short, I WANTED to defend the notion that people shouldn't castigate others for saying "I don't date black girls." I'm not an unbiased participant here. I wanted those who would consider it racist to have to do the work of proving their position more than others.

As I've already said, I pretty much didn't want people looking for the story itself in order to inform their opinion, so I left the meat of it out. And since this is merely a forum and not some academic journal, it's way beyond the scope of this environment itself to say that I "misrepresented" everything. If I wanted, I could panegyize a great Russian leader of the 40's and 50's and suggest our government look to him for political guidance without mentioning that I'm talking about Stalin. That's my right as OP: I can frame the conversation however I want. Your right as poster is to ignore me, make a conversation of your own, or, I guess, calling me out for doing it in a way you wouldn't have, but we can see that's as effective as fighting the mist.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That's my right as OP: I can frame the conversation however I want.

Yes, that's correct, you can. All I am illustrating is that if you frame it in such a way that you provoke or incite a particular response, you risk ending up with an echo chamber instead of a conversation.

And since this is merely a forum and not some academic journal, it's way beyond the scope of this environment itself to say that I "misrepresented" everything.

It's not at all. It's a forum and not an academic journal, so you CAN misrepresent things and not have your article pulled or your credentials revoked, but that doesn't change what you're doing. Misrepresentation of the facts of an anecdotal situation is still exactly that. You took an actual example of what you were talking about and stripped out core pieces of information in order to lead people towards the perspective you wanted them to have on the subject.

And I'm not CASTIGATING you for that, people do it here all the time. It's just kind of poor form, is all. And since the guy in question WAS either a ludicrous racist or overt troll, it leaves you hanging out there in the position of openly supporting him in your OP, which is kind of awkward for everyone who read the article in question or spends time on Reddit.

 

[Chaud]

I'm not calling you a racist, mind. I'm just saying you can't know how you will feel about someone you haven't met before you even know anything about them unless there's something lurking beneath the surface.

Well, I can say with certainty that I would never have a 'romantic love' in relation to a person that I find ugly. Simply because "physical attraction" is a key point in my case, and this attraction, although not rely solely on it, has a clear dependence on it. While it is true that is a bit difficult to define whether I would think if a certain person is ugly or beautiful before I can meet her (except for certain very specific characteristics), it is quite safe to deduce if I would like or not a person in a certain way before meeting her simply thinking if there is any trace in her of which I have no affinity.

As I said before, people seem to have trouble accepting (or assuming) that physical traits can go into this equation. People only think it's acceptable in cases of bad personality traits: if I say, for example, that I cannot enjoy the company of unscrupulous people? Or people with evil character? If I told you that 100% of the time I met someone like that I wasn't interested, it would seem reasonable, right? Because it is "morally acceptable" to not feel attracted to a person who has a characteristic universally seen as negative. But if we come under the personal preference, the rest of us feel entitled to judge what others should want or not. We feel that they "should" give a chance to a certain person in "a priori", because there's nothing "wrong" with her.

And it may not even have anything wrong indeed. Who said there was something wrong? As I said, attraction and beauty has no relation with right or wrong. It relates to what moves us, it's almost instinctive. Just like I didn't "decide" if a burger is tasty or not, I just think it is or isn't. We can then seek justification for this, but the "feel" itself is innate.

 

[Alarien]

If you are dating another person because you find them physically attractive (first and foremost), then there is a high likelihood that you are dating them based on your body's own chemically based preferences. Yes, attraction is partially, if not heavily, chemical in nature.

You'll note that there is a definite ideal form of beauty in our culture, and that this has changed over time. Ideas about attractiveness are not static.

Now, you can say that chemistry does play a part, but there's a lot more to it than that, and much of it is cultural.

I agree with this, but taking the chemical portion out of the equation is silly. I find Pamela Anderson to be repulsive (ok, let's go back to the 90s when people found her attractive.). I find a lot of women who are found to be attractive to the great majority unattractive. I find Halle Berry (probably the single most cited example of a truly gorgeous black woman) to be completely physically unattractive (she's still beautiful in my eyes). There's just there.

Not finding them unattractive and, thus, not being interested in dating women like that is not racism. It's simply "eh, not feeling it."

Again, it's racist of you decide that someone shouldn't be dated because of their color/look despite physical attraction. I, on the other hand, don't believe that it's racist to refuse to date someone because "the goods are still sleeping."

 

[The Great JT]

No, of course it doesn't. You're not slandering anyone (which is how I personally define racism, slandering an ethnicity) you're just someone who doesn't want to date someone who happens to be this or that race.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Again, it's racist of you decide that someone shouldn't be dated because of their color/look despite physical attraction. I, on the other hand, don't believe that it's racist to refuse to date someone because "the goods are still sleeping."

Providing that the reason you don't find them attractive isn't because of some cultural narrative about race that you've absorbed, than yes.

 

[Alarien]

So my question is: Does not wanting to date people from a certain race or races make you racist?

Well, if racism is discrimination based on race, then yeah, it's racism.

Perhaps we just need to admit that deep down, humans are naturally racist.

Doesn't mean that we should be, or that we should necessarily act on or encourage that biological impulse.

We shouldn't need to admit a fact. People are naturally racist. They are also naturally sexist as well as naturally homophobic.

This isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. It's what you do with it that makes it wrong.

Basically, people, like all social animals, are hard-wired to define themselves first as self, and then in greater degrees away from themselves via community. Self > immediate family > immediate friends > extended family > village/town > etc with ever greater degrees extending up to race and nation.

We are meant to define ourselves in an "us vs. not us" type of mindset, like all social animals do. Race is a very apparent "difference" between two different people and is a natural barrier to acceptance. The same can be said for other natural differences such as gender and sexual preference, as well as constructs like nation.

The difference between naturally racist tendencies (which I would argue everyone has) and being a racist is whether and how you act on them.

Being white, when I look at a black person, I notice that they are different from me. How could I not? The point, however, is whether I treat them any differently than I would a white person, or an Asian, or anyone else. I try, very hard, not to.

 

[BrainWalker]

"kill all the jews" isn't racist.
That's anti-semitism

Anti-Semitism actually pulls double duty as both racism - hatred against Jews as an ethnic group tracing their genealogical history back to ancient Israel - and religious intolerance - hatred of people who follow the teaching of Judaism. Hitler didn't just disagree with Judaism as a religion. When you start talking about a people having "inferior blood," you've gone beyond talking about their religion.

Anyway, as I understand it the term "Semitic" actually refers more to ethnic Jews than the religiously Jewish.

 

[Soundwave]

So it is with our reactions to different races. Our very concept of racial boundaries is learned, as is our reaction to them. We see this even in infant and child psychology. Your sexual reaction to members of different races was learned. It cannot have been any other way. There is no biological mechanism for expressing your reaction to other races. The fact that it was learned does not make it racist. The fact that it was learned doesn't mean you are immoral if you don't change it. But it was learned, on a subconscious level if nothing else.

This is the crux of the entire argument. People largely are unwilling to accept negative ideas about themselves and are willing to undergo any amount of mental gymnastics to avoid taking a hard look at themselves.

 

[Sir Razorback]

There's alot of voices in here, and quite a few of them parallel my own opinions. Deciding that you're not going to date someone of a particular race is racist, but at the same time as long as you don't use it as an excuse to be a judgemental pain in the ass, it's just human nature. It boils down to what you find attractive. I'm married to a beautiful redhead, I think redheads in general are the sexiest beings to walk the earth, and if you don't then hey, good for you. Nobody is forcing you to choose among them. When it comes to matters of the heart, there's no reason to enforce an everyone-invited playing field. Weather that's color of hair, race of origin, or Star Trek vs Star Wars. Just don't be an ass. And hey, if you get to know someone from your 'friends-only' pool, so to speak, and things start to click, maybe loosening up abit might be doing yourself a favor. You never know.

 

[mrblakemiller]

A lot of people are using the following argument around here:

"You can say that you haven't been attracted to anyone from a cetain race yet, and that's okay, but to then extrapolate that you never will find a person of that race attractive is racist."

I want to challenge that. Say a man has tried pizza several times, from several sources, in several ingredient and preparation combinations over the course of twenty years. The man has found each of these experiences to be unsatisfactory. He could say, "I have never enjoyed the pizza I have eaten." A lot of people in situation like this one would say, "I do not like pizza."

Is it wrong for the man to extrapolate from his several experiences that he never will enjoy pizza, or is this simply logical? Shouldn't there be a point at which a person can say, "It's never happened after so many attempts, so I'm going to say that it never will happen"? Not to mention the fact that, when we say we have never liked something and do not like it, we usually leave room in our heads for the possibility of being surprised in the future.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

This whole thread gives me a headache. You are either attracted to someone or you aren't. Races often carry certain physical characteristics and if you don't find them attractive, most of the time, you won't be attracted to members of that race. It doesn't mean you think the race is inferior, or that your race is better. You aren't spewing hatred in their direction. You are simply stating preferences regarding what you find attractive. It is NOT racism.

racism
rac·ism
[rey-siz-uhm]
noun
1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.
hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Oh look, the voice of reason has arrived. I am really not sure why anyone is saying that finding certain physical traits appealing (in a romantic/sexual way) is racist. Especially if it makes no difference in someone's attitudes and friendships towards other people. I personally don't find extremely overweight women attractive in a physical sense. Does that mean that I won't be friends with a woman who is interesting and funny? Of course not. It does mean that I'd be far less likely to ask her on a date, but that's my own preference, and there are plenty of "chubby-chasers" in the world (if the internet is to be believed).

 

[Soundwave]

A lot of people are using the following argument around here:

"You can say that you haven't been attracted to anyone from a cetain race yet, and that's okay, but to then extrapolate that you never will find a person of that race attractive is racist."

I want to challenge that. Say a man has tried pizza several times, from several sources, in several ingredient and preparation combinations over the course of twenty years. The man has found each of these experiences to be unsatisfactory. He could say, "I have never enjoyed the pizza I have eaten." A lot of people in situation like this one would say, "I do not like pizza."

Is it wrong for the man to extrapolate from his several experiences that he never will enjoy pizza, or is this simply logical? Shouldn't there be a point at which a person can say, "It's never happened after so many attempts, so I'm going to say that it never will happen"? Not to mention the fact that, when we say we have never liked something and do not like it, we usually leave room in our heads for the possibility of being surprised in the future.

Has anyone made the argument that they've dated 'X' many of 'Y' race and didn't like any of them?

I can tell you that when I was growing up, I wasn't interested in the majority of the black girls that I knew. Which led me to think that "I wasn't attracted to black girls". Come college, suddenly there was a wide variety of different black girls that I found myself highly attracted to.

and there are plenty of "chubby-chasers" in the world (if the internet is to be believed).

I just can't keep my hands off of them!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

A lot of people are using the following argument around here:

"You can say that you haven't been attracted to anyone from a cetain race yet, and that's okay, but to then extrapolate that you never will find a person of that race attractive is racist."

I want to challenge that. Say a man has tried pizza several times, from several sources, in several ingredient and preparation combinations over the course of twenty years. The man has found each of these experiences to be unsatisfactory. He could say, "I have never enjoyed the pizza I have eaten." A lot of people in situation like this one would say, "I do not like pizza."

Is it wrong for the man to extrapolate from his several experiences that he never will enjoy pizza, or is this simply logical? Shouldn't there be a point at which a person can say, "It's never happened after so many attempts, so I'm going to say that it never will happen"? Not to mention the fact that, when we say we have never liked something and do not like it, we usually leave room in our heads for the possibility of being surprised in the future.

People employ prejudice in all walks of life. It makes things simpler. You might decide after a single BITE of pizza you don't like pizza, and few people are likely to care. You being fussy about what you eat is not a social problem.

However, as human beings, we like to be judged and weighed based on our merits as individuals, and not on out perceived characteristics because we belong to a particular race, or gender, or sexuality. You CAN be prejudiced against people based on these criteria...many people are. As with the pizza, it just makes things simpler. But when we extend the same level of consideration and sensitivity to people as we do to our food, they tend to get cross. And onlookers tend to think we're assholes. And not without cause.