Is being attracted to a certain race Racism?
I know what racism is defined as, but I'm doubting that this is a valid form of it. I mean one can't help who they are sexually attracted to right? And it is clear that people of a certain race do share physical features in common, so what is wrong with being attracted to that (or not)?
I mean no one cares if they don't prefer red heads or short guys, etc, so why do they cry racism? It's not like they're calling to lynch those people, take away rights, or treat them as sub human, etc. So why is it that when someone says they are (or in more likely aren't since that seems to rub folks the wrong way) attracted to a certain race people call them racist?
I mean no one cares if they don't prefer red heads or short guys, etc, so why do they cry racism? It's not like they're calling to lynch those people, take away rights, or treat them as sub human, etc. So why is it that when someone says they are (or in more likely aren't since that seems to rub folks the wrong way) attracted to a certain race people call them racist?
Comments (41)
Perhaps more important, is asking this question racist?
Perhaps more important, is asking this question racist?
As far as being attracted to your own race it's more than likely just a matter of familiarity- you know who you were raised by and grew up around, etc. I can't find the original video, the only ones are those that give their own "take" on the research, but allegedly some institution produced a video about "babies being racist" that talks more about it. It makes sense, the first people you see are your parents, followed by family. Some.. stranger is obviously going to be just a tad strange at that age! lol.
It's important to differentiate between physical and mental attraction. I don't like people who are sh*tty, warranted or not. Sure if you caused the sh*ttiness in question (or circumstances that weren't likely to produce anything else) it's worth realizing that. But people are free to be or not to be in relationships with whomever they like.
For example I don't like "ghetto" attitudes. And neither do most older males of any color. It's the urban form of being a caveman. Having no hesitation to break a bone, rupture an eye socket, or spill blood because of "something you heard" or "for my hood". It's a poison. A literal poison that ensnares both oppressed and non-oppressed peoples equally in invisible chains (which often soon result in physical ones btw) placing the only key the only place they'd now never find it, which is forgiveness and humility. Or otherwise just not being a petty tool that tries so hard not to be a "b*tch" they literally do what other people say quicker and more consistently then if they were paid to do it and actually wanted to! They throw away their freedom, local economies, and even lives all in the pursuit of each. Just like some people want. So tragic. Reverse psychology I guess.
Still, it's bad form. Either version of "I'm interested in X (yet not excluding Y)" or "I'm not interested in X". A simple "I'm not interested, sorry" is sufficient. Or you know how nice chicks like to try and seem. "Uh I just got out of a really bad breakup recently and uh.. I'm just not ready for it sorry. Your really cute.". That or they just say they have an STD. :lol:
I think that seeing who one is sexually attracted to in terms as being race and as possible racism would be taking political correctness to the ridiculous.We have seen centuries of people being criticised for whether they are attracted to the opposite sex or their own. If people began criticising on the basis of attraction in such a way and making it political it would be like a form of thought policing, because taken to the extreme it could create a new taboo of unacceptably.
Why Fetishising Race Is Racist
Depends on why. Caucasian guy I knew was attracted to Asian women. Unpacked it with him and the following reason was provided. "They are more likely not to answer back and make their partners happy compared to white women.' A racist trope, surely. I think it would be interesting in some cases to learn what is behind the attraction and what that race represents, perhaps even subconsciously.
Other than due to comforting familiarity and/or for aesthetic reasons (i.e. fetish), IMO probably yes.
In terms of physical appearance so many things may factor into this - including outright ‘racism’. We don’t tend to call someone ‘sexist’ for preferring one particular sex, or ‘racist’ if they have an aesthetic inclination towards men or women of a certain physical build (regardless of skin tone or ethnicity).
The question in and of itself says more about the societal state of our times and how many are struggling to re/define certain boundaries and/or to obsess over labels and identity in a world that is seemingly becoming more and more homogenous (in terms of globalism and cultural trends blending).
Which would make sense in a monoculture, but not in most modern culturally and racially diverse societies.
But it's not socially unacceptable to be attracted to someone of a different race. Many though, would argue that it is morally unacceptable to be attracted to someone solely by their visual appearance.
It may be the case that to say that one prefers black women can be construed as racist, depending on the way it is said or in the context.But, of course, there was a whole history of white people, mostly, objecting to mixed marriage, which was problematic, especially for two people in love. I do believe that we need to be mindful of language, but of course we are only responsible for what we say individually, and to try to outlaw certain expression could almost be seen as going back to the the idea of the moral right, except from a different angle.
How exactly is that racism? Being attracted to black men doesn't mean I think they're better than any other race, I'm just physically attracted. It's not like I think they are superior. I don't think vanilla is superior to chocolate, I just like vanilla. Like and dislike isn't really the same as better/worse.
Attraction, whether conscious or subconscious, is a value judgment and, as far as I know, one likes something because one values that thing...over others...and therein lies the rub.
:smirk:
Racism is when you are putting limits to other's rights when they are different race/ethnics from you.
Where???
Where I live, it's quite unacceptable, it earns one a stigma.
Eh? Who are those "many"?
Pfft. Looks matter. A lot.
There is a difference between liking something and believing it to be superior to all others or that others are inferior. I don't think vanilla is superior to chocolate, I just prefer it to chocolate. It's just a matter of taste. I don't think chocolate is worse just because I don't like it. Same with people. Just because I'm not physically attracted doesn't mean that I think you're subhuman trash.
I believe sexual attraction cannot be persuaded with logic. The Romeo and Juliet concept. I understand I may come across as a hopeless romantic, but I believe the poets and musicians of the world have a better understanding of love and attraction than the scientists do.
I don’t believe sexual preference is racist. I would love to hear the argument from an evolutionary perspective.
From Wikipedia: Attraction is based on physical features which have to be aesthetically pleasing (beautiful/handsome) and/or on traits such as intelligence, how good one is morally speaking, etc.
If and when you're attracted to someone, you're saying, "oh, fae is handsome/fae is beautiful and/or fae is a good man/woman" i.e. you consider that someone to be a cut above the competition in those respects. If you feel attracted not an individual but to a race, the same sentence above becomes "oh,
A white guy exclusively prefers black men. Racist? Possibly. A black guy exclusively prefers white men. Racist? Possibly. What would make these relationships racially suspect would be the motivation. If economic power or economic opportunity plays a significant role in one's preference, classism coupled with racism is more likely. I don't think it is racist to find a handsome black guy as attractive as a handsome white guy. Where it gets dicier is when blackness (or oppositely, whiteness) is a requirement for someone to find interest in a prospective partner.
There used to be a gay group, BWMT, Black and White Men Together. They held social events, and all of the white guys had black partners (more or less exclusively). There was almost always a significant wealth and class difference--the whites being more better-off middle class, the blacks being poorer working class. Were the white guys slumming? Possibly.
Race directly impacts appearence, like eye colour, hair colour, bone structure, height and so on. In this day and age, with internet dating being the main way people hook up, the largest factor which distinguishes your options is appearence. If you only wanted to match up with people of a particular race, you would still have way too many options to choose from than you could ever need. The idea that race-preference is racism is shallow, people select based on appearence and race affects appearence. I think those who have pointed out that someone could prefer a race based on behaviour-based stereotypes or fetishism have an argument. When you accept how superficial dating is, where people often only meet based on mutual attraction, based almost entirely on looks, then you accept that race is a component of that.
People should be able to evaluate racial features unimpeded when it comes to deciding what they find attractive, even if it's unfair, the sexual marketplace is inherently unfair to begin with.
https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/12/14/refusing-date-trans-people-transphobic
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/transgender-dating_ca_5de12effe4b0d50f32a106a4
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42652947
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kgvab/transgender-sex-chasers-cisgender-men
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/9ulig6/is_it_bad_to_be_a_straight_guy_whod_only_date_cis/
Also, just admit that you "have a thing". We all do. Or several.
Here's the problem I have with this avenue of thinking. To 'discriminate' can mean "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things" but it can also mean "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another."
To be able to say something is "racist" one has to be acknowledging the existence of different races. (If I'm misrepresenting what you define as race, please, inform me.) When you define a race, you are admitting different features, such as differing levels of melanin in one's skin, different average height, weight, body shapes, and a different ethnic history.
So I would have to agree with you that it's "racist" to be attracted based on false stereotypes such as intelligence, behavior, etc., since these are what would entail normal bigoted beliefs.
But what if someone likes taller dudes? That person is less likely to be into asians. If they motice this recurring pattern, and decide they're more attracted to blacks than asians, does this make them "racist"? Some guys are only attracted to "thick" women, and in this case, they are a lot less likely to be attracted to asian women than many other ethnic groups.
So my point is, that it isn't racist to hold subconcious "value judgements" about different features that one race has more of than another, and then to conciously and verbally make the observation. If one refused a tall or thick attractive asian man or woman based off said observation, then that would be racism.
What do you mean? At the risk of sounding bigoted myself, do you feel attracted to ugly, morally bankrupt, idiots? I'm fairly certain that I speak for everyone, everyone who's "normal" at least, that looks, brains, moral character are high on the list of requirements in a potential partner.
Quoting I don't get it
You're way off the mark here. The OP is specifically about attraction based on race and not anything else. Granted that liking tall people will might well look like preferring taller races but then it doesn't preclude a liaison/relationship with a taller member of a comparatively shorter race but being drawn to a particular race would mean one would be happy with a shorter member of whicheve race one is partial to.
All that said, the firsr order of business seems to be to clarify what race means. So, African people are taller than Asians but what about pygmies? Asians have mongoloid eye folds but some Africans have them too. What we have are physical features that don't recognize the racial divisions that we've divvied up humanity into.
There are no true Scotsmen!
This is what made me think we were talking about physical traits, not brains or moral character. Many guys choose women based entirely off of looks, not personality or morality.
Now that I've given it some more thought, I suppose it could be thought of as a form of racism to group all the people of a race as attractive based off common features, when you could just simply look for those attractive features in individuals.
I think I might have been a little to quick to jump into this one.
And also a comfortable familiarity with them, no?
So does your attraction differentiate among black men from North America, Carribean islands? Cuba? Brazil? Briton? Southern Europe? East / South / West Africa? ...
Or, more generally, what about "mixed race" black guys or very dark bruthas – preference either way or not?
I really don't think that you should see your liking for black men as problematic. It would be as absurd as seeing your liking for men as sexism against women. I think that the world is full enough of homophobia and we need to get to a place where personal preferences is disentangled from the political.
On a similar level, I was once speaking to a woman about the music I liked and because I like male vocalists and bands she suggested that I was sexist in my taste. This did bother me, but I thought that really what music I like is personal taste and nothing more. If I was working in the music industry and took this further and only supported male artists, or showed them favour, it is at this point that I think that I would be crossing the line into actual sexism. As it is, I have discovered some female artists who I like more recently.
So, with your taste in black men, it may be worth you thinking what it is that appeals to you psychologically, but beyond this why not simply accept, embrace and celebrate your personal taste for what it is.