As one article put it, it is the last bastion of racism,
What is it you ask?
Is it employment discrimination or housing discrimination?
No, those things do exist, and they are often justified by racists,
But at the very least employment discrimination and housing discrimination are explicitly illegal.
No one can say in court that it was not racist for them to deny someone a job or a house because of their race,
They can’t say “it’s just a preference”.
To some extent, even the people naïve enough to believe in a post-racial society can acknowledge the reality of housing and employment discrimination at times,
The discrimination that is always justified, by anyone that has their own “preference” is dating and sexual discrimination.
“I’m not racist, I just don’t like black guys.”
“I just don’t find (insert race) people attractive. That’s not racist though.”
“I don’t even see race, but I want to make sure I marry someone of my own race.”
We’ve heard it all before.
There’s nothing wrong with preferences themselves, but it depends what we have a preference for.
I have heard asinine analogies coming from supposedly “colour blind” people.
Comparing liking one fruit over another, or one hair type over another,
Those preferences are different,
Those are not racial preferences,
Racism exists when there is a belief that one race is superior to another due to inherent characteristics e.g. whites are smarter than blacks, blacks and Hispanics are lazier than whites, and whites are more attractive than blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Arabs
Online dating gives us so many options,
While some sights do not allow users to filter for race, some do,
Can you honestly say there is nothing racist about checking a box that restricts people of a certain race from showing up in your searches,
It is a situation where you do not know the person,
You know nothing of their personality, intelligence, interests
You made the decision to isolate them only due to their race.
Even if you can’t filter the races you see, you can still choose to respond to messages from one race more than another.
It is a fact that people of the same race may just naturally get together, and there is nothing wrong with that,
The problem is that many people go through life with the mentality that they will or can never connect with someone of a different race,
Some will argue it is a natural inclination, nature vs nurture,
However, I have to disagree
I believe nurture is responsible for stimulating what we view as attractive
Whether it is images in the media, or cautionary words from conservative parents, all external stimuli can merge and become invisible to the person they affect.
If your parents tell you to avoid certain races from an early age, you will grow up thinking your aversion to other races is natural,
If the media you consume is disproportionately dominated with certain images of beauty, you will think your attraction to that image of beauty is a natural one.
I don’t want to pick on online dating, or dating as a whole,
Racism still exists in plenty of other areas of life, but dating is one where racism is defended the most,
Ingrained racial prejudices are reduced to preferences that are no more harmful than liking apples over pears,
While we continue to point to Obama as proof of our post-racial world, we also strive to exclusively date our own kind,
The post-racial world is a myth, the end of racism is a myth,
You can either continue to live in your cocoon of denial or try to take a harder look at yourself.
Will you be one of the people that read this and gets defensive and angry?
Will you call me a racist because I dare to expose racism and try to work past it?
Or will you actually try to understand what I am saying and take a real step towards acknowledging and understanding racism, thereby working to diminish it.
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