Interracial Dating: “Beyond Race” versus “Anti-Racist Dating”

The last white guy I dated fancied himself to be some kind of a poet with an exceptional way with words. I had noticed that in his earlier writing he tended to describe “beautiful” women as having “alabaster white” skin and other such bullshit, but I ignored it, because I figured that he was with me now and therefore his idea of beauty must have changed or at least expanded. Except I didn’t really ignore it. Because I was the one who pursued him and not the other way around, I found myself always wondering if he would rather be with some skinny blond with perfect, “porcelain skin” — like the girl he dated before me. I was his first non-white partner, and I always felt like a silver medal, or a compromise.

One day he started talking, poetically, about the word “pale” and how it was evocative of a special, frail kind of beauty. And I snapped.

I asked him if my lack of “paleness” made me somehow less beautiful. He got defensive and claimed that I was misunderstanding him, that he wasn’t talking about skin tone per se, but about some abstract idea. But that was it, for me. I started to think about all of the times that he told me that he “didn’t really think of me as black — just as a person” and what that REALLY meant. Like he was being kind enough to overlook a glaring handicap or something.

However, the man I am married to is also white, but instead of being a “beyond race” person, he is an anti-racist who has always found black women beautiful and desirable. He doesn’t look past my skin but right at it, and says that it’s lovely! In the past on Racialicious, I’ve seen preferences like his sometimes termed as being a “fetish”, but to be honest I’m just happy to be with someone who likes me for me, where I don’t have to wonder if he’d rather have my personality and interests repackaged in a white girl’s body.

To me, these two categories — “beyond race” versus “anti-racist” — make a huge difference in terms of interracial relationships that involve white people.

(This is in response to this post on Racialicious.)

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