Relationship or Rorschach Test? Interracial Relationships and Societal Self-Projecting
by Racialicious Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
In a recent discussion about the content of Ciara’s video “Love, Sex, Magic,” in which the songstress collaborated with Justin Timberlake, many readers commented that the video itself served as a classic example of race baiting via sex and sexuality on the small screen. The video demonstrated what some considered a clear example of exotification and sexual exploitation of black women for the fodder of a white male audience. And again, in recent weeks, came the criticism of comments made by Kate, of the TLC show about adventures in parenting Jon and Kate Plus 8, who declared her attraction to, and arguably, fetishization (in the connotative sense) of Asian and Asian-American men.
These accounts garnered considerable attention from tv audiences, gossip column connoisseurs, and critical race theorist alike. Yet despite the aforementioned controversy, few considered the experiences of the interracial couples “on the ground.” In many instances, interracial relationships exist as some conversation piece or pivotal point for people who talk about race, but there is little attention paid to the simple fact that, like any other relationship, interracial relationships deserve the respect and courtesy of same-race relationships, respect in this sense meaning the right to exist sans accusations of racial essentialism and an excessive amount of societal self-projecting solely on the basis of the relationship being interracial.
In simply beginning an interracial relationship in the United States, one often suffers a considerable amount of social pressure, be it from family members, friends, or co-workers. When the presence of an interracial relationship is noted, its very existence at times solicits a barrage of questions in the minds of onlookers, one firing after the other. The questions range from the simple, “how did they meet?” to the complex, “do they really love each other or are they just together because they wish to rebel against social norms?” to the intrusive, “how is the sex?” Some of these questions are customary when considering any relationship, yet with interracial relationships, there seems to be an exceptional increase in curiosity, one that certainly rivals that of intraracial pairings.
And while there are plenty of unuttered questions, there is an equal, if not greater, number of unspoken answers, guesses and assumptions as to the many aspects of the relationship. In relation to interracial couples, the participants are rarely given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their reasons for being together in the first place, at least not in the same way as intraracial couples. For example, if one were to date someone of the same racial background, the issue of essentialism, the idea that one has chosen his or her partner solely on the basis of race and the characteristics one attributes to said race, is rarely considered. Thus we have the double standard. People of the same race could very well be dating each other for calculated reasons, one of them being race, yet this is rarely considered and applied to such couples. Only interracial couples fall victim to such assumptions.
Other assumptions include the possibility of one partner or the other wanting to make a political statement, to rebel against his or her parents, community, or culture, and/or to have a token member of another race to diversify one’s social surroundings. These, too, are rarely mentioned when considering the case of intraracial couples. In several recent articles about the “phenomenon” of first and second-generation immigrants of color choosing to date and marry “within” their race (1, 2, 3, 4), the issue of the couples’ having made this choice, clearly a political choice on their part, was not demonized or questioned in the same way it would be if, say, a person of one race chose to date someone of another race to make a statement as well. While this is not to say that the evidence of intraracial couples making this choice is favorable or ideal, it is important to note to show the pure hypocrisy evident in considerations of interracial couples’ respective choices.
Furthermore, there is the importance of appearance and physical features. Is one who has chosen a mate of a different race doing so because of an attraction to the physical features commonly attributed to said race? Could said attraction be due, in part, to stereotypes associated with someone of his or her partner’s racial group? These questions are also markedly absent when discussing intraracial couplings, though that does not mean such issues are not present in both types of relationships. If someone of one race were only to date members of his or her own race because he or she likes the features (and possibly thinks of stereotypes) attributed to said group, this choice is not so markedly isolated as a flaw as it often is when discussing interracial relationships. However, if someone of one race were to point out his or her attraction to specific features of another race, the person is often accused of combining stereotypes and physical attributes. This is not to say that this does not occur, as if often does, but to assume that it is always the case, and something exclusively associated with interracial couples is not only judgmental, but decidedly racist.
As one who has been involved in both interracial and intraracial relationships, I have experienced the aforementioned in both types. For example, I identify as black, and while dating another black person, the issues of skin color, hair type, and facial features came up quite a bit. To speak more specifically, I was lauded for these features being on the “good” side (in southern vernacular, meaning closer to white). My skin is light brown, my hair is curly, but not “nappy,”* my facial features render me somewhat racially ambiguous, and because of these features, I was considered attractive by my black partner. If the same features had been cited as defining points of my being attractive by a partner of any other race, people certainly would have called “foul.” On the other hand, in my experience, my features that could be attributed moreso to my being black and less so to the traces of European whiteness in my heritage have been more appreciated and accepted as beautiful by partners who have been of a different race. In cases like this, where do we cast judgment?
It is unfair to use interracial couples as scapegoats, yes, but it is equally as unfair to assign them with unrealistic expectations with which intraracial couples are rarely laden. The biblical analogy, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” comes to mind. Before we criticize interracial couples by way of, at times, assumed and unconfirmed flaws, we must examine our response to intraracial couplings that often go unscathed and without nearly as intense consideration.
Equally as important in this case is the need to avoid turning interracial couples into poster children or representatives for some imagined, racially democratic society. To assign more weight and social obligation to interracial couples is unfair and unwarranted. As someone who is presently living in Brazil, I have seen far more interracial couples in the 10 months I have been here than I have in my entire life while living in the United States. That certainly does not mean, however, that Brazilian concepts of race are perfect nor that racism is nonexistent. It simply means that at some point along the Brazilian cultural landscape, being in an interracial relationship became more socially acceptable, and at times even encouraged. Though even this example is not without its cause for concern (i.e. the fact that miscegenation with whites had long been encouraged for the sake of ethnic cleansing).
As with any relationship, there is often more to it than what meets the eye. And while I am certainly not discouraging the discussion and analysis of interracial relationships, I feel that our criticism at times should be curbed if we do not choose to assign the same judgment, expectations, and/or assumptions to couples who happen to be of two partners of the same race. People involved in interracial relationships are human beings, not objects, and we must bear in mind that they are not poster children on which society should feel free to project their own fears, insecurities, or dreams.
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*Before anyone jumps on me for using the term “nappy,” I should make it known that I do not assign negative meaning to that word and am the product of a mother who is a self-proclaimed possessor of “nappy” hair that I think is beautiful.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
atlasien wrote:
Debates about interracial relationships usually end up digging a rut in the same tired circle… because they fail to consider the context of monoracial/intraracial relationships. That’s a really critical missing piece and I’m glad you’re raising it here!
Being in an interracial relationship does not give you a “get out of racism free” card. Neither does being in an intraracial relationship.
There’s an interesting parallel to adoption. I’ve noticed that transracial adoption debates often repeat the same thing over and over again because they’re totally missing a critical piece… an analysis of intraracial adoption (specifically, intraracial adoption by people of color).
And even when people argue in ways that are very critical of white people, they can actually reinforce racism, and remain trapped within racism, if everything they’re discussing and arguing still centers around white people.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 10:47 am ¶
N wrote:
Re-” Nappy” (and everything else)
Is it me, or do some of us spend our lives apologizing and explaining every.single.thing?
Are you as sick of it as I am?
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 10:54 am ¶
Talulah wrote:
Thank you for this. I’m white, my partner is Chinese-American, and I can’t count the number of times people have met my boyfriend/heard me mention his ethnicity and given me the ol’ “So…you like Asian guys, huh?” And my other favorite: “What did your parents/his parents say when they found out?”
Funny. In my last two relationships, no one met my white partners and automatically assumed I had a white guy fetish. And no one wondered how my parents would react to the horrifying news that I was dating *yet another* caucasian.
I get why people might worry. I’ve seen plenty of interracial relationships where it’s just like, “Umm…are you sure you love this *person*, or are you infatuated by what you think they represent?” And I’ve seen plenty of relationships where one partner is very much of the mindset that *their* boyfriend is great, but the rest of their boyfriend’s race? Total fail.
So I get why people might worry, but at the end of the day? My boyfriend and I are not making a political statement, neither one of us has a fetish, and our parents–like your parents–are just happy we’re dating nice people with actual jobs. But that’s not what this is really about. I can’t speak for other races, but I definitely know that when my fellow whites ask me questions about my relationship, it doesn’t stem from a place of concern about whether my boyfriend and I are secretly not seeing each others as equals. No, for most white people, those questions stem from the idea that something must be going wrong in an interracial relationship–because interracial relationships are *themselves* inherently wrong. Someone’s gotta have a fetish, some relative must be mad, because how could that relationship look anything like *my* relationship? How could it just be, you know, A RELATIONSHIP?
So thank you for this article, cause damn, I am tired of this shit.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 11:06 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
Interesting piece, very well written. @N, cosign.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 12:33 pm ¶
B wrote:
It can get very odd. I’ve dated a guy whose family on both sides came from Armenia. I’ve also dated a guy whose dad was from Jordan; he looked like his dad. I’ve also dated at least a dozen other guys who were all of various white-European descent. What have I heard time and again? “Man, you really have a thing for dark-skinned men, don’t you?” I always ask, why in the world focus on the two non-white exes, whose backgrounds aren’t even similar in terms of geography and religion, and ignore the fact that I have overwhelmingly dated white men? What’s so noteworthy about those two? When looking at sheer percentages, you’d THINK people would be asking, “Is there a reason you date people of your own race more than people of other races?”
My cousin’s first boyfriend in high school was black. She then dated a bunch of white guys. Then, when she was 28, a whole decade of dating after breaking up with the first boyfriend, she married a Jamaican-American man. She gets the same sort of comments I did, “*nudge nudge* You really have a thing for black men, don’t you?”
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 12:37 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
My least favorite comment to my relationship: “Well, MY parents/grandparents would have FURIOUS if I dated/married a Black guy.” I’m always wondering why people feel like telling me that. What kind of response do they expect? No matter how many times I have heard this (and its been more than a few) I am still speechless. A number of things run through my head, “Okay, so I know whose parents to avoid…” “Soooo…I guess you’re telling me this to explain why you’re not dating a Black guy….as if I expected you to or felt that you should?” “And do you think my parents threw a parade in celebration?” “Are you not adult enough to make your own choices? You’ve never done anything your parents didn’t like?” “Okay, and you DO remember that I have a Black baby son, right? So now you’re insulting him, too and that means I’m gonna have to cut ya.” (Kidding…sort of…but seriously, ya’ll…why do you have to share this with me?)
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 12:48 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
And I have to agree with atlasien re: the “get of racism free card” that supposedly comes with being in an interracial relationship (or any “family of color” like an adoptive family of a child of color, etc.). People have said to me “Well, you don’t see color, you are colorblind” and I have to just shake my head. First of all, you obviously don’t know me that well yet to presume that about me. I DO see color. I think most (like 99% of people) see color and I KNOW that as a white person I benefit from white privilege. Just like anyone else, I have to consciously confront my prejudices and racism in order to grow and hopefully become more of an anti-racist daughter, friend, wife, and mother. I HATE it when people say they are “colorblind.” It’s usually nonsense. Just because you are married to or parenting a POC does not mean you don’t have to work on your own internal racism. In fact, I think it means you are confronted with it everyday and need to work even harder on your own inner-racist.
My husband teases me about this all the time. He says, “Oh, people think you can’t be racist b/c you have a Black people in your family…HA!! I know the truth!! RAAAA-CIST!!” (This is usually in response to my criticism of his dishwasher stacking skills, or leaving his shoes in the hallway, or something totally unrelated to race.)
I am such a baby when it comes to racial awareness. My husband has a three decade head start on me, so he is not as easily upset by the little racial inequities that happen everyday. Maybe as I get more experience with dealing with race (as a relative bystander) it won’t be something I worry about as much…or maybe it will, I don’t know. The point is, just b/c you are in an interracial relationship doesn’t make you an expert on race and it certainly doesn’t make you racism-free. The average white person in a relationship with a POC may know a bit more than the average white-on-white couple, but we “peaches” (my husband’s term) still have a LOT to learn.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 1:04 pm ¶
kenda wrote:
Interesting post. It left me wondering if being attracted to the features common to people of your race is the same thing as being attracted to the features common in other races but not your own.
Is my saying that I like brown skin (I’m black) the same as a white woman saying she likes brown skin? I’m not sure.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 1:49 pm ¶
dee dee wrote:
This is conversation has so many variables that it could take up the entire racialicious website!
In my mind part of the problem is our society’s general nosiness about EVERYONE’S personal relationships, as if couples in general are supposed to share their intimate details with the world.
But once we narrow the focus to interracial relationships, I think that the overall fascination with them is a huge signifier of how much we are NOT living in a post-racial society. If people were truly honored as individuals and not constantly categorized by race, I think that we wouldn’t have such an obsession with interracial relationships in the first place. Sadly race is so deeply intertwined with social status (or lack thereof) that in our present state, it’s almost impossible for these questions NOT to arise.
The flip side of the coin is that some people who enter into interracial relationships expect people to extend courtesies and respect to their partners that they themselves don’t extend to the other members of that race. Every interaction we have with other people can be deemed a relationship, so why is it only in the sexual realm that some people finally begin to consider the rights, dignity and respect of a person that doesn’t look like them?
Asking forward questions is extremely rude in this case. But sadly, I don’t forsee these questions fading away until we fix the deeper problem. Why are certain individuals exalted simply for their appearance and others denigrated simply for their appearance? Why has the idea of beauty and attractiveness been limited to certain groups in our society? Why are statistics about sexual health and behavior constantly taken for certain groups and not for others?
Sad to say, but we have a long way to go before any of this can become moot.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 2:07 pm ¶
Zahra wrote:
Thank you for this. All the things you mention can lead to interracial couples being isolated from the normal means of support intraracial couples have; at least that’s my & my partner’s experience. Good to see someone bring something different to the table.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 3:05 pm ¶
Lizbit wrote:
I’m coming out of lurking to add my two cents, since this is an issue I’ve often thought about. A lot of the men I am attracted to are Asian. As someone into the whole anime/manga scene and being addicted to Asian dramas( EX: Love and Fight, Queens, Nodame Cantabile), I am exposed to a media where the male characters are not there to be Asian, but to fall in love /go to school/do whatever their character does.It’s refreshing compared to how Asian men are portrayed in the American shows I watch (if Asian men are featured at all). This exposure helped me realize that my attraction wasn’t some “creepy fetish”,but an attraction just as legit(and giggle-worthy) if I was a young woman in Japan fawning over Matsumoto Jun on the television (not to say I wouldn’t now). It’s not strange to find attractive men of a different race than your own attractive, right? Sometimes it’s not fetishization, but being consistently shallow.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 3:26 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
@Montclair Mommy, your husband jokingly calling you racist reminds me of a Doonsbury cartoon from the early to mid-80’s where a poll worker comes to this door and a white lady answers, he asks her for her opinions on blacks and she says they are lazy, shiftless etc, etc with the stereotypes, then in the last panel a handsome black man with glasses comes to the door and says “everything all right honey” and she turns red and yells at him to get back in the house and finish washing the dishes. ROFLMAO. All these years later and I was 10 when I read it, I still remember it. Oh and I’m sure you wouldn’t answer that way of course, I just thought it was funny. He probably poisoined her views!
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 3:40 pm ¶
c.n. edaw wrote:
So glad you wrote about this! It is a conversation I have had so many times with myself . I am a black woman and I have been in both interracial and same race relationships. I am a black woman.
Just recently I had to ask myself why I was/am not AS equally offended by the white guys I suspect want to date me JUST because I am black …as Iam by black guys who want to date me because I have lighter skin and “good hair”. Both groups are pretty up front with their intentions/motivations and they are BOTH offensive –but the first bothers me more than the latter. Why? I am not sure.
As the great- granddaughter of a white woman who was not at all free of racist thoughts and leanings despite being married to a black man…and the granddaughter of a biracial man who thoroughly rejected his whiteness… I also saw first hand how the mere idea of being attracted to and procreating with a person of another race or being raised by someone of another race does not AUTOMATICALLY free you from thinking or behaving a certain way with regard to racial issues.
I have to say the one thing that got me over my sensitivity about seeing so many black men with white women– was boiling it down to the fact of how unfair most of our questioning of those relationships really is.
We simply don’t hold same race couples to the same level of relationship vetting, for lack of a better term. Let’s face it–people date and marry for a lot of reasons that are far more shallow and suspect than racial preference that may or may not be rooted in stereotypes, desire to rebel, fetish, etc. and most of us never give that a second thought!
I know people who are together for money, sex, or because they think the other person is “hot” but I don’t jump all over them for those preferences, so why is it my business if a black man prefers blondes or just happens to prefer a specific blonde at this moment in time?? I cant think of a good answer so I chose to quit wondering and mind my own business.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 4:06 pm ¶
Some Guy wrote:
I never hear fallout after some white guy admits he’s got a thing for blonde women with fair skin. It brings to mind this brief from The Onion:
TOKYO (the Onion) – Shoji Furukawa, a 33-year-old Tokyo man, confessed Monday to a fetish for Asian women. “For some reason, as long as I can remember, I’ve always been into Asian chicks,” Furukawa said. “I don’t know what it is about them, but they just totally do it for me.” Furukawa said the preference may be a familial trait, noting, “My dad was really into Asian girls, too.” ((May 2, 2001))
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 5:24 pm ¶
queerhapa wrote:
I def appreciate this article, though I don’t think “monoracial” is quite the right word. Intraracial seems more accurate, and not exclusive of mixed-race folks.
One question I have: if a mixed-race person dates someone who’s not of the same, er, “mixture,” does that automatically make it an interracial relationship? Why are Jon & Kate seen as an interracial couple, but not Barack and Michelle?
author’s note: i agree with you re: the terminology. i was avoiding using “intraracial” out of concern for possible confusion while reading the article (As intra and inter are visually similar, more so than inter vs. mono). however, i think the inclusvity factor is important. please note the changes within the article.
~Wendi
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 6:14 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
queerhapa… it seems that the way people define interracial relationships first is with the eyes…if there is obvious racial overlap, people don’t see it as interracial. they think, “ok intraracial, check.”
in the case of obama and michelle, despite barack being biracial, he is phenotypically accepted simply as “black” before he opens his mouth and explains his heritage… jon from jon and kate plus 8, on the other hand, seems to exude “more asian” features, or at least on the limited american interpretation of race and race-based phenotypes. it’s like we are trained to accept more physical diversity amongst say blacks (i.e. light skin, dark skin, different types of hair, etc), whereas we are trained to kind of see east asians and east asian-americans within a specific lens, one that is incredibly limited and relegated to only a few features (i.e. eyes and hair type). it’s ridiculous, but thanks to media, i feel like we are often conditioned to think that way.
in my eyes, almost everyone is in an interracial relationship, if you think about it…but there seems to be a socially constructed continuum on what is deemed interracial and what is not
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 6:21 pm ¶
ahimsa wrote:
Re: “do they really love each other or are they just together because they wish to rebel against social norms?”
I have not yet read all the comments to this post but I wanted to respond to this hypothetical question about interracial relationships. I heard several hints of this at the beginning of my relationship (which is now a 24 year long marriage) and it always irritated me. No one came right out and said it but people did say things that were pretty close.
My favorite response is in the lyrics from the Catie Curtis song (yeah, I know I’m extending the meaning of the song):
“I’m not being radical when I kiss you
I don’t love you to make a point
It’s the hollow of my heart that cries when I miss you
And keeps me alive when we’re apart”
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 6:25 pm ¶
mile wrote:
My last (current?) relationship (sort of? We don’t call it anything) was (is?) interracial, international, interfaith, inter-whatever. It never really mattered. I heard my father was upset but he never told me, so who knows. It just never struck me as that big of a deal.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 6:32 pm ¶
queerhapa wrote:
@wendi, yeah, i hear you. and big ol’ cosign on your last paragraph. i guess i’m just trying to complicate which relationships are viewed as inter- versus intra-racial in the first place.
also, what if jon was with an east asian woman? would it still be considered interracial? (well, by who, i guess, is the larger question. by him? by his partner? by society?)
my suspicion (partly fed by personal experience) is that when a mixed-race part-white person dates a white person, it’s usually called an interracial relationship, but when they date their “other” half, it’s not. i could be wrong though.
and to reference the mariah and nick cannon threads–i’m curious if have they been described as an interracial couple? they are pretty phenotypically distinct, no?
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 6:34 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
@ Lisa J, that is funny, I’ll have to share that with my husband
@ Some Guy I like that (the Onion quote).
@ Wendi Muse, I agree that what constitutes interracial relationship is so much about how society (family, friends, strangers) perceives the couple. I have a good friend who is biracial (her father is from India and her mother is white) who “presents” as a big question mark. She mostly dates Black men. The first time my husband (then boyfriend) met her and that boyfriend he thought that they were both Black. She always used to say to me that although interracial relationships of the type that she is in (Asian/Black) are more rare, I probably get more stares because at first glance she and her bf looked the same. I thought that was really interesting and I had never thought of that until she mentioned it. I guess that’s why assumptions re: race are so problematic and pointless.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 8:19 pm ¶
Jenny Duck wrote:
In my experience of interracial dating, the memory that most sticks out in my mind was when my fellow Vietnamese students in college questioned the fact that I was dating a white guy, and whether this proved how Viet (or more specifically, not Viet) I was…
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 9:18 pm ¶
pointofagreement wrote:
How easy is it to roll out a digital defense of dating outside your race when the coupled pair isn’t on display? All too easy.
How about an equally well-written essay on how women of color feel when a well heeled, evidently successful Black male struts arm and arm on the sidewalk past them with a white woman nowhere close to their status/education/purchasing power? Do the staunch defenses of open-mindedness come to the forefront of ones thoughts when they see yet another man opting out of black love?
These articles just confuse me. In theory, love knows no color. In the real world, we feel instantly, and throughly different about said pairings.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 9:42 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@point of agreement –
Check the archives before making statements like that. We explore a lot of different aspects of mixed race relationships.
http://www.racialicious.com/category/interracial-relationships/
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/08/13/interracial-dating-beyond-race-versus-anti-racist-dating/
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/08/05/interracial-dating-grudgingly-heading-toward-acceptance/
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/07/09/interracial-dating-a-nigerian-perspective/
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/06/05/interracial-dating-yet-i-do-marvel/
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/05/20/interracial-dating-interracial-dating-with-a-vengeance/
You can also search more by looking at threads that deal with specific racial groups.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 9:52 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
point of agreement:
how exactly is this a “defense” of dating outside one’s race? this is not saying one is better than the other. i am writing to point out the double standard when we talk about intraracial vs. interracial relationships. you seem to have missed that point entirely. you are making an incredibly brought assumption that black men who may date a white woman below his class or education level, for example, is SOLELY doing so because of race. there are about a thousand other factors that may be at play here, some of them being personal, unknown factors to which the public is not privvy, that could be going on. again, people can be just as purposeful and racist in choosing a partner of the same race as one choosing across racial lines. the choices we make for our mates are not completely tethered to the factor of race, and it’s unfair to assume that solely when observing multiracial/interracial couplings. again, my thesis:
“interracial relationships deserve the respect and courtesy of same-race relationships, respect in this sense meaning the right to exist sans accusations of racial essentialism and an excessive amount of societal self-projecting solely on the basis of the relationship being interracial.”
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 10:20 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
and i second latoya’s comment above. including the many other authors featured on this site, i too have gone against dating outside of one’s racely solely for superficial, stereotyped steeped reasons. if you need reminding, check out my very first racialicious piece of craigslist.
Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 10:23 pm ¶
bijou wrote:
This post has made me sift through a lot of the thoughts and feelings I’ve been having (and trying, and failing, to unpack and articulate) since I found myself in an interracial relationship six years ago.
For what it matters (and it does), I’m a white woman, and my boyfriend is South Asian. While I do have physical preferences in a partner – just like everyone else – I find Rodrigo Santoro, James Franco and LeBron James equally attractive. I sometimes joke about not being attracted to white boys, but the truth is that I’ve swooned over plenty of them.
My partner, on the other hand, has a longer dating history than I do, and all of his girlfriends have been white. More than once in the course of our relationship have I quizzed him on who he finds attractive, and whether he’d date women of color. The truth is, although he finds women of color attractive, he tends to prefer white women. That’s not to say he prefers all white women over all women of color – there are lots of other things he’s interested with regard to both physical attractiveness and with the person as a whole.
Why is this? Well, my boyfriend grew up in the States, and most of the Indian girls he knew were either his cousins or a smattering of family friends. Everywhere he turned, he saw white women being pushed on him as the beauty ideal, and he absorbed some of that.
That’s not to say that he’s self-hating, either. I’ve noticed that, within his family, a spectrum of adherence to traditional Indian culture/values/religion, which doesn’t always correspond to selection of a partner. That is to say, those who adhere closely to these values don’t always select a partner from their same background, perhaps because they’re already comfortable with themselves and their racial/cultural background.
The previous paragraph aside, there are so many factors that play into falling in love that physical attraction (be it to racial characteristics or other ones) is only a small part of what goes on, which makes it hard for me when other people base their judgments of my relationship purely on our different races. Yes, we both find each other physically attractive (and that’s a key component of ANY relationship), but there’s so much more to us as a couple than that, and sometimes people don’t see that. It’s the same reason I celebrate commercials that have interracial couples doing things like buying vacuum cleaners or cell phone plans – we do! And often without thinking about our different races, at that.
I also have to say that I have been genuinely hurt by friends of mine (South Asian women, in this particular case) who have expressed that while they have no problem with my relationship, they just can’t see themselves dating anyone but South Asian men. While I’m aware of the complex racial dynamics in our country, it still stings that people who date within their race are never called upon to question their preferences, but those of us in interracial relationships often face accusations of fetishism just for expressing an appreciation of our partner’s (individual) beauty. I don’t mean to ignore the cultural dynamics and individual preferences that lead to such a decision, but a closing-off of possibility like that seems sad to me.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 12:56 am ¶
Medusa wrote:
“The flip side of the coin is that some people who enter into interracial relationships expect people to extend courtesies and respect to their partners that they themselves don’t extend to the other members of that race. Every interaction we have with other people can be deemed a relationship, so why is it only in the sexual realm that some people finally begin to consider the rights, dignity and respect of a person that doesn’t look like them?”
dee dee, is it possible for you to elaborate on this? This really intrigued me and I want to hear what you have to say about it.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 1:54 am ¶
Kepler wrote:
I spent this past weekend thinking about these same themes as I attended my uncle’s wedding, held in a neighboring country. I watched how the older women of my family accepted the bride begrudgingly. They seemed upset she wasn’t from our country (let alone our tribe). It was almost as though they felt my uncle was commenting on the desirability of women from our tribe, rather than reflecting the reality of living in a foreign country for more than 15 years. I see this same anger/disappointment when I facetiously state that statistically I am unlikely to wind up marrying someone from my tribe ( a few thousand men out of 3+billion men worldwide?).
The women seem more concerned when anyone marries outside the tribe, but the men only seem to care when I joked about following my uncle’s steps and marrying a Ugandan (I assume they would have similar reaction to any woman stating something similar). And by concern I mean unfettered rage (I kid…a bit).
As for interracial relationships, it seems that most people here in Kenya are disinclined to believe they exist due to love. The common assumption is that white people have bundles of money, hence anyone dating a white person is a ‘gold-digger’ or some equivalent like trying to get a spousal green card). Baring that (e.g. I’m an American citizen with a well-paying job), it is assumed a level of self-loathing is at play.
It is very rare to see Black-Asian pairing, despite a large population of Indian and Pakistan individuals. I’ve always wondered why.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 4:57 am ¶
ieishah wrote:
i haven’t even finished reading yet, but STANDING EFFING OVATION, WENDI!!
i was trying to say exactly all of this re: jon and kate. no benefit of the doubt given to either party. she’s a fetishist, he’s a victim, y punto. the relationship is stripped of all of the entirety of a ‘normal’ relationships dimensions. the way you normally experience things–sight, smell, taste, touch, interaction etc.–all of a sudden is of no importance in the face of RACE which supercedes everything. talk about a pathology. yeah, some ish is just racist. and some ish we aren’t in a position to judge. and no, one offhand comment does not a cause for judgement make. speaking of which…
@point of agreement: let’s put aside the idea that interracial relationships somehow need defense. let’s talk about ‘how about an well-written article about how a woman of color feels when she sees when a well-heeled…’
exactly. because it is all about how one feels in any given situation. i’m mos def a woman of color. the situation you described doesn’t make me feel any which way. or should it, just because i’m black? maybe you should write it.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 6:08 am ¶
ieishah wrote:
and just so we’re clear, i do think fetishization and even more than this, ethnic cleansing by way of *encouraging* interracial relationships, which wendi mentions this at the end of the article. it’s also all laid out in a historical context in both jose vasconsuelos’ la raza cosmica and the casta paintings (which you can check out on heidi durrow’s blog, lightskinneded girl).
i, for one, have cut off more than one dude for saying clearly fetishist ish like, ‘what i like about caribbean girls, is that they’re always smiling’… wtf?? that didn’t end to well for him.
this doesn’t mean that as soon as someone says, ‘morena!’, i’m ready to fight. again, some things are racist and fetishist. some things are not necessarily, and should be taken in context.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 6:24 am ¶
little mixed girl wrote:
i’ve been grappling with these issues since about high school.
i feel like regardless of who i date, i am going to be under scrutiny.
with that said, i’m not 100% innocent of seeing interracial couples and wondering if what brought them together was love, or some type of misguided stereotype.
i also find it amusing and sad that i feel like i can’t even look at someone of a different race and compliment their features/find their features (or hair) attractive, without feeling like someone is going to jump on me and accuse me of having a fetish or something. -_-
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 9:14 am ¶
pololly wrote:
I don’t know. While you cannot judge in the abstract, I’ve found that even walking around the street, I get completely different responses from interracial and intraracial couples, generally fairly negative from the former. This is in Britian and this may just be a horrible circle of suspicion where interracial couples feel judged, so react negatively and thus confirm stereotypes but I am always stared down as (a black women) by interracial couples.
“People of the same race could very well be dating each other for calculated reasons, one of them being race, yet this is rarely considered and applied to such couples. Only interracial couples fall victim to such assumptions.”
Could you elaborate on this? I date interracially and intraracially (though the only white people I would date are American) and I’m unsure of how calculating to date a person of your own race is a negative thing.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 9:47 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
pololly:
some examples i can think of include
- pressure from parents (i.e. i have an ex who was always discouraged from dating non-east asians because his parents thought of others within an incredibly racist context)
- personal racism toward or rejection of other races (i.e. i am x race and don’t like people of y, z, and w race, therefore, i will only date x race)
- for the sake of bearing children who are not of mixed racial heritage (out of racism, other times out of fear for the child’s future)
- because that is what we are “raised,” “obligated,” or “influenced” to do by society, family, peers, etc
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 10:08 am ¶
Ron wrote:
A great three volume book written by J.A. Rogers entitled, “Race and Sex” which was written in the early part of the 20th century from a black man’s perspective is a great read for novices studying the intersection between race and sex.
I think the historical context of interacial dating is always missing from these discussions. The light emphasis given to the historical context and overemphasis on modern day relationships obsures this issue.
To say that people are unaware of intraracial considerations smacks of a limited perspective. In particular, black americans are very aware calculated decisions being made for in group mate selection.
White male executives considering in group mate selection view blonde haired blue eyed women as the ultimate prize. Although many of these men may marry brunettes, these men still view blonde haired women as superior physically.
People enter relationships based upon more than just fetishes or preferences.
Asian and Indian men have their dominant preferences as well but may have a relationship with someone because of proximity, personality, or commonality.
You ever hear someone say, “blonde hair and blue eyes” as sufficient to confer the ultimate status of beauty.
The crazy thing about it is that from my experience people in inter-racial relationships are more prone to believe in white standards of beauty than those in intra-racial relationships.
I have seen many white women and men in interacial relationships (with blacks) who do not consider black men or black women in general to be attractive. These people still consider whiteness to be the ultimate standard of beauty.
So, the concentration on intraracial relationship shortcomings as a comparitive work is the wrong starting point to address the biases against interracial relationships.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 10:29 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
ron
i do not think people are unaware of the “shortcomings” of intraracial relationships, however, i find that people are far quicker to judge and make considerable leaps in the land of assumptions when it comes to interracial vs. intraracial relationships.
i think it’s also important to note that interracial does not necessarily mean white + non-white, which seems to be the direction some of these comments seem to be geared toward. in these cases, where do white standards of beauty fit in?
all i am saying here is that people are quick to judge, assume, comment on, denigrate people in IRs and their decisions, and we spend far less time considering the similar decisions that motivate people in mono/intra-racial relationships to date people of the same race. i think historical context is important, but can only take us so far. we don’t apply it very much to people in same-race relationships, when in fact, it can be just as compelling of a factor. just pointing out hypocrisy and double standard where i see it.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 10:43 am ¶
dee dee wrote:
@ Medusa – dee dee, is it possible for you to elaborate on this? This really intrigued me and I want to hear what you have to say about it.
Medusa, here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. (Let me preface this by stating that I’m a black woman). I worked with a white woman in a graphics design team who was rude, nasty, disparaging and in effect, trying her best to cause me to lash out, so I would get fired. (This was later confirmed to me after a co-worker showed me a nasty email that was sent to my manager by my co-worker.) Dealing with her verbal and mental abuse was stressful enough to affect my digestion.
However, one day the ladies of the group were talking about our relationships and she mentioned that she was dating a black man. She was upset at how they were treated as a couple when they were out and about and was angry over nasty comments and looks that were made to him because she was white. And she wanted to know why we hadn’t just gotten over the whole race thing, etc. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming! Actually I wanted to laugh.
On one hand, she was so concerned about how her boyfriend was being treated. And on the other hand she was treating me like a piece of hot, steaming, doo doo. And part of her hang up with me was my race, because she didn’t treat any white women in the same manner!
I wanted to shake her and ask her, how do you think your boyfriend will ever be treated well when you can’t even muster up a modicum of respect for me?
And that’s my point. If you can only begin to see someone’s humanity and treat them with dignity after you have sex with them, then you have no business expecting your love partner to receive anything but what you’ve been dishing out to others all along.
Until we’re ALL free from racism, no amount of orgasms will save love partners or interracial children from what (so-called) monoracial people have been dealing with all along.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 11:20 am ¶
ea wrote:
Having recently gotten out of one and being bombarded with the critiques, questions and frustrations of community members, this discussion is important. It is especially important in light of the humanity continuously being discussed. In conversations with others who are/have been in relationships with individuals outside of their national origin/ethnicity, it remains complex and troubling on various levels. In large part because of the consciousness of ignorant community members who subscribe to essentialism or colorblind racism or a mixture of both. It opens up for greater sensitivity especially if/when in an environment and or community that is less accepting and/or more tokenistic/voyeuristic, regardless of the interpersonal dynamics of said couple. At times, from observation of others and my own experiences, relationships between folks of visible differences want to be controlled by their communities.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 11:53 am ¶
pololly wrote:
Interesting. Thanks for responding.
I can’t deny that those things definitely happen in intraracial relationships, though I personally have no problem with dating with an eye to the children.
I don’t know. Bear with me because I’m not sure how clear my line of thought here is – it’s all really muddled up in my mind.
I feel like because races don’t start off in an equal position, those feelings from a minority group to the majority don’t carry the same sting as vice versa (or at least they don’t to this minority).
For example, let’s say that people reject other races and want to date only another black person, this to me could never be held in the same category as a white person who believed in only dating white people. Because there is too much historical and social difference for it to mean the same thing. Kinda like when people try to create equivalence between the KKK and the Black Panthers.
So even when minorities do all of the negative things you’ve said, it is still within a society where being white is revered and prized. And in which minorities are confronted every day with their failure to measure up.
So when a white person dates a white person, they are free. When they chose to date a minority, yes, they chose to take on ‘race issues’. Fine. But when a black person dates even another black person, they are still dating within white supremacy. The stereotypes, burdens, difficulties, history and limitations still weigh on those relationships. I cannot escape the white gaze on my relationships, on my life, no matter who I date, as evidenced by the colorism/good hair/brown paper bag stuff. We could fill up pages and pages on the assumptions made in the real world about minorities who do choose to date other minorities. Please, if two black people sit at a table together they are choosing to ’self segregate’. It took me several years to cure my desire to be the only minority in the room and to realise that white people looked at you completely differently (in a good way) if you were dating interracially or had all white friends. Intraracial dating (among minorities) still has a unique set of burdens that interracial dating and white/white dating doesn’t face. Interracial dating also faces different burdens that intraracial dating doesn’t face. But they are both relationships that take place within a racist society, and involve sacrifices, and whether I choose to date white or black or any other race only makes a difference to the kind of sacrifice that I may have to make. Yet part of the hand wringing over interracial relationships is its perceived specialness which is perpetuated by many sets of people, including many couples in interracial relationships themselves. Even this post seems to imply that intraracial relationships are somehow easier or get off without criticism. How is that possibly the case? It is the sexuality of POC that has been labelled, insulted, deconstructed, harried and coopted over history. It is the black family that Obama had to chastise in the primaries. Compare the several JT and Ciara posts to the endless endless discussion of black women in rap videos, black men’s treatment of black women etc etc etc.
In other words, in discussions about intraracial or interracial dating, we are still most of the time just discussing, criticizing and dissecting black sexuality or minority sexuality or whatever it is, just from another angle. And I’d rather look at our tendency to do that than somehow create a special bubble of no criticism around interracial relationships when the truth is that when ever two minorities have ever decided to do anything (including date) society has labeled and critiqued.
Lastly, my other problem with this post is that I feel like it’s micro focus is only partial. Aggregate some of these preferences and they may begin to illuminate some problematic tendencies. When, like in my college, no minorities wanted to date each other, that’s the time to live or die by some structural analysis rather than meander down the path of individual excuses/beliefs/choices.
Now it seems like according to this analysis, we should be as sceptical of 10 random black people wanting to date black people as we should ten random black people not wanting to date black people. Because they might all have bad motives. Yeah, it’s getting a bit close to a reverse racism, blacks voting for Obama was racist, why do all the blacks sit together at the lunch table conclusion for me. And I can’t accept that.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 11:59 am ¶
pololly wrote:
Also, honestly speaking as a Brit in a country FULL of interracial relationships and much more accepting of them than America, the people I know who have been involved have not exactly been a model of racial tolerance. There are only so many ‘black guys are so good in bed’ conversations you can take without beginning to feel sick.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 12:04 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
as the relationships you mentioned above take place in a racist society, why add to furthering said racism? that’s basically the point of this piece. just because one opts to be in an interracial relationship, doesnt mean we, as onlookers and members of society, necessarily hold all the cards in guessing why these people are together in the first place. it’s unfair to do that to any couple, but i guarantee that if you polled every single person in the united states (blindly) about their gut response to interracial couples (of any sort) vs. intraracial couples, the reactions would, in many cases, be different.
in the piece, i use the terms “in comparison to…often…and rarely” on purpose. if i believed that people in intraracial relationships did not receive criticism based on race, i would just say “never,” but i don’t. however, when you compare the type of criticism, it is different. when i date someone black, i never have to worry about answering questions like “how’s the sex” or “well, what are you going to do about the children?” no am i judged for being a “race traitor,” “having given up hope on black men,” or “simply going through a phase.”
and if i were to add to this, non-heterosexual couples, be they intraracial or interracial, take on an extra set of problems depending on the race of the individual partners. and let me just say that there, too, lies vitriol for people in IRs. of course, black lesbians often get the “given up on black men” line too, but it’s a whole different can of worms if the other partner is not the same race.
all i am saying is that people in IRs should be treated like equals. we do not all possess the ability to read minds, and assuming that we can read the minds of people in any type of relationship in terms of why one partner chose the other, is effed up and wrong. it’s just something i happen to observe in far more instances in relation to interracial couples instead of intraracial ones.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 12:22 pm ¶
pololly wrote:
I guess we have to disagree, as I’ve found that as part of an intraracial couple I’ve received different, but no less stinging criticism. Generally black people have objected to the interracial and white people to the intraracial, however it was expressed.
My point is that people in IRs are treated like equals – they are treated to the same self destructive, blame, shame, labelling, internal and external community policing that all minorities are treated to. So instead of hiving them off as ’special’ why not widen that point out? Why does ‘giving up on black men’ line only hurt interracial couples. I’d say it said something pretty bad about black men and black women in general.
And like I said, it then felt like criticizing intraracial relationships and questioning their basis…
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 1:00 pm ¶
c.n. edaw wrote:
“The flip side of the coin is that some people who enter into interracial relationships expect people to extend courtesies and respect to their partners that they themselves don’t extend to the other members of that race. Every interaction we have with other people can be deemed a relationship, so why is it only in the sexual realm that some people finally begin to consider the rights, dignity and respect of a person that doesn’t look like them?”
Without making too sweeping a statement I have to say I have often wondered if this is where some of the real or perceived tension between black women and white women who date black men comes into play.
I and other black women have known white women who have black male partners who bitch and moan about how their partners are treated, racially or how they are viewed as a couple. Yet, these same women grip their purses when any OTHER black man walks by, are outright nasty to black women and have no other friends or ineractions with other people of color.
I have three cousins married to white women. Every year, despite being invited and asked to join in the fun , they refuse to be a part of our family reunion. No one has ever said an unkind word to any of them.
Their husbands come along with the kids, but these three white women with black husbands, and biracial children refuse to come spend any time with OTHER black members of the family and instead spend all day in their hotel rooms or go shopping together. It just blows my mind and that behavior created ill will toward their unions that didn’t exist before.
I recall in college similar situations. White women with black boyfriends who were either openly averse to being around blacks other than the one they were sexing OR just had no other black friends or relationships. Of course, there’s the other extreme too. Since the black female white male pairing exists in smaller degrees I don’t have enough to draw from as all my black female friends (self included) who have dated white men ALSO have other white friends, male and female.
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 2:01 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@N
“Re-” Nappy” (and everything else)
Is it me, or do some of us spend our lives apologizing and explaining every.single.thing?
Are you as sick of it as I am?”
Yes. Yes, I am. And the cliche turn this comment thread (and those on Thea’s Mariah Carrey thread) have taken are very depressing to me. Atlasien called it at #1.
Thanks for this essay Wendi. I wish the discussion were as thoughtful.
Posted 03 Jun 2009 at 11:10 am ¶
La Reyna wrote:
To all posters:
What about society’s reaction toward interracial couples of color? I came across an old article at Color Q World concerning white reactions to nonwhite interracial couples. Here’s the article below:
“White Reactions to Interracial Unions Between People of Color
Many people react negatively to seeing a member of their ethnic group with a member of another ethnic group. To play devil’s advocate, let’s claim the “what is one of our women/men doing with an outsider?” reaction is almost “natural”. Hold your flames. I am NOT against interracial unions. I am just stating that it is not incomprehensible that people (of any race) might feel, rightly or wrongly, that they should stick with their own kind.
The strange thing is, for some whites, this negative reaction to interracial unions extends beyond white/non-white couples. For example, I had a conversation with a man who was 3/4 white and 1/4 Amerindian. He is very proud of his heritage. He looks white. He remarks that his siblings look more Indian. I mentioned that I had a friend who was 1/8 Indian. He asked, “So what does she look like?”
I said she looks more like her father’s family, and the Indian blood is from her mother’s side. As I described my friend, it became apparent to this guy that my part-Indian friend is also black. He suddenly became silent and appeared uncomfortable.
I was somewhat surprised at this response because he was so enthusiastic about this topic just a moment ago. I could only surmise that he was uncomfortable with the idea of a black-Indian hybrid, and by extension, unions between blacks and Indians. This is ironic because he himself is a white-Indian mix, so why should he not be as excited about a black-Indian mix?
If there had only been one such incident, it would not have registered with me. But since then I’ve encountered multiple incidents like this. For example, I hear whites say stuff like, “It is strange to see a black man with an Asian woman,” but the same whites NEVER say, “It is weird to see a white man with an Asian woman.” In fact, some of the white men who make these remarks date Asian women themselves. So why do they regard themselves differently from those black men who date Asians?
I have not personally witnessed it, but I have heard of black-Asian couples encountering more explicit forms of white disapproval. This disapproval is incomprehensible to me because what has a black man-Asian woman couple got to do with white people anyway? Nothing! The ‘purity’ of the European bloodline is not at stake here. The ‘usual’ excuse of “We disapprove of this couple because the white person is not sticking with us” clearly cannot apply in this case. So what could be the reasoning behind these whites who disapprove of black-Asian or black-Amerindian couples?
This is why I read with interest the comment “the yellow woman is considered the white man’s exclusive toy, and he is not willing to share this toy with other men of any color” in this site’s review of The Art of War. So by inference, some so-called open-minded whites who “approve” of interracial unions really only approve of specific interracial combinations that suit their sexual fantasies? That article has shed light on some of the questions I had been asking.
I have often wondered at the reactions of white people to certain interracial couples. I did notice white men who seemed uncomfortable with the idea of white women dating Asian men. The interesting thing is, some of these same white men date Asian women.
For example, a white boy J. was excited telling me about the movie Romeo Must Die. He said there was one scene he found hilarious – the part where Jet Li unmasks an assassin and exclaims, “You’re Chinese!”, to which the lady assassin replies, “No shit!”. Now I knew some things he didn’t because I have many friends from Hong Kong who fill me in on Hong Kong movies and actors. The actress who played the lady assassin in Romeo Must Die is Francoise Yip, daughter of a Chinese Canadian man and a French Canadian woman. I thought it was amusing (not in a derogatory way) that she plays the “quintessential” Chinese in that particular scene in Romeo Must Die. So I thought I’d share this detail with the white boy J., thinking it would enhance the joke he already apparently enjoyed so much. I said, “Actually, that Chinese actress is half-French, her mother is French.” Instantly, the smile receded from his face and he fell into silence. He is usually such a garrulous talker who likes to go on and on about how much he “loves international people”. I was surprised at his sudden change in attitude. I can only surmise that he was bothered by the thought that a white woman had made a child with a yellow man, a fact of which this biracial actress was the living proof. The odd thing is, J himself at that time had a Chinese woman as sex partner/girlfriend. It is typical that white men want to enjoy the bodies of yellow women, but do not want yellow men to date white women.
I also suspect some white men who like Asian women are displeased to see non-white men being with Asian women (even in a movie) because they cannot identify with the male character. Like the article posted on your site said, they considered the yellow woman their exclusive toy which they will not share with other men. At the same time, they don’t like to see white women being with other men because they still consider white women their property.
This double standard in interracial dating is something that we should be ashamed of holding. If we are going to pretend to be “open-minded” and “love diversity”, while in reality encouraging only the kind of interracial unions that suit our stereotypes and exotic fantasies (or at least not threaten our fantasies), I think we are better off not having interracial unions at all. Again, I repeat I am NOT against interracial couples. I just believe that white men (or anyone for that matter) who pass themselves off as “racially open-minded” when they really just want an “exotic” partner do greater disservice to interracial relations than those who don’t date interracially. ”
What are your thoughts on the article. To me, it doesn’t surprise me at all.
La Reyna
Posted 03 Jun 2009 at 12:31 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
“I think it’s also important to note that interracial does not necessarily mean white + non-white, which seems to be the direction some of these comments seem to be geared toward. in these cases, where do white standards of beauty fit in?”
Well, they fit into a larger beauty hiearchy that has whites at the apex and blacks at the bottom — it’s based on percieved approximation of the white ideal, in a dominant culture that lionizes it and among people that live in its shadow. It’s unfortunate that one person of color would look at another through that lens, but it happens — intraracially and interracially.
Posted 04 Jun 2009 at 2:56 am ¶
Mary wrote:
I can only surmise that he was bothered by the thought that a white woman had made a child with a yellow man, a fact of which this biracial actress was the living proof. The odd thing is, J himself at that time had a Chinese woman as sex partner/girlfriend. It is typical that white men want to enjoy the bodies of yellow women, but do not want yellow men to date white women.
Alternately, being part-white, she was no longer as “exotic” as she had seemed before. Either way, yuck.
Posted 04 Jun 2009 at 10:54 am ¶
Paris wrote:
I have a question and I would like it to be answered truthfully. (I am a big girl and can handle the harsh criticism, hahaha) Anyway, as a Black female college student, I have found in my first year of college that I am not attracted to Black men. i wouldn’t consider this in anyway racist, but unfortunately, I feel that this is how some people may view me. This does not eman that I don’t find men of all ethnic background attractive, I am just not attracted to all of them. With that said, i have been attarcted to Asian/asian american males and when my friends bring up this point I am constantly defending myself, beause I do not want that to fall under the category of fetish. Personally, i believe I do not fall into that category because I do not find all Asian males attractive. Yet as I write, this I am wondering, what if I do have a fetish? I hate that word and anything having to do with it and I truly hope there is no part of me that is associated with that word. With all this sad, how can I identify if I have an problem and if i don’t, do you have any suggestions on how to check it, if this ever becomes a problem. Also, the larger question at hand may be, how do I not fall into the category of fetishizer, while still being open to men of all ethnicities that I am attracted to? These may be very hard question to answer and maybe I am just a pure dumbass, but any advice would be incredibly helpful. Thank you so much and I love this blog.
Posted 05 Jun 2009 at 1:08 am ¶
Funkystarkitty50 wrote:
As a BW who has predominately dated non-Black men for most of my life, I can say that I just have a preference and I resent the labels. Automatically when you say that you prefer one thing over another, the assumption is that Blackness is inferior. It isn’t, but simply just like some women like tall men or shorter men, there are some BW who prefer WM and non-Black men. I don’t think that I have a fetish, but merely exercising my right to be open about what I like and not caring what other people think. I think that there are many BW who feel the same way about being attracted to non-Black men, but they are afraid of the scrutiny they will face in the Black Community. I think that any other interracial relationship such as WM and Hispanic women or WM with Asian women isn’t really burdened with the same stereotypes and perceptions as BW/WM or BM/WW relationships are. There is still this stupid taboo about it. I guess it depends on where you live as well. I live in Georgia with my White husband and when we go to a rural part of the state, we stick out like a sore thumb and people make it known that they don’t like it. But when we were visiting New York, the alleged melting pot, we had some incidents as well. Ignorance is everywhere, but people should be free to choose who they want to be with and not have to worry about being psycho-analyzed for it.
Posted 05 Jun 2009 at 4:10 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
i think the difference comes down to “the why,” the reason you are dating someone. some people choose their mates because of appearance, other for his or her job/careeer, the money he or she makes, and some fall in love with the other person’s personality. i mean the list could go on and on. i think the difference between being racist in an interracial relationship and not depends on this “why.” if you find yourself choosing only x race all the time because of some stereotype you have of the group, then you’ve got a problem on your hands (in my eyes). if it’s physical, again not related to a stereotype, however (i.e. the black men = big penis myth), then i personally don’t see anything wrong with that…though even then, you have to ask yourself if this physical attraction has something to do with your upbringing or societal influences. i always think of my mom and aunts in this case. my mom and 2 of my other aunts, while black, have very light skin. their father, my grandfather, constantly told them not to date dark men, that they were trouble, etc. one of my aunts ended up dating a light-skinned guy who was nothing but trouble, then spent the rest of her life attracted to dark-skinned men. my mother also has a tendency to be more attracted to dark-skinned men, though my father and several other partners after his death were a range of shades on the black scale.
i personally tend to be more attracted to dark hair and dark eyes, and lucky for me, a ton of ethnic/racial groups fall into that category. however, i have never turned down someone blonde with light eyes on this characteristic alone because that would be limiting myself. i think when people get into the mindset of rejecting x group bc of their race, and the possible stereotypes associated to that race, there lies the problem.
Posted 05 Jun 2009 at 11:09 am ¶
Asad Malik wrote:
Hello everyone,
Thank you for bringing up such a touchy topic to our attention. It is extremely important to talk about such issues rather than being ignorant about it. Whenever a person gets involved in an inter-racial relationship, he or she prepares for the challenges to come. Obviously, the society we live in pays attention to such details but no one ever takes them seriously than the ones who claim to be closer to us; for example, friends and family members. Wait a minute, these are the individuals who tend to care for us and be there for us yet what happens?
I am from Canada and living in the most diverse city in the world (Toronto) you still notice people will give you the looks once in a while but fortunately such racism isnt accepted in this country but it still exists.
I have a beautiful white American girlfriend, and when i say beautiful i do not mean i have fetish for white women, i mean that she is beautiful from inside out. It was quite a challenging start for the both of us because we had many issues to deal with, there was distance and then the obvious racial challenge. She did her undergrad from SUNY Fredonia, university that hardly has any brown students, i often felt like a rock star wandering around the campus being the only brown guy. Then one night when we were on our way back from the rink, my girlfriend asked if i noticed anything? She went on and said there were a bunch of older folks who gave us looks. Now! up till that point i was still contemplating with how unique i am from the rest lol but there comes a point when “shit hits the fan”. So we talked about it and my girlfriend was obviously bothered by it and since then when ever we went out i tried to notice the surrounding and look for possible reactions. So upon my several visit to her campus, we experience such responses and talked very little about it after the big conversation we had that night.
Now came the bigger challenge lol, miss sunshine has to introduce her prince to her parents, for a while i felt like focker meets the parents and trust me, its true. Her mom had several “serious” issues that she felt a need to address and her step dad would make a joke or two. Going through all that, i understood the frustration and stress my loveone went through recieving comments from family and friends but how can you judge the book just by looking at it cover. I finally decided to meet with her parents, and since then its been a smooth sail. The problem we have in our society which i often discuss with my girlfriend is that we are conditioned to look at things a certain way and thats why people find it difficult whenever they come across an inter-racial couple.
You often feel there is a need to prove your relationship but you never ask yourself, why? There is absolutely nothing wrong with dating or marrying someone from a different race or background, in fact if you think about it with an open mind, such relationships are healthy for a society, a full functioning society that is. Coming from typical Pakistan family and being a muslim, i faced alot of challenges especially coming from my dad and certain friends. Why a need to be with a “Gori” (White girl), Arent “your” people good enough for you? What will the others say? So on and so forth, now! such prejudice pisses me off because no one has the right to question another person’s life but there is nothing one can do but to hold each other tightly. You see, whenever i got look, i held on to my girlfriend and the person looking at us would deliberately look somewhere else (its a slap on the face, sort of). So i believe there is prejudice in ever society and when you live in an area that is not ethnically diverse, you will experience such hostile and unfriendly reception.
My girlfriend and i have similar taste in almost all aspects of life, besides skin color (which we dont even notice when we are together) everything is as normal as every other relationship. We believe in spiritual connection and when you think of a relationship so highly everything else becomes secondary. There is more to explore in life when one gets involved in an inter-racial relationship, you get to learn about different cultures, languages, norms and beliefs. My girlfriend had a different perception about relationship until she took a subject called Crisis Intervention, Dr. Sutha who happened to be an East Indian professor opened her eyes and gave her an opportunity to think of life through a broader spectrum, the part of her brain that was restricted by the society began to function in a full thought process and that when she came to realization of conditioning that society enforces upon us to look and act a certain way. Coincidentally! thats when we met and took on a journey that society titles as an inter-racial relationship.
People must look at each other as human beings rather than questioning another persons integrity for the sake of common good for all. Love has no boundaries and love certainly needs no legitimization, infact its a manifectation of a strong society which believes in democracy, unity, equality and freedom. And i believe that the generation which we belong to certainly does not restrict itself so such narrow minded perceptions that are held sacred by our predecessors.
I feel blessed and thankful to God for gifting me with such a beautiful relationship and i am glad that my girlfriend and i are not narrow minded as others are.
Posted 07 Jun 2009 at 12:11 am ¶
Brothel Poet wrote:
I love racialicious. I am in an interracial relationship- and was for a time, anxious about it. I had dubious opinions about black men with white women because it felt like they failed in their resistance to cultural conditioning. Then when I met my husband, I thought about how he looked like a Banana Republic Ad. And how I found that attractive. Sometimes i think I objectify men, period. I think they’re all beautiful. All races of men. My black boyfriends, in general, tended to be overachievers who had a need for things to be just so, and who seemed really uncomfortable talking about race. My white husband is an overachiever, but he doesn’t face the same pressures these men faced and so is more comfortable talking about it. Also, he is educated and achieving, but gives off the air that he’ s not too invested in anything- be they fights, achievment or the perfect education of our child. I know that his parents and I both suffer from a form of obsessive thought disorders- and that my husband’s personality is a response and buffer for that. OR is it because he’s a white man with no problems? And I am going soft because i don’t want to help a black man face his challenges in this racist world? I don’t know. One day we will be a post racial society. Not today tho. Not today.
Posted 07 Jun 2009 at 2:36 pm ¶