Is refusing to date people of certain races racist?

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I think refusing to date ALL members of a race is racist, but saying you have a preference to one over another, is not.
 
I've addressed this throughout the thread. People associate specific looks with specific social groupings. This does not mean black people look a certain way, it means people are more likely to put people that look a certain way in the group black. You're not understanding what's actually going on with race. Being black doesn't make anyone look like anything phenotypically. Just like being lower gentry in 18th century England didn't make anyone look like anything phenotypically.

No, because we have specific associations with those words, it's not that white people platonically look a certain way. Of course this runs into some internal errors almost immediately. If we take a facial aggregate of the people that identify as Irish, and one of the people that identify as Iranian they will not look the same, yet both are placed in the white category. Clearly something else is going on here.

Yes, people essentiallize traits to a label and then distribute the trait to everything that has that label. This doesn't work well in analyzing things, it's a shortcut that works for quick generalization, not for deep understanding. It's also racist when the labels in question are racial labels.

That's both not logical true, you're assuming there's only one understanding of the category, and missing the fact that identifying people as specific racial groups is a more complex process than sticking their features into the race giving equation and finding their race. What do you think passing is?

You've collapsed a lot of things into the bolded. The former is clearly worse than the latter, but your missing quite a bit here that makes the latter a poor level of analysis. Of course in practice this is impossible to actually do directly, but there are ways to approximate what goes on when people make decisions like this.

If they are rejecting based on appearance 51% of black women and 50% of white women, there's probably a slight problem. If they are rejecting 99.5% of black women and 50% of white women then there's clearly a pretty significant problem. And since we live in a society that has a history we can pretty easily point to what could be the origin of that problem.

You can do this qualitatively too. Most obviously, if people just outright dislike dark skin tones you don't have to dig very far to figure out what's behind that.

Fine, if this is literally the only thing going on, i.e. controlling for high ones racial preference is the exact same, and in that situation alone, I'm willing to admit problematic cultural understandings of gender are in play here instead of problematic cultural understandings of race.
I think you are needlessly arguing semantics. From the start I addressed that for this topic race=looks and not cases like this.
Instead of saying the mouthful that is "I have a preference/dislike for features typically associated with race X", people just say "I (don't) find race X attractive".
It doesn't matter what race the person really is. If B looks black in the eyes of A, then B is, as far as the "racial attraction filter" goes, black. B saying they are actually something else won't change a thing, unless A is racist.

First of all, lol at you taking an issue with 51% over 50%. Come back to the real world, please. Second, there's no issue with rejecting 99,5% or even 100% women one views as black on the basis of physical appearance. Again, unless you have no physical preferences yourself, you have no room to talk. Please notice I said "one views as black" and not are black because, again, actual race, whatever your definition is, doesn't matter, only physical appearance does.

And you can harp on what race is or isn't as much as you want; at the end of the day the common usage is race=looks. That's the basis for categorization and discrimination.
 
sounds like your friend's some kinda racist and this is just a means to express that

with that said, I know people who won't date outside their religion because that's how they were brought up. does that make them shitty? i don't think so
 
It depends. Let's say you find a girl attractive, you go up to her and start speaking. You find out she's mixed race and lose all interest because you refuse to date someone who's part black. That's undeniably racist, you find the person attractive but are unable to look past their racial origin.

Second scenario, you never found the mixed raced girl attractive to begin with. Your type is Asian women. I don't think that's racist at all. People have physical preferences and races differ in terms of their physical appearance.

As I've controversially said on here before, I like Mediterranean looking girls. Big brown eyes, black hair, olive skin. That's all I really like. That rules out a lot of races, does that make me racist? I don't think so.

Before I met my girlfriend I used to use Tinder. Did I swipe right on Northern European women? Yes but rarely. Did I swipe right on Black women? Yes but very rarely. Did I swipe right on Asian women? I don't think I did to be honest.

I don't believe that makes me racist. I just have a physical preference.
 
Why do people keep on bringing up sexual orientation, something that's innate i.e. not choice based, and equate it to a social construct like physical features and race where refusing to date specific races no matter what isn't considered racism?

Do you choose what you find attractive? I certainly do not feel I have a say in that. Considering personally, I value a fit look, clear language and bright mind, I am probably lucky in that the features I like are not more or less likely with one ethnicity over another, but I never decided "this is what I like", nor could I change this.
 
"My friend..."?
Ok, come on. Do we always have to jump to "YOU'RE the real racist aren't you!"

But op this one should be pretty easy, yeah it's racist.

Your friend could MAYBE argue that he has a hard time with certain cultural values, but that really has nothing to do with race. You can find Asian people who grew up in a southern US culture, Indian people who grew up in an urban Canadian culture, white people who grew up in a tribal, African culture, etc.
 
Fuck no

its like saying refuse to date people of certain gender is being sexist. this logic is simply retarded.

everyone has preferences

i have my preferences. like most people i prefer what i grew up with, what's familiar to me.
that doesn't mean i refuse to date any other ethnicity. straight out ruling out dating black women is certainly wrong and racist since you say that all of them are unnapealing to you.

as i'm getting older and seeing more of the world i learned to appreciate the unfamiliar and different looks of other ethnicities more and more. preferences can change.
 
I think you are needlessly arguing semantics.

As I say every time this comes up, if you say someone you are arguing with is arguing about semantics then you too are talking about semantics. Of course this is semantics, and of course it isn't needless. Your entire understanding, with pretty obvious problems I mentioned above, rests on semantics, on the way you think of certain words.

As usual, complaining about semantics is a cheap ploy to distract from the weakness of your argument.

From the start I addressed that for this topic race=looks and not cases like this.

Except when we look at how race works in the real world that isn't what's going on. So sure, if you want your "needless semantics" your free to define the words in a way that makes what you say make sense. Of course that means you aren't really talking about much at all, but whatever.

Instead of saying the mouthful that is "I have a preference/dislike for features typically associated with race X", people just say "I (don't) find race X attractive".

I agree that people often use it as shorthand, though for a still racist sentiment, I disagree that no one actually means what they are saying. There are people that actually think this way.

Ironically for someone complaining about me arguing semantics this part of your argument involves assuming people don't mean what they are literally saying.

First of all, lol at you taking an issue with 51% over 50%. Come back to the real world, please.

That was clearly an example to demonstrate what the case for a marginal preference would be. Are you really going to argue it's all okay if it's marginal? At what point does marginal turn into a problem?

I'm genuinely curious as to your argument about why that would be okay? It doesn't mean the person is horrible, but would mean something was going on there. This is how we use statistics to evaluate the social world.


Second, there's no issue with rejecting 99,5% or even 100% women one views as black on the basis of physical appearance.

This is your whole thesis, you're supposed to be arguing for it. I've stated a number of times in this thread why it's a problem and why it in at least some cases will derive from racist thinking.


Again, unless you have no physical preferences yourself, you have no room to talk.

Utter nonsense. That's stripping race out from its social, cultural, and historical context and acting like it's the same thing as whether someone has a scar. This is disingenuous beyond belief and a vain attempt at scoring cheap points.

Of course you aren't even making an argument for it, though I understand the implicit one that all distinguishing between physical difference in people is the exact same because it's based on physical difference. Which of course misallocates focus from the distinguishing, how and why does this happen, to the physical difference, which you then unthinkingly turn social by putting into a racial category.


Please notice I said "one views as black" and not are black because, again, actual race, whatever your definition is, doesn't matter, only physical appearance does.

Except that's not true. What matters is how people are categorized, physical appearance is only a part of that.


And you can harp on what race is or isn't as much as you want; at the end of the day the common usage is race=looks. That's the basis for categorization and discrimination.

That's the common usage sure, but that's not what actually is going on. The latter is what matters.

Also once again you're ironically making a semantic assertion.

You've still yet to provide an argument here. You're just fruitlessly asserting your main point and trying to handwave away the widely accepted frameworks that academics who actually study the topic have made because they are inconvenient to you.

Meanwhile you've failed to even address around half of that last post.
 
rac·ism
ˈrāˌsizəm/Submit
noun
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.





So if I don't find a specific race to have ladies (or dudes) that I would want to date I think my race is superior and fulfilling the definition of a racist? I don't understand how this whole thread is people saying yes when the definition of racism is a bit broader than not finding a race date material. You could not find your own race superior, shit you might not even want to date any of your own race and just a different one but be ok with all races as friends or family by this definition.

Maybe people of a certain race don't appeal to them. How is this labeled if the person won't date tall people or obese people? I really have a hard time seeing how this is racism. The heart, brain, genitals want what they want and that would feel like it's impossible to change.
There are far more definitions than that. That's one of the most narrow.
 
I don't think it's racist to have a physical attraction to a specific skin tone, I think it is racist to specifically say "I won't date a black girl" if, for example, a lighter skinned black girl who looks similar to a darker skinned hispanic girl were next to each other and you'd take one and not the other.

Like, I have a 'type' - I think most people do, and skin tone is certainly part of it. I go beyond that when I connect with someone because physical attraction isn't the number one factor in a relationship for me (nor for most people I imagine), but I guess my point is...How is having a preference for a skin tone any different than saying "Oh I'd never date a girl without big boobs" either? To me it's not so much racist in that scenario, as it is completely shallow.

I'm personally very into tan/caramel skin or darker, but there are very pale girls I've been super attracted to because of their personality, if I were a shallow asshole who wouldn't date white girls though because the personality was irrelevant to me, I'm not sure I'd call it 'racist' (in the colloquial usage of the term) in this kind of instance. I also have a certain body type I'm into, and if a girl doesn't have that - it's not a judgement of her as a person, but it IS harder to get my attention in terms of attraction then as well.

I guess what I really mean is, I think it's fair to say even though the result is the same, there's a distinction to me between someone being a nazi fuck who won't date a black woman because he thinks she's inferior, and someone who has no problem with a race, might even recognize their beauty, but is just not into them physically (whether that's seeded in racially divided social constructs or not).


EDIT: oh, and if I wasn't clear: "I won't date a black girl" is a pretty racist stance either way, imo.
 
So how am I racist if let's say I like black women. Sure white women are good looking as well but my preference goes to black women because of their skin tone, hair and general looks.

How does that make me racist?

If I don't visit country A because I like country B's culture more am I racist?
 
Fuck no

its like saying refuse to date people of certain gender is being sexist. this logic is simply retarded.

everyone has preferences

Out of all the words in the world you pick that one. Why?

Also race and sex aren't actually that comparable.
 
So how am I racist if let's say I like black women. Sure white women are good looking as well but my preference goes to black women because of their skin tone, hair and general looks.

How does that make me racist?

It doesn't. Everyone is allowed to have a preference.

OP stated that their friend could never date a black woman, which, when put like that, implies that even if she was the most beautiful black woman in the world, they couldn't date her because of her skin colour.
 
I think the word 'refuse' is what makes it racist.

Having preferences is normal & him not wanting to date black people based on attractiveness or lack thereof is not racist, but refusing is stupid and racist
 
Racial preference is a purely social concept whereas sexuality is innate. Nothing complicated or ambiguous about that.

Right, but let's not pretend everyone is ever going to find everyone of the other sex equally attractive. Beyond race, whether you want to call it all social or not, people have preferences for eye color, hair color, skin color, body type, personality, faces, voices, EVERYTHING.

I think the word 'refuse' is what makes it racist.

Having preferences is normal & him not wanting to date black people based on attractiveness or lack thereof is not racist, but refusing is stupid and racist
This. The fact that you're unopen to the possibility is pretty shitty.
 
The skin color is just a beauty attribute in this case, no ?
If some people doesn't like some types of skins, I don't think it's racist.

He don't say he don't like black African women, just black women.

That's how I understand it anyway.
 
Refusing to date a certain color of person is pretty racist. There isn’t anything wrong with preference, though. That’s just attraction.

I think saying something like “I’m much more attracted to white women” is a very wrong thing to say but I don’t think people really think about it, and they should.

I for instance prefer features like green/blue eyes, freckles, etc. (my wife, lucky me) but I would never be opposed to dating anyone that didn’t have similar features. If I think your beautiful your beautiful. And anyone would any skin color can be beautiful.
 
Yes, and we don't need a 15-page long thread to read people's flimsy justifications as to why is not.
Sums it up perfectly.

There's a lot of bending over backwards in here by posters willing to come up with all kinds of ridiculous arguments to avoided reflecting on their own racist tendencies.
 
Do you choose what you find attractive? I certainly do not feel I have a say in that. Considering personally, I value a fit look, clear language and bright mind, I am probably lucky in that the features I like are not more or less likely with one ethnicity over another, but I never decided "this is what I like", nor could I change this.
And no race has just one specific set of features. You can find all the features you find attractive in all races. You can be attracted to different things as you grow up, so I don't see what I'm attracted to when I was 10 to always be set in stone and never change to when I'm 30. I'm not attracted to guys in a sexual manner, gay porn or romance doesn't do anything for me, so I'm pretty set in my sexuality as a heterosexual. Compared to sexuality which is mostly clear cut from a young age to when you're an adult, so I don't see the equivalence of race to sexual orientation.
 
I don't think it's racist if you're not attracted to people with a particular look or skin colour. Not being attracted to someone doesn't automatically mean you're prejudiced against them. Although as he didn't explain himself that doesn't mean your friend isn't basing this decision on such reasons.
 
Haha my best mate and myself had this debate many a time - usually after a few drinks

He was vehemently convinced it's racist - I merely portended it was preferences

We were both partially right
 
It's an interesting topic of discussion. I understand everyone has preferences, but rationally speaking I don't know what physical feature is universally found in a specific race to the extent that a person could reasonably say they find all individuals of that race unattractive.

I suppose if a person were not attracted to white skin, you'd be hard pressed to find a person of predominately European descent who didn't fit that bill. Perhaps that's understandable. But in OP's friend's instance, even if a person wasn't attracted to darker skin tones, not every person of African descent is dark skinned.
 
The comparison to sexuality is really bizarre. People don't choose to be attracted to who they are attracted to in terms of gender. Race is not at all an innate aspect of attraction. If you refuse to date people of a certain race, your choice is informed by your own biases. It also puts forth this notion that there's some quality of, say, black people that applies to all black people, making them all just not attractive to that person.
 
Haha my best mate and myself had this debate many a time - usually after a few drinks

He was vehemently convinced it's racist - I merely portended it was preferences

We were both partially right

I'd say - if you rule out any candidate of potential race before seeing even a picture it's racist. If you find most of representatives of such race unatractive it's preference.
 
I like how we keep focusing on the impact of a racist culture on our sexual preferences and not just the fact that these people are full of shit. Theres no way these people have never found a single member of a particular race physically attractive. There are super models of all races, you're telling me if you met one of them and you dug their personality and they were inexplicably into you that you still wouldn't date them because not racism? Fuck out of here...
 
I don't think so.

It's not like women of all races are lined up to you and you say "no, I won't date you coz you're black" to their face. You date who you wanna date based on preferences, and race can be one of those preferences.

You just disproved your own point. No one has lined up all black women and seen them all before deciding they weren't into them. If someone says this, it means they see what they perceive as universally "black" features as unattractive. Which makes them racist, because not all black women have those traits they've decided are ugly. Definitely racist.

I like how we keep focusing on the impact of a racist culture on our sexual preferences and not just the fact that these people are full of shit. Theres no way these people have never found a single member of a particular race physically attractive. There are super models of all races, you're telling me if you met one of them and you dug their personality and they were inexplicably into you that you still wouldn't date them because not racism? Fuck out of here...

Yup, this right here
 
You just disproved your own point. No one has lined up all black women and seen them all before deciding they weren't into them. If someone says this, it means they see what they perceive as universally "black" features as unattractive. Which makes them racist, because not all black women have those traits they've decided are ugly. Definitely racist.

Damn you fast. I didn't read the thread properly so I edited it out.

That dude in the OP rings racist bells for me. Sounds more than just a preference.
 
I've thought the whole morning about this.

I'm not a fan of the aesthetics of most black woman. I'm more a fan of blue eyes and red or brown straight hair. But thats just my preference. Skin colour is irrelevant for me. Hell she could've green skin and i wouldn't care. I think one of most beautiful woman I've every seen was black.

But if someone says: I wouldn't date a black woman because she is black. yeah thats racism.
 
It's racist. Anyone who says this has obviously created a boogieman, or woman, in their head and their prejudice is based on that, as there are physically attractive people of all races.
 
As I say every time this comes up, if you say someone you are arguing with is arguing about semantics then you too are talking about semantics. Of course this is semantics, and of course it isn't needless. You're entire understanding, with pretty obvious problems I mentioned above, rests on semantics, on the way you think of certain words.

As usual, complaining about semantics is a cheap ploy to distract from the weakness of your argument.

Except when we look at how race works in the real world that isn't what's going on. So sure, if you want your "needless semantics" your free to define the words in a way that makes what you say make sense. Of course that means you aren't really talking about much at all, but whatever.

I agree that people often use it as shorthand, though for a still racist sentiment, I disagree that no one actually means what they are saying. There are people that actually think this way.

Ironically for someone complaining about me arguing semantics this part of your argument involves assuming people don't mean what they are literally saying.

That was clearly an example to demonstrate what the case for a marginal preference would be. Are you really going to argue it's all okay if it's marginal? At what point does marginal turn into a problem?

I'm genuinely curious as to your argument about why that would be okay? It doesn't mean the person is horrible, but would mean something was going on there. This is how we use statistics to evaluate the social world.


This is your whole thesis, you're supposed to be arguing for it. I've stated a number of times in this thread why it's a problem and why it in at least some cases will derive from racist thinking.

Utter nonsense. That's stripping race out from its social, cultural, and historical context and acting like it's the same thing as whether someone has a scar. This is disingenuous beyond belief and a vain attempt at scoring cheap points.

Of course you aren't even making an argument for it, though I understand the implicit one that all distinguishing between physical difference in people is the exact same because it's based on physical difference. Which of course misallocates focus from the distinguishing, how and why does this happen, to the physical difference, which you then unthinkingly turn social by putting into a racial category.

Except that's not true. What matters is how people are categorized, physical appearance is only a part of that.

That's the common usage sure, but that's not what actually is going on. The latter is what matters.

Also once again you're ironically making a semantic assertion.

You've still yet to provide an argument here. You're just fruitlessly asserting your main point and trying to handwave away the widely accepted frameworks that academics who actually study the topic have made because they are inconvenient to you.

Meanwhile you've failed to even address around half of that last post.
My argument is simple and proves itself.
Do people have physical preferences? Yes
Does race affect physical appearance? In the real world it most certainly does.
Therefore being biased towards or against a certain race is bound to occur, including finding a certain race completely unattractive. Again, race = looks.

I have already stated in my very first post that people that care about race beyond physical appearance are racist. So someone breaking up with someone after finding out they are actually "black" instead of something else, is clearly racist.

You have actually done nothing to refute my points beyond saying that race doesn't affect physical features which is, in the real world, complete nonsense.

Taking issue with 50% vs 51% tells me you don't understand how the real world works. If you flip a coin 100 times and get 51 heads and 49 tails, are you going to say that the coin is biased towards heads? That there's a slight issue? Sorry, the real world is not a simulation where everything works exactly as predicted.
Do you know how many factors there are in attractiveness? How are you going to control for height, age, BMI, muscle, eye color or whatever the hell tickles your fancy? Not to mention that races can have a very different distribution of physical attributes and just the place you live can significantly bias your "sample". It would be incredibly weird if we looked at someone's life and found that they were attracted to exactly 50% of the women they came across in their life. 50% for each race, down to the decimal. Would make me question if they were a robot or something, intentionally keeping count.

So to summarize, saying that OP's friend is racist based on that one statement alone is nonsense, unless you ignore the common usage of race.

I'm actually curious what a good, non-discriminatory person would be according to you? Would they have to be attracted to everyone completely equally? From babies to geriatrics? Where can you draw the line on the factors that are beyond your potential partner's control?
Because as soon as you say it's fine to have a physical preference, even a tiny single one, you are discriminating against certain races as I doubt that any physical characteristic is distributed completely evenly among the different races' populations. Or are you saying it's fine to discriminate a little. What % of a race are you allowed to ignore before you are racist? You see an issue in 51% and 50%, so 0%?
 
Your friend could have just politely refused dates with all "people of certain races" and nobody would have batted an eye. Advertising "your preferences" loudly and aggressively makes it racism because you are using your preferences as a weapon.

"I REALLY DISLIKE THIS POT OF FLOWERS THAT IS IN MIDDLE OF ROOM" - moaned the boy loudly, so that the whole house echoed, while sitting in a corner.
 
And no race has just one specific set of features. You can find all the features you find attractive in all races. You can be attracted to different things as you grow up, so I don't see what I'm attracted to when I was 10 to always be set in stone and never change to when I'm 30. I'm not attracted to guys in a sexual manner, gay porn or romance doesn't do anything for me, so I'm pretty set in my sexuality as a heterosexual. Compared to sexuality which is mostly clear cut from a young age to when you're an adult, so I don't see the equivalence of race to sexual orientation.

You are right in that they are not equivalent in all ways, but in terms of them (preference or orientation) being outside the realm of conciously decidable things, they are equivalent. I agree that preferences need to be rather specific to exclude certain ethnicities, but since people may even have preferences for a certain skin tone, eye colour or hair structure, it is well possible, that one's preferences may not be met by any person of a certain ethnicity. How variable sexual preferences are, is also individual. My stated preferences haven't changes since the age of 14, so for 16 years. I have become more strict with one additional preference though: The person I date may not take any illegal drugs, may not smoke (not even once and a while) and may not drink excessive amounts of alcohol (preferrably: None). I find intoxication supremely off-turning and addictions disgusting.
 
It's racist and bullshit as well, most of those people would date someone of the race they so vehemently reject if the person in question was extremely good looking and in a favourable social position.
 
Your friend could have just politely refused dates with all "people of certain races" and nobody would have batted an eye. Advertising "your preferences" loudly and aggressively makes it racism because you are using your preferences as a weapon.

"I REALLY DISLIKE THIS POT OF FLOWERS THAT IS IN MIDDLE OF ROOM" - moaned the boy loudly, so that the whole house echoed, while sitting in a corner.
Please, as if there wouldn't be an immediate follow up question.
 
I think refusing to date ALL members of a race is racist, but saying you have a preference to one over another, is not.
Is it racist to say “I do not find x, y, and z features of that race to be attractive, therefore I generally won’t date them”?
 
I mean what you have said in op definitely seems racist.

But sometimes it can be a interesting and hard topic. I feel like it's just easier to date in similar culture; less nonsense you have to deal with. I have a friend who is mixed and one part of family have said some hurtful things towards him. I don't know if I would want to deal with that, I wouldn't even be interested if their parents disapproved of me.

Relationships are hard, and most of my family has told me that dating a girl similar to you culturally is just easier.
 
There are preferences for sure. Its about how you phrase it. Outright not date a girl/boy because of skin colour? Yep, very racist. but having preferences one of the other because of Music, culture, humour, looks, etc... not really.

for me its about interest really. I would rather date someone who likes indie music, reading, Maybe Anime than someone who likes Hip hop, sports, outdoor activities regardless of clour of one skin
 
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