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As a White Man, Can I Date Women of Color to Advance My Antiracism?
I’m a straight white dude and recent college grad who has very progressive beliefs and is looking for a committed partner who, in time, can equitably raise a family with me. I have almost zero honest-to-goodness physical preferences. I’ve dated women of various shapes and sizes, various skin, hair and eye colors, etc., and have been attracted to all of them.
Here’s what’s controversial among my friends: I want to prioritize dating women of color. I’m after a cross-cultural relationship. I believe very strongly that one of the main ways to combat racism is through relationships. Part of me thinks that I will always be somewhat disappointed if what ends up becoming one of the most important relationships in my life is with another white person. If someone is a woman of color, that checks a box for me in a real way. I am seeking to be antiracist in all my relationships.
Part of the reason that I prioritize it is to combat implicit bias, having grown up in a fairly white, quasi rural place. I am dedicated to educating myself on issues of racism, sexism and other forms of kyriarchy while also learning from marginalized people. For me, principles lead the way to attractions. I start by eating a food or adopting a habit because it’s good for me, and after trying it enough times, I find I really like it for what it is. The same applies to people I’m considering dating.
Both I and my hypothetical partner of color would be choosing more learning and less comfort, to put forth greater effort and practice more listening, than we otherwise would in a culturally homogeneous committed relationship. And one of the main ways that I hope to combat racism individually is by leveraging my own privilege (economic, family connections, education) for people of color, including any biracial children we bring into this world. Here’s my question: Despite my well-meaning antiracist principles, is this preference (as friends have suggested) wrong, insensitive or somehow itself racist? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Your devotion to self-improvement is impressive. Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage. You’d be using your erotic ecumenism to level up. Where your shallower classmates have hookups, your dates would be teach-ins. ‘‘Do the work,’’ the slogan urges, and you’re rolling up your sleeves.
A few cautions. You may be a little hasty in conflating ‘‘interracial’’ with ‘‘cross- cultural’’; it sounds as if you’d prefer to make a life with someone who basically shares your values and doesn’t have to Google words like ‘‘kyriarchy.’’ (I see that it’s a coinage by the feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza to designate interconnected systems of domination on the basis of gender, race, religion and other identities.) And then treating a relationship like a seminar can lead to trouble: What happens when you’ve finished your fieldwork, read through the syllabus and are ready for a new instructor? If the model is, instead, a healthful dietary regimen, will you allow yourself cheat days?
That much-vaunted work ethic can, I fear, sometimes overspill its bounds. (‘‘Still working on that?’’ the waiter asks, as if we’ve been peering at our pastries through a welding hood.) Play, rather than work, may sometimes be the better approach in the romantic realm. Although you’re not objectifying your hypothetical partner, you are, just a little, instrumentalizing her. That’s not to say you aren’t entitled to pursue this campaign of strenuous self-optimizing. Just be transparent about your box-checking ambitions. Perhaps some prospects will be grateful for your offer to put your privileges at their disposal while you embark on your journey of uplift. But — how to put this? — I suspect that most would rather be your honey bun than your grain bowl.
Link
Here’s what’s controversial among my friends: I want to prioritize dating women of color. I’m after a cross-cultural relationship. I believe very strongly that one of the main ways to combat racism is through relationships. Part of me thinks that I will always be somewhat disappointed if what ends up becoming one of the most important relationships in my life is with another white person. If someone is a woman of color, that checks a box for me in a real way. I am seeking to be antiracist in all my relationships.
Part of the reason that I prioritize it is to combat implicit bias, having grown up in a fairly white, quasi rural place. I am dedicated to educating myself on issues of racism, sexism and other forms of kyriarchy while also learning from marginalized people. For me, principles lead the way to attractions. I start by eating a food or adopting a habit because it’s good for me, and after trying it enough times, I find I really like it for what it is. The same applies to people I’m considering dating.
Both I and my hypothetical partner of color would be choosing more learning and less comfort, to put forth greater effort and practice more listening, than we otherwise would in a culturally homogeneous committed relationship. And one of the main ways that I hope to combat racism individually is by leveraging my own privilege (economic, family connections, education) for people of color, including any biracial children we bring into this world. Here’s my question: Despite my well-meaning antiracist principles, is this preference (as friends have suggested) wrong, insensitive or somehow itself racist? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Your devotion to self-improvement is impressive. Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage. You’d be using your erotic ecumenism to level up. Where your shallower classmates have hookups, your dates would be teach-ins. ‘‘Do the work,’’ the slogan urges, and you’re rolling up your sleeves.
A few cautions. You may be a little hasty in conflating ‘‘interracial’’ with ‘‘cross- cultural’’; it sounds as if you’d prefer to make a life with someone who basically shares your values and doesn’t have to Google words like ‘‘kyriarchy.’’ (I see that it’s a coinage by the feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza to designate interconnected systems of domination on the basis of gender, race, religion and other identities.) And then treating a relationship like a seminar can lead to trouble: What happens when you’ve finished your fieldwork, read through the syllabus and are ready for a new instructor? If the model is, instead, a healthful dietary regimen, will you allow yourself cheat days?
That much-vaunted work ethic can, I fear, sometimes overspill its bounds. (‘‘Still working on that?’’ the waiter asks, as if we’ve been peering at our pastries through a welding hood.) Play, rather than work, may sometimes be the better approach in the romantic realm. Although you’re not objectifying your hypothetical partner, you are, just a little, instrumentalizing her. That’s not to say you aren’t entitled to pursue this campaign of strenuous self-optimizing. Just be transparent about your box-checking ambitions. Perhaps some prospects will be grateful for your offer to put your privileges at their disposal while you embark on your journey of uplift. But — how to put this? — I suspect that most would rather be your honey bun than your grain bowl.
Link
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if this is for real
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Which can lead to Social Justice Pokémon collection.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the metaphor of men who approach women as puzzle boxes containing a Tasty Sex Treat? You’re treating partners of color as puzzle boxes full of Nutritious Enlightenment Spinach.
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Also, have you thought through how the folks in your theoretical partner's own culture are going to react to your relationship -- not only how her family and friends will treat you, but also how they'll treat her?
And can't you do some of the same work by slowly building close and committed friendships with people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds? If you can't form a close friendship with a person who's not from your white background, what makes you think you can form a stable marriage?
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On the other hand, he's exorcizing and othering people, in his enthusiasm to get to know them better.
So: internalize your beliefs, dude, get more compassionate and real, and less academic about it all.
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rather than dating someone because of who they are as a *person*
a form of racism and fetishization?
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Anyhoo, I appreciate the ethicist point out that cross-cultural vs interracial would not necessarily check the same boxes for him. I don’t see him reacting well when his African fiancée expects him to pay a bride price to her family, or when his Latina wife insists they’re baptizing their baby in the Catholic Church.
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And also the necessary clues, most awesomely.
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But although he may be looking for 'a perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort and command', maybe he also needs to work on his cis heteronormative assumptions and I would be tempted to throw that into the mix if he is so eager to manifest his progressive ideals....
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"My wife makes me so much better! When she goes away for the weekend, she comes home to a house in shambles, because I don't do anything she doesn't tell me directly to do at least four times but then I do it so I'm better go me." Not points-worthy.
I mean, yes, ideally all people in relationships learn from each other, but...that's not this.
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Ugh, no, "my wife is here to be my learning experience" isn't materially better than "my wife is here to be civilized and modified by me into precisely what I want." ughghhghghghg.
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(I recall Bill Maher decrying Indian casinos because they sully Native Americans’ spirituality; they’re the conscience of this country. I wanted to fling poop at the screen; it’s not Native Americans’ job to be White Americans’ anything, particularly not our vicarious repositories of virtue that we can’t be bothered to practice ourselves.)
Citation: here at about 5:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vy9Fm0fqDU
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The same Bill Maher who said that people who object to the practice of dressing up as carictures of Native Americans are so wrong we cause others to vote for Trump?
I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate him. I could rant about him for DAYS. I once lived with an ardent fan of his. forcibly stops myself
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I love all of the comments above mine for Getting It.
I'm wincing in all my melanin with bad memories and am just going to hug myself for a bit.
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No.
Next question?