People's mate preferences are racist. Do we care?

Great Debates
1

Time:

Of course this is racism, if anything is. But is it good racism? The obvious reason to allow mate racism is that people enjoy mating better when they better like their mates, and people think they care about the race of their mates. But this same argument applies to allowing racism by firms, schools, and clubs. Firms are full of people, including employees, customers, suppliers, and investors, any of which might care about the race of folks with which they would have to deal, mingle, associate, etc… At schools, the teachers, students, and ultimate employers of those students may also care about race.

Yes people may be mistaken about how much they care about the race of their associates, and perhaps this justifies government policies forbidding overt racism at firms, schools, or clubs. But why doesn’t this apply just as well to mating? Sure it is impossible to legislate away all racism in dating, but the same is true for hiring etc. Why don’t we at least forbid overt mating racism, such as race-based searches? We could even collect stats on the race of folks that people contact at dating sites, just as we check now on rates rates in hiring at firms, etc.

[ul]
[li]One explanation is that we mistakenly intuit that imposing rules on firms only hurts those abstract entities, not the people associated with them. Or we think such rules only hurt investors and managers, who we don’t care about. [/li][li]Perhaps we only dislike racism that changes incomes, not happiness — yet mates often change income a lot. Another explanation is that we only don’t care about racism in the “personal” sphere, though this just changes the question to what exactly is “personal” and why do we care differently about such things. [/li][li]Another possibility is that everyone is dating-racist, while only a few people are hiring-racist, if only because only a few people are in charge of hiring decisions. People, especially non-hirers, can carp about hiring-racism to lower the relative status of particular people or groups they don’t like. By contrast, nobody is unusually devoid of dating-racism, so there’s no critical mass of status-seeking castigators. [/li][li]Or perhaps we just turn a blind eye to abysmal evil behavior as long as it’s done for love. So, while we may mouth pretty egalitarian lies in our daily lives, we’re ruthlessly Darwinian where it matters: when it comes to procreation, and we’re okay with that.[/li][/ul]

What do you think?

2

We allow it because the alternative would be worse. In fact this is one of the places where my opinions diverge from the hardcore social liberals, and feel that while government can be a bully pulpit, I think that in balance freedom of association should have very few legal obstacles except where government is directly involved.

Of course, the benefits of making discrimination illegal even by private institutions are usually tangible enough that I won’t complain too much that they are legislatively proclaimed rather than simply wagged at with a finger by the government.

This is not one of those cases. This is one of the instances where the benefits of legislation are so small that freedom of association should be allowed to function.

3

Yes it would be extraordinarily intrusive to force equality of dating outcomes, but there’s plenty we can do to combat mate racism without blackshirt tactics. We could at least ban sites from encouraging such segregation by offering filter-by-race options, and apply social pressure, by disapproving of mate-racist opinions. Both very cheap and nonintrusive, but we don’t even do that.

Also, do you think this discrimination is morally wrong?

4

To me, a “racist” is a person who believes that certain races are inherently inferior to other races.

I don’t think that it means someone is a racist just because they choose their mates in part based on the race of the potential mate. People like who they like, and race is one factor in who they like, and that’s perfectly OK. The fact that a white man may not like to date a black woman does not mean that the white man thinks that black people are inherently inferior to white people. It just means that black women don’t get his dick hard. And that’s perfectly OK.

5

I think the idea that an individual preferring x race over y race in a potential mate constitutes racism is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in quite some time.

6

We allow “mate racism” for the same reason we allow “friend racism.” You are free to associate, with whomever you want, on your own free time…and I’m gonna need a definition for “good racism”?

It absolutely does not, pal (edit addition: …maybe clubs?)

They are not free to care about the other person’s race.

Why do you think that the state should legislate people’s sex life?

7

What provision of the Constitution would allow Congress to pass such a ban?

8

Well, the point of a business is to make money*, not provide a group of peers to socialize with. But the point of dating is to spend time with someone who you enjoy spending time with, and so I think it’s less reasonable to allow the government to restrict who we spend time with.

*Unless it’s a nonprofit, I guess.

9

The problem is that word racist has evolved into such a negative connotation. As such, it is not racist for me to prefer to date women of my own race, by any modern day understanding of the word as it is used today.

Because it’s none of your business who people choose to date? It is certainly not the concern of the Government or whomever you are referring to as “we.” Sorry.

10

Are you serious? Should we also prohibit selection based on sex? What about age? Hell, why can’t we force people to date ugly people?

Fact is, these mechanisms reflect actual preferences, and getting rid of the code won’t have any effect on the choices people make in dating.

11

Google ads for interracial “romance”

Ah yeah…:cool:

12

Excellent question. After all, if choosing a mate based in part on race is racism, then surely the fact that almost all people prefer only one gender is sexism. Should gender-based searches on dating sites not be allowed?

13

You are trying to paint the default choice to be more government involvement. Despite being in the third or fourth most liberal quartile in America in most things, I wouldn’t go so far as to assume government has a right to legislate about anything unless proven it would be much better if they don’t.

So it’s up to you to show that allowing the intrusiveness will produce a better outcome than not legislating it. I don’t think it will.

I don’t think the personal preference of race that people enter is wrong: often, it’s just simply a characteristic they are or are not attracted to and there’s nothing wrong with simply admitting it.

Requiring race, on the other hand, sure, I think there should be an option to not specify one’s race when you sign up. But it’s not a huge thing, and definitely not worth the risk to set a precedent for more government involvement in these sorts of things.

14

Yes, it can be called “racist,” but there are several gradations of racism. Government ought to ensure that racism is being diminished as a factor in our economic and political order, but personal interaction is not regulated because of both the insurmountable difficulties and its smaller role in the organization of society. (Economic policies that address current and historical race-based wealth differentials can indirectly promote social equality, but the reverse–if it were even possible–would be enormously difficult to achieve.)

I’m aware that for many people race influences their perception of physical attractiveness, so that social conditioning implicitly affects their mate selections. While this is in no way a good thing, my estimation of a person’s morals are based primarily on the factors they have full control over–their political affiliations and activities; their choice of sex partners is of secondary importance.

15

Just to go slightly beyond OPs post…

I think it’s easy to envision a scenario of the government justifying its intrusion into sex lives and reproduction.

For the sake the argument, let’s hypothesize that the scientists researching DNA and genes determine that a society consisting of interracial babies will have the highest resistance against birth defects and adult cancers. Yes, the inbreeding between European whites (a Swede having a baby with an Italian) or Latins (Brazilian marrying a Venezuelan) is not quite as bad as the Egyptian pharoah sibling incest but nevertheless, the new data suggests interracial blood has the highest resistance to disease – a bio diversity of humans that can’t be wiped out by a plague. Also, an interracial “brown” citizenry is cheaper to insure with Universal Health Care. We also save money on SPF 45 sunscreen which we can apply towards other things such as books and video games. The list of benefits is endless and it’s a win win for all of society.

Armed with this reasoning, the government can’t leave the decision of which penises goes into which vagina to the whims of fickle humans! The “good of society” demands that you let the government pick your partner. If you insist that you reserve the right to choose your mate, then you are branded a racist that opposes “societies higher goals”.

In this scenario, would your intrinsic sexual attraction to certain races trump the state’s goal of a genetically designed uber-race? Why?

16

The comparison to sexism is a good one. Racism usually involves judgments or actions with intent. Most of us agree that you don’t have much control over who, or what type of person, you are attracted to - although your preferences do sometimes change with time or experience. So attraction is generally exempt from accusations of racism.

17

Is this a backdoor argument against discrimination law? Given your history, I suspect that it is. The obvious differences between the workplace (and related institutions like school, and business related clubs) and dating make this kind of argument a non starter.

One area where the two disparate areas overlap is in workplace discrimination based on choice of partner. This is not uncommon in discrimination law. White employees who have been reprimanded or terminated b/c they are dating or married to blacks, Latinos or Asians.

Obviously no good can come of legislating dating choices. I suspect that any movement in that area will come from feminists who are outraged at older men dating younger women, rather than issues of ethnic preference.

Some of the people who sign up for online dating services are specifically looking for partners of different ethnic backgrounds from their own, so for example, black American women who are specifically looking to meet white American men would be barred from pursuing their most ardent desires. Hardly a benefit to those particular women.

Another thing that hasn’t been addressed is the fact that people often lie in online dating. Their profiles, their preferred partners, their incomes and educations are either fabricated or aspirational. What someone hopes to get versus what they actually can get or what they usually settle for.

When someone says that they would never date a member of group X, I view it with decided skepticism. Good for them if they can make good on their declaration. Not so good if they’re denying desires that either make them ashamed, or are unacceptable to express in their social circle.
Analysis on a related issue from Frank Sweet:

http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=18

18

Yes, because it’s unlikely that the more rapid rate of interbreeding achieved with a government mandate (over the default rate of interbreeding due to migrations) would yield such large cost savings as to justify this. There are much more effective ways of solving such problems.

Also, depending on the strength of the attraction, pairing people up may not get you any babies whatsoever.

19

You lost all credibility with me when you opened with this statement.

If the rest of your post rests on this as fact, than I need you to support this before we can proceed.

20

Yeah, I thought as much, too, but decided to take the question at face value.
(I’ve seen this kind of “argument” from conservatives before. Essentially, it goes something like this:

-Assume that liberals want government intervention as a corrective for any injustice, no matter in which domain or how severe.
-Claim that because our choice of intimate partners is more personal than any economic decisions, that it is more significant in shaping society.

Based on these two fallacies, declare that the liberal approach to government and society is inconsistent and therefore invalid.)