# A poll and general discussion about interracial relationships **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 30, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-and-general-discussion-about-interracial-relationships/534353 "2010-03-30T18:13:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 89
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-and-general-discussion-about-interracial-relationships/534353/89 "2010-04-01T03:28:36Z")
**- How much would a negative reaction from a family member to you dating interracially impact your decision to continue dating a) the same individual, and b) any future individual of a different race?** It’s easy for me to say it wouldn’t matter to me, but perhaps I’ve not sufficiently appreciated this actually being a possibility. There are certain things in my life that I _do_ purposely avoid bringing up to my parents because I know how strongly they would disapprove and don’t want to deal with it. Maybe if my family disapproved strongly of interracial dating, I’d have been discouraged from dating outside of my race. Then again, the thoughts in my head about whatever it is I think or how I spend my weekends are easily something I never have to share with them (outside of some mild-to-moderate tongue biting at Thanksgiving dinner); deliberately manipulating my love interests and/or hiding them in order to avoid scorn are much, _much_ different, so maybe I would put my foot down. So, I don’t know how I’d treat the situation, even though I’d like to think my inner I-Do-What-I-Want would do what it wants. I have no problem doing whatever the hell I please despite people’s disapprovals, but for some reason, it’s a lot tougher with family. Hell, I haven’t even come out of the atheist closet yet, and I’ve been agnostic since I was 12 years old, and full-blown official atheist since 17. In any case, in real life (hypothetical babbling aside) my family, fortunately, couldn’t care less about what race I’m dating if they tried. I have one sister who gets all “kill whitey” at times, but she’s very easy to ignore in that regard. The rest of my family doesn’t care, and my parents certainly don’t. Maybe because they’re not d-bags? Maybe because they had to deal with scorn out “outside” dating themselves? They’re the same race, but my grandmother nearly died 1,000 deaths when my mother dared married an American. \*\*There was some discussion earlier of the idea of black women perhaps getting the short end of the stick when black men date interracially, and I’d love to explore that further, particularly if it relates to other races, as well. \*\* This is why I agree with **ReticulatingSplines** when he says this poll would be interesting if divided by gender. Black, White and Latina (Latino/a not a race, I know, let’s not go there when you know damn well what I mean) women very often want to only date and sleep with men of their own race. My cite is the people I’ve known my entire life. For them, their race _is_ the entire dating pool. For men, the dating pool is people. Men, of any race, will usually date/screw whoever they like or think is cute, and never even have any concern over the races that people of their own race are seeing. Very, very rarely have I heard a few black men whine that what he defined as “educated black women” were either fiercely single, or didn’t date black guys. Now of course, I’ve got my theories on their theories, which are a separate conversation entirely (or maybe not), I’m just saying this kind of gripe has been otherwise nonexistent among men in my admittedly limited personal experience. And while this kind of gripe is not common among women either, if I were to categorize these types of complaints by sex, I’d reckon 95% have come from women. > [@Shakester](#): > > I’ve heard arguments that it’s based on aesthetics (“I only find black/white skin attractive”) but… well, that’s not very convincing. It sounds to me like an excuse, not a reason. There are attractive and unattractive people of all races, and the greater part of attraction comes from personality, not looks. To this, I give you this, from another thread I saw in CS some months ago. > [@Oh....you're \*that\* stupid; got it (John Mayer's Playboy interview)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-youre-that-stupid-got-it-john-mayers-playboy-interview/528558/101): > > It’s not that I don’t believe any of these claims. I just think that saying “I don’t like black women” is so sweeping and broad that it signals a preference not based merely based on appearance, but something else that for some reason isn’t being copped to. At best, that something else is a close-minded view of what black women look like or an insularity that isn’t anything to be proud of (someone announcing that they only like pizza is cute…if they are 3 years old). At worst, it’s a hangup against Africanness that compells someone to casually drop this nugget of insight into conversation. > > I hear you about white men, and my own preferences tend towards black men. But I admire the looks of enough non-blacks (whites included) that I can’t get with saying “I don’t find \ attractive”, even as a form of shorthand. Along those lines, your issue doesn’t seem to be white men, per se, but with pale skin. What distinguishes that from say, not liking black women, is that there are plenty of black women who are pretty damn pale, or have long straight hair, or whatever. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-and-general-discussion-about-interracial-relationships/534353)._