Well, this may never go anywhere for other reasons, but it got me thinking anyway. Just got back from a date with a Nice Jewish Boy from the former Soviet Union, and though he was nice, he has a worldview common to people, especially Jewish people, who grew up in that neck of the woods. Specifically, he believes that Jewish people belong with Jewish people when it comes to long-term relationships, because most, but not all non-Jews will eventually be incompatible in long-term relationships with Jews.
I only spent a couple of hours with the guy, and we didn’t talk exclusively about this one issue by any means, so I haven’t exhausted my interrogation of him on the subject. Because I’m (at least nominally and culturally) Jewish and so he doesn’t see any barriers to dating me at this point, it should be no sweat off my back, right? However, this world view doesn’t necessarily match either my philosophy of inter-ethnic/interfaith (to whatever extent I have any religious faith at all) relations, because in my experience it generally starts to edge into racism territory.
So far he hasn’t said anything outright racist (unlike one former Soviet ex of mine, who literally told me he didn’t like to go out to hear music in Chicago “because there are blacks and Mexicans, and they’re dirty” - he didn’t last long after that). But it still sets off my humanist radar. I’ve dated probably half Jewish guys and half non-Jewish guys (who have been pretty much all over the map, ethnoculturally speaking), and so far have seen almost zero correlation between ethnicity and compatibility long-term (not that I’ve got a statistical sample going anyway, mind you). So given that the guy isn’t a complete moron, and so far seems perfectly nice and intelligent in other respects, at least enough to have picked up that I like to hang out with open-minded people (and he passed my Chechen tolerance quiz, which most former Soviets don’t), how do I tease out whether he is a racist, albeit one who hides it well, vs. someone who just believes in the preservation of Jewish culture, which I don’t (always necessarily) have a problem with?
I hope this makes sense. If not, I blame the cold medicine. Please discuss, free-associating if necessary; lord knows I sure have.