And this is my point of disagreement. Sure, we can’t force someone to date (a general term I will use for sex, romance, etc) with someone. There is an absolutely right of refusal. But you guys are acting like that’s the end of the conversation. And I don’t agree it is. There’s no reason that fighting the racism, even at the individual level, has to mean forcing them to date any particular person.
For example, we can do what we normally do with people who show signs of racism. If we notice someone who seems to categorically reject dating any black person, we can talk with them to confirm our suspicions. We can then try to convince them of what we see. We can discuss why such preferences are harmful and why they should try to open their mind by exposing themselves to various attractive people of the race they don’t prefer. We can push them to confront prejudices and biases.
And if it’s a pattern of bigotry, we also have the bigger guns at our disposal with those who are particularly stubborn. We can refuse to interact with them when they act that way. We can tell other people about how they act. We can scold. We can provide consequences ourselves and encourage others to do so.
None of this requires pressuring someone to date any particular individual. I agree that that is sacrosanct. Where I disagree is that this makes this sort of racism something that can’t be dealt with. And I disagree that we can do so at a societal level without inherently doing so at an individual level, as society is made up of individuals.
I don’t disagree that aesthetics are the interaction of the individual and the culture. But the culture is a necessary part, and you will not wind up aligning with the bigotries of a culture without that bigotry having influenced that preference to some degree. And, when such an aesthetic preference affects others, I believe we have a duty to try and combat it. What we find beautiful is largely influenced by exposure, so we should then expose ourselves to things that go outside our usual aesthetic comfort zone. Or, to put it in a practical way: someone who finds they don’t find black women attractive (but do find women of other races attractive) should be exposing themselves to more beautiful black women. In fact, this is something I personally had to do.
I do not agree, however, that sexuality works the same way. If it did, then the above argument would apply. At least some of our sexual preferences would be created by culture and we would have an obligation to try and overcome that. However, the fact that things like conversion therapy or actively trying to make yourself not gay don’t work show that it isn’t the same. There is something that is biologically innate involved in sexuality that is not so for aesthetic preferences.
I reject the idea that, say, finding dark skin unattractive is the same as, say, not finding women attractive. There is a difference here in how someone should react in that situation. One is something to try and correct, while the other isn’t.
Again, none of this means that any individual person should be able to dictate that I should be attracted to a particular individual, let alone that I should not have bodily autonomy and be able to reject them. I do think, however, that if I encounter someone who, say, has an Asian fetish, it’s okay for me to think that’s bad and try to encourage them to not do that. I would not think that if it was trying to encourage a gay guy to be attracted to women, however.
If the one is moral and the other not, then their nature must also be different in some way.
I am never a fan of anyone who argues “Yeah, that’s racist, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” which is what you seemed to be arguing.
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