Is Being Opposed to Interracial Relations Necessarilly Racist

[MrDibble]

@Onomatopoeia

I wasn’t aware that shagging like a minx is an Asian stereotype.

Partly aDragon Lady thing, partly the whole “Me love you long time”/ping pong show/geisha Asian hooker thing.

[Skammer]

I’m not sure #1 is necessarily racist; people are attracted to what they are attracted to. It could be a result of racism or just very specific physical things that you are attracted too, like blue eyes or something.

No doubt about 2 and 3 though.

[Lemur866]

@MrDibble

What if you’re going to a poor country where the people are your own “race”, like Japanese going to Thailand or whatever? Still creepy and horrible, yes, but racist?

You’d make a Japanese guy’s head explode (and not in a good way) if you explained to him that Thais and Japanese are the same.

There are some nuances here. If you’re Japanese and living in Japan, you’re almost always going to end up in a relationship with another Japanese person. You don’t even have to think about whether you’d get into a relationship with a Chinese person or a Korean, much less a Europeans or African. There’s a subtle difference between “I don’t want to marry a foreigner” compared to “I don’t want to marry a white person or a black person or a hispanic person or a south asian person or a
Chinese person or a Korean person or a Thai person or an Australian aborigine or an Eskimo…”

[MandaJo]

@MrDibble

let me elaborate. If your reason is that you don’t find people of a particular race attractive, you’re a racist. As soon as you start putting people into groups based on what they look like, (as opposed to what they’ve done) you’re a racist, IMO. There’s a vast semantic difference between saying “I *haven’t *found a Black/Asian/White person I find attractive enough to be in a relationship with” and “I don’t find Black/… people attractive enough to be in a relationship with”

However, if your reason is that you don’t want the hassle because other people would frown on it, then you’re not a racist. Just a coward.

I think it comes down to if your opinion would change if your perception of their race changed: like if someone thought a co-worker was a hot Latina, but then lost interest when they discovered she was actually a light-skinned African American. I don’t see any way to read that except as racist, though possibly so deep-seated that it was beyond a person’s control, and not really “wrong”, so long as they didn’t let it affect their actions.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Mahaloth

Wait.

It does arouse some opposition in some people who have no problem with interracial romance?

I’ve adopted two kids from Korea, so I guess I’m ignorant…but…it does?

Here is some discussion.

[Chronos]

Quoth China Guy:

So, gentlemen prefer blondes is ok? Or “I’m really attracted to brunettes” is kosher.

Yet “I’m attracted to Asians” is racist.

There’s a difference between “I generally tend to be more attracted to brunettes” and “I would never consider a relationship with a blonde”. There’s no problem with having preferences, but when you take it to the point of categorically rejecting folks for something like hair color or race, that’s almost certainly a problem.

[VinylTurnip]

@Onomatopoeia

I wasn’t aware that shagging like a minx is an Asian stereotype.

“Squeaking like a hamster,” on the other hand, is something I’ve seen quite a bit. (How anyone finds that erotic is beyond my ability to understand.)

[Blackberry]

@Chronos

There’s a difference between “I generally tend to be more attracted to brunettes” and “I would never consider a relationship with a blonde”. There’s no problem with having preferences, but when you take it to the point of categorically rejecting folks for something like hair color or race, that’s almost certainly a problem.

I’d date a white guy without hesitation if I happened to meet one I was attracted to, but if you wanted to set me up on a blind date with your white friend, I’d decline without even giving him a chance, because it just doesn’t seem likely enough for me to go through the horrible trauma that is blind dates (so if you REALLY want me to meet this guy I guess you’re going to have to arrange a sneak blind date where I don’t actually know I’m on it [a double blind date if he doesn’t want to meet me either]).

I think the actual problem would come in if you did find yourself attracted to someone of whatever race and then thought to yourself, omg I can’t believe I’m attracted to this inferior person.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

So here’s the thing.

Growing up, I had white, black, Asian, Jewish friends. I had them over all the time. My mother made them food (I guess you’d call them appetizers) and got along with all of them.

Then I brought home a white girl and my mother was a real bitch. My sisters have plenty of white and black friends but when my sister got engaged to a white guy, she flipped.

My other sister got engaged to an Asian guy with a different ethnic nationality (for example Korean versus Vietnamese) and she flipped

I don’t think my mom is generally racist or has generally racist attitudes but when it comes to marriage, she turns into the grand wizard.

Is she really a racist and just hiding it really well.

[Chronos]

I’d date a white guy without hesitation if I happened to meet one I was attracted to, but if you wanted to set me up on a blind date with your white friend, I’d decline without even giving him a chance, because it just doesn’t seem likely enough for me to go through the horrible trauma that is blind dates (so if you REALLY want me to meet this guy I guess you’re going to have to arrange a sneak blind date where I don’t actually know I’m on it [a double blind date if he doesn’t want to meet me either]).

I don’t follow. Would you go through a horribly traumatic blind date with a black guy?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

In a general reply:

-I approve of interracial marriage (though not fornication, which of course applies for intrracial fornication too) and wouldn’t mind were I to be in one myself.
-My parents don’t exactly approve of interracial marriage, but I wouldn’t believe they would “flip out” per say.
-Asians by indicators in education level and income are far above the whites, Hispanics, and blacks, despite teh fact that they suffered from lynchings, exclusion acts, and internment.

[Kobal2]

1. Probably not, just like not wanting to be in an homosexual relationship yourself doesn’t make one a homophobe. If you’re not attracted to someone, you’re not attracted to someone. Unless by “relationship” you include friendship too, not just couples. “I couldn’t be friends with a black guy” is mos’ def’ racist.
2. racist if it’s a blanket “I don’t like (race) guys getting with (race) girls”. If it’s something like “I don’t like that Blue Tom is shacking with Red Jane” because one is your friend and you can’t stand the other specifically, then conceivably not.
3. <Dave Chapelle>So racist it doesn’t even make you mad, you just go “God damn that was… that was racist !”</DC>

[Onomatopoeia]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

In a general reply:

-I approve of interracial marriage (though not fornication, which of course applies for intrracial fornication too) and wouldn’t mind were I to be in one myself.

Define fornication.

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

-My parents don’t exactly approve of interracial marriage, but I wouldn’t believe they would “flip out” per say.

Too bad they don’t approve. I guess it’s a plus that they wouldn’t “flip out” whatever that means.

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

-Asians by indicators in education level and income are far above the whites, Hispanics, and blacks, despite teh fact that they suffered from lynchings, exclusion acts, and internment.

What does this have to do with the topic?

[Shagnasty]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

Asians by indicators in education level and income are far above the whites, Hispanics, and blacks, despite teh fact that they suffered from lynchings, exclusion acts, and internment.

This one is where you are going to piss people off with ignorance and prejudice. I am hard to offend so don’t worry about me flipping but I find this comment peculiar in particular. I am almost sure I know where this is coming from because I have heard it many times before. Asians had to undergo hardships and they made it, now look at the rest of these fuckups.

You are going to have to step it up about 11 intellectual notches on that argument and take it to Great Debates if you really believe that. Just for starters, Asia is the biggest continent in the world that has many different ethnic groups with wildly different histories. You are probably only referring to a subset of certain Asian countries and then even only those who you know about because they ended up in the U.S. or competing directly on our terms using parts of their culture to do it. Hispanic isn’t even a racial group at all. It includes all of them and is comprised of people descended from groups as varied as pure Spaniards to black Caribbean slaves.

Step back, look at a globe and think about that comment. This isn’t some PC bullshit I am telling you. It is simple geography and facts that you need to hone your skills on.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Onomatopoeia

Define fornication.

Sex between two unmarried people.

Too bad they don’t approve. I guess it’s a plus that they wouldn’t “flip out” whatever that means.
What does this have to do with the topic?

Some people were asking me on this.

[Siam_Sam]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

(2) Disapproving of others’ interracial relationships
(3) Wanting to ban or otherwise block interracial relationships.

Said person deserves a good sock in the nose.

@MrDibble

What if you’re going to a poor country where the people are your own “race”, like Japanese going to Thailand or whatever?

@Lemur866

You’d make a Japanese guy’s head explode (and not in a good way) if you explained to him that Thais and Japanese are the same.

The Thais would take offense at such a notion, too.

[Guinastasia]

Asians suffered from lynching here in the U.S.? On the same scale that blacks did? That’s news to me. :dubious:

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

In a general reply:

-I approve of interracial marriage (though not fornication, which of course applies for intrracial fornication too) and wouldn’t mind were I to be in one myself.
-My parents don’t exactly approve of interracial marriage, but I wouldn’t believe they would “flip out” per say.
-Asians by indicators in education level and income are far above the whites, Hispanics, and blacks, despite teh fact that they suffered from lynchings, exclusion acts, and internment.

Please supply examples of Asians being the object of lynchings on a scale anywhere near that of blacks.

Asian-Americanss have been discriminated against, of course. But in this country they’ve not suffered as a group anywhere near as much as African-Americans have. And, of course, African-Americans’ suffering pales next to that of Native Americans, or so it seems to me.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Shagnasty

This one is where you are going to piss people off with ignorance and prejudice. I am hard to offend so don’t worry about me flipping but I find this comment peculiar in particular. I am almost sure I know where this is coming from because I have heard it many times before. Asians had to undergo hardships and they made it, now look at the rest of these fuckups.

You are going to have to step it up about 11 intellectual notches on that argument and take it to Great Debates if you really believe that. Just for starters, Asia is the biggest continent in the world that has many different ethnic groups with wildly different histories. You are probably only referring to a subset of certain Asian countries and then even only those who you know about because they ended up in the U.S. or competing directly on our terms using parts of their culture to do it. Hispanic isn’t even a racial group at all. It includes all of them and is comprised of people descended from groups as varied as pure Spaniards to black Caribbean slaves.

Step back, look at a globe and think about that comment. This isn’t some PC bullshit I am telling you. It is simple geography and facts that you need to hone your skills on.

I wasn’t saying all of Asia was successful, I was explicitly talking about Asians within the American Republic.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Guinastasia

Asians suffered from lynching here in the U.S.? On the same scale that blacks did? That’s news to me. :dubious:

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Please supply examples of Asians being the object of lynchings on a scale anywhere near that of blacks.

Asian-Americanss have been discriminated against, of course. But in this country they’ve not suffered as a group anywhere near as much as African-Americans have. And, of course, African-Americans’ suffering pales next to that of Native Americans, or so it seems to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_American_history

Anti-Chinese movement

In the 1870s several economic crisises came about in parts of the United States, and many Americans lost their jobs, from which arose throughout the American West an anti-Chinese movement and its main mouthpiece, the Workingman’s Party labor organization, which was led by the Californian Denis Kearney. The party took particular aim against Chinese immigrant labor and the Central Pacific Railroad that employed them. Its famous slogan was “The Chinese must go!”. Kearney’s attacks against the Chinese were particularly virulent and openly racist, and found considerable support among white people in the American West. This sentiment led eventually to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Their propaganda branded the Chinese migrants as “perpetual foreigners” whose work caused wage dumping and thereby prevented American men from “gaining work”. After the 1893 economic downturn, measures adopted in the severe depression included anti-Chinese riots that eventually spread throughout the West from which came racist violence and massacres. Most of the Chinese farm workers, which in 1890 made up a 75 percent share of all Californian agricultural workers, were expelled. The Chinese found refuge and shelter in the Chinatowns of large cities. The vacant agricultural jobs subsequently proved to be so unattractive to the unemployed white Europeans that they avoided to sign up; most of the vacancies were then filled by Japanese workers, after whom in the decades later came the Filipinos, and finally the Mexicans.[66] The term “Chinaman”, originally coined as a self-referential term by the Chinese, came to be used as a term against the Chinese in America as the new term “Chinaman’s chance” came to symbolize the unfairness Chinese experienced in the American justice system as some were murdered largely due to hatred of their race and culture.

Discrimination
A political cartoon criticizing how the US is protesting against the fact that Russia is excluding Jewish People, yet the US are excluding Chinese people.

The flow of immigration (encouraged by the Burlingame Treaty of 1868) was stopped by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This act outlawed all Chinese immigration to the United States and denied citizenship to those already settled in the country. Renewed in 1892 and extended indefinitely in 1902, the Chinese population declined until the act was repealed in 1943 by the Magnuson Act.[32] Official discrimination extended to the highest levels of the U.S. government: in 1888, U.S. President Grover Cleveland, who supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, proclaimed the Chinese “an element ignorant of our constitution and laws, impossible of assimilation with our people and dangerous to our peace and welfare.”[67]

Many Western states also enacted discriminatory laws that made it difficult for Chinese and Japanese immigrants to own land and find work. Some of these Anti-Chinese laws were the Foreign Miners’ License tax, which required a monthly payment of three dollars from every foreign miner who did not desire to become a citizen. Foreign-born Chinese could not become citizens because they had been rendered ineligible to citizenship by the Naturalization Act of 1790 that reserved naturalized citizenship to "“free white persons”.[68] This remained in place until voided by the Civil Rights Act of 1870.[citation needed]

By then, California had collected five million dollars from the Chinese. Another was “An Act to Discourage Immigration to this State of Persons Who Cannot Become Citizens Thereof”, which imposed on the master or owner of a ship a landing tax of fifty dollars for each passenger ineligible to naturalized citizenship. “To Protect Free White Labor against competition with Chinese Coolie Labor and to Discourage the Immigration of Chinese into the State of California” was another law (aka Anti-Coolie Act, 1862) that imposed a $2.50 tax per month on all Chinese residing in the state, except Chinese operating businesses, licensed to work in mines, or engaged in the production of sugar, rice, coffee or tea. In 1886, the Supreme Court struck down a Californian law, in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, judging that although it was race-neutral on its face, it was administered in a prejudicial manner was an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The law aimed in particular against Chinese laundry businesses.

However, this decision was only a temporary setback for the Nativist movement. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act made it unlawful for Chinese laborers to enter the United States for the next 10 years and denied naturalized citizenship to Chinese already here. Initially intended for Chinese laborers, it was broadened in 1888 to include all persons of the “Chinese race”. And in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson effectively canceled Yick Wo. v. Hopkins, by supporting the “separate but equal” doctrine.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Surgeon General Walter Wyman requested to put San Francisco’s Chinatown under quarantine because of an outbreak of bubonic plague. Chinese residents, supported by governor Henry Gage (1899–1903) and local businesses, fought the quarantine through numerous federal court battles, claiming the Marine Hospital Service was violating their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, and in the process, launched lawsuits against Kinyoun, director of the San Francisco Quarantine Station.[69]

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake allowed a critical change to Chinese immigration patterns. The practice known as “Paper Sons” and “Paper Daughters” was allegedly introduced. Chinese would declare themselves to be United States citizens whose records were lost in the earthquake.[70]

A year before, more than 60 labor unions formed the Asiatic Exclusion League in San Francisco, including labor leaders Patrick Henry McCarthy (mayor of San Francisco from 1910 to 1912), Olaf Tveitmoe (first president of the organization), and Andrew Furuseth and Walter McCarthy of the Sailor’s Union. The League was almost immediately successful in pressuring the San Francisco Board of Education to segregate Asian school children.