I think there are a lot more people who’d much rather be in a relationship with someone who has preferences that includes them than there are people who are worried about proving themselves worthy to people whose preferences excludes them.
So making it harder for people to tell where someone’s preferences lie may pay off for a few people, but it may make things harder for a lot more others who’d rather not waste time and energy on people who thinks their race is icky.
You have the situation backwards. Many people might wish to date people who do not wish to date them. They may fail to attract others due to their height, weight, personal habits, politics, food preferences or any number of reasons. Failing to attract the object of one’s desire, however, does not mean that no one in the whole world will be attracted to one. The vast majority of high school geeks and wallflowers do eventually get married, even if they do not manage to catch the star quarterback or head cheerleader.
You are proposing a standard that encourages the stalker personailty, where anyone who takes a fancy to another can then demand that the object of desire must return the affection.
That’s not what I was saying. When I said “them”, I was using that term generically, and not as a specific person that the lonely person is stalking.
For example, when I say, “I wish teenagers would quit playing their car radios so loud. What makes them think I want to hear their rap music?” The “them” in that sentence is just a general reference. There’s no specific teenager I’m singling out to shoot with a shotgun.
Anti discrimination laws are applied to individuals, not groups. If you decided to pass such a law in regards to dating, you would be establishing a law under which anyone who chose to “take” someone of a protected class could simply claim discrimination if their overture was declined.
I wasn’t thinking of a heavy-handed system where the undesirable race creates sex slaves of others. The “anti-discrimination” could be in the form of tax incentives, or the suggestions made the athelas earlier.
The bottom line is that we tolerate discrimination for dating because it suits us. It’s not because there’s any common moral framework that’s consistently applied to both employment and romance.
As an 11-year old, I remember having to get up 1 hour early for school to be bused 30 miles across the city because the school district wanted to have integrated black & white student populations. Maybe my mother didn’t want me to hang out with black kids. And maybe I didn’t want to get up an hour early to hang out with black kids. Our preference to just go to the school across the street didn’t matter. Spending “quality” time with black kids was more important. In my case, it wasn’t really necessary since my neighborhood was already full of black children. Is this type of approach too heavy-handed for dating? For example, force all the white women to a community center and force them to have 10 minute conversations with blacks and Asians. There’s no forcing of penises into vaginas here… just “quality” chat time.
Busing was heavy handed and wrong for racial and ethnic educational issues, so I am hardly likely to agree to it or any analog for dating issues.
You continue to claim that the distinctions are arbitrary and unreal and I decline to accept your claim. I have pointed out the real differences and you choose, for whatever reason, to shrug them off. We seem unlikely to be able to come to a resolution on the issue.
We shouldn’t try in any way to force anyone to date someone they don’t want to, but it would be nice if we could take steps to eradicate or diminish the negative stereotypes/hollywood portrayals that are often the source of the negative opinions that people may have. You don’t think if the portrayals of certain groups were more positive in popular media that people would suddenly start thinking of their own accord, “hey maybe I should give them a try”?
Is my (hypothetical) preference for brunettes expressing a prejudice against blondes and redheads? Likewise brown eyes vs. blue eyes vs. green, or whatever physical trait you care to name? Or am I peachy-keen and above reproach only when my physical preference does not include skin color or “race”? Or is it a mere preference (those traits which really get me going), no more significant than my preference for Wheaties over Lucky Charms? [Images of leprechauns picketing my apartment, carrying signs like “Down with Blue Marshmallow-Haters!” now fill my head]
I’ll be honest-I’ve rarely found AA women attractive, but have on some occasions; for the most part tho the reason was personality or interests went against my grain (it’s even rarer to find an AA woman into fantasy/SF, computer gaming, science, spirituality, etc. than it is a white or even Asian woman). I have had the cojones for some Asian/Middle Eastern women tho (there was a hugely cute Turkish girl on the Olympics last night whose slightly large nose nonetheless added tons of character to her face, and my first love was Turkish for that matter).
Can’t tell if you’re being serious here, but this is way too heavy-handed. Talk about Big Brother…
To me, the important distinction is as follows:
A significant proportion of elements in mate preference ** is ** irrational. Perhaps a psycho-analyst or evolution scientist can explain your ideal mate’s physical characteristics like height, hair colour etc, notwithstanding that the rest of us agree it’s a case of “whatever floats your boat, mate”, if you’ll pardon the expression.
In contrast, we as a society have determined that a worker’s suitability in employment can be objectively measured, and is rarely affected directly by factors such as race, gender, age (within limits) etc. So we demand employers to be rational in their HR policy and not discriminate on those bases alone.
So, a person may choose not to date people of certain ethnicity because they made a rational decision based on an (however) incorrect negative stereotype, in which case this would be a form of racism in my opinion; or because they just don’t find people of that ethnicity physically attractive to them, i.e. an irrational preference.
In case it isn’t obvious (apparently to some posters), sexual orientation is clearly an irrational choice in this regard. No one chooses to be gay or straight (or other), so no, accepting the possibility of racism in mate preference does not equate to accepting that you are a sexist because you like women only. Well, unless you only like women better than men because “they are better at housekeeping”.
Plus, discrimination in employment and public accomodation can be used as a tool for politioceconomic subjugation of population segment A by population segment B (e.g. Jim Crow, Apartheid, etc.). Seeking mates that have a certain look or with whom I have a certain cultural affinity(*) does no such thing. There IS a difference between public and private.
(*Fortunately for me, my tastes and cultural affinities are quite diverse to begin with)
Social segregation in the private sphere can only be dealt with by integrating the public/economic spaces and providing the educational guidance so as to create the opportunity for free interaction between the groups, and hoping for the best. I CAN require someone to treat someone else with respect and fairness in order to do business with me, *but I can’t force the parties to like, and enjoy the company of, each other. *THAT has to come from within. And I’d feel morally unjustified to seek to compel them to “try out” getting to know and like each other. There must be no compulsion in friendship or romance.
We require employers to not discriminate in hiring based on factors not related to the applicant’s potential ability to do the job (similar rules apply to landlords). We DO allow them, though, to discriminate based on certain personal traits when the applicant’s ability for the work to be performed is impaired beyond reasonable accomodation by the trait (e.g. no blind bus drivers).
In dating, we are allowed to discriminate based on the prospect’s potential ability to trigger the nonrational response of attraction; their ability to do the job of “floating our boat”, to borrow the phrase.
One thing we haven’t talked about here is the fact there many different dating markets, not just one. They differ by locale, socio economic millieu, ethnic group,etc.
Even if a person feels finds members of every ethnic group attractive, chances are he/she will do better in one market than another. Most of us have experienced something like this - in your hometown, you’re a nobody, but when you move to a different city, the guys are all over you. Or you were a stud in high school, but in college, the girls won’t give you the time of day. Or schlubby white dudes suddenly find themselves to be hot properties when they travel in Asia. Or overweight black American girls who are shocked to find that many African men find an extra 30 lbs quite sexy. Or my Jewish coworker who was always being overlooked in favor of blonde girls here in Cali, but became exotic and sexy when she visited Sweden.
I don’t do online dating, but if I did, I would probably restrict my profile to black women only. It’s not that I’m not attracted to white women or Asian women. It’s that I’m shallow and vain.
I want the hottest chicks I can get, all things being equal. My best chance of hot chicks - say Tyra Ferrrelcirca White Men Can’t Jump, orLauren Hill circa The Education of Lauryn Hill - is by restricting my profile to black women.
Although I can assure you that I wouldn’t kick CariDee English* out of bed, white women who look like her are are generally not going to answer my profile. The white women that are, well, - Kelly Osborne needs love too, she just ain’t gonna get it from me.
Remember, I pointed out that I was shallow and vain to start with. Please don’t be shocked or offended. The point is that we all discriminate this way in our dating choices. Gay guys, my gay coworkers are quick to assure me, are even worse than straight guys.
There are also cultural and religious reasons why people restrict their profiles, or only go on dating sites where the screenings been done - J Date, for example.
No way can this be effectively legislated. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, the work world and the dating world are different, and our legal tradition has recognized these differences for centuries.
Yes, that is pretty much what prejudice means, an irrational preference. However, in this case it is a quite harmless prejudice (unless it leads you to mistreat blondes and redheads in other ways), or, at least, trying to stamp it out would likely cause a lot more injustice (to you, for instance) than letting it persist. (I guess it is a teeny bit unfair to blondes and redheads that they are less likely to experience the pleasure of your attentions, but I am sure they will do OK.)
As I tried to make clear in my earlier post, a sexual/romantic preference for one race over another, although it is racism (prejudice with respect to race), is, in itself, pretty much a harmless form of racism, in the same sort of way. However, because it probably tends somewhat to encourage (or hamper efforts to discourage) other much more pernicious forms of racism, it is not a good thing. On the other hand, as pernicious forms of prejudice over hair color are not common, and not a serious social problem, your romantic preferences in this regard are quite harmless.
Apparently, Firefox thinks "blonde" is not a real word. :rolleyes:There may be more equally relevent posts later in the thread, but I only got this far before saying, “thank you for saying it.”
Why are people automatically assuming racism? I find some traits that are more prevalent in certain “races” less attractive. What of it. It doesn’t come down to color of skin at all for me. But Black women are typically snubbed on dating sites, (mentioned in the OP) and personally, I could see why. I, coming from a Scandanavian lineage find narrow noses, blue eyes and straight hair more attractive… among other traits that are not race related. But, if a black woman has a narrower nose and a few other traits I find attractive, I can find her beautiful.
Race doesn’t come into it. I don’t even believe in race. I heard it said you can walk from South Africa to Norway, and never once notice where the color changes, it’s a slow gradation. The fact that I find narrow noses attractive doesn’t say anything about my valuing them as a person. The fact that I don’t find men attractive and don’t want to sleep with them says nothing about believing them to be valuable humans.
Just curious about the underlying problem: Are people not fucking enough? Is that the problem we need to desperately solve?
(added emphasis is mine)
Exactly.
We discriminate all the time. We make decisions between possibilities based on relevant factors; it’s useful, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s when the factors we use are irrelevant that it’s a problem.
Some people probably make their mate choice based on what race they hate, etc. But, alternately, if my choice is made based on the traits I find attractive or unattractive, that is relevant information and not automatically racist.
And even if you say, “I hate this person and won’t date them,” that is relevant information. Why would we want to tell people to date someone they hate?.. Now, the reason you hate them may be irrational and racist. The issue isn’t that people won’t date someone they hate; the issue is why they hate them in the first place.
If we are simply mistaken about the relevance of the factors, we may make the wrong decision. If we are irrational about the factors, we may be bigoted… and then make the wrong decision.
So, since I’m claiming that the relevance of the factors is the issue, and not the choice itself; we could debate the relevance of factors in other cases as well. Cases where some people think that the choice is made based on racism or sexism.
Cases like: Women as firefighters, or combat troops where there is a strength and endurance requirement to do the job. (military studies have shown that more than 90% of men, and more than 75% of women, can be trained to the standards required to do the job, but there’s still a discrepancy.)
And: affirmative action in college enrollment. (If large numbers of minority students have received a poor grade school education and are not properly prepared for college, is the best solution to preferencially put them in the situation they specifically haven’t been prepared for, and watch them fail in droves? [as is borne out by the statistics. It really shouldn’t be controversial to say that people unprepared for college are more likely to drop out.])
here is a quote from overcomingbias.com[
](Mate Racism - by Robin Hanson - Overcoming Bias)So either
Just curious…
What, you’re some kind of anti-copycat racist?
A great philosopher once said: “I Yam What I Yam”
Oh and number 2
Seems to be out of the running because athelas included the first blog comment in his OP.