I’m not gonna get into it with ZPG Zealot, but in my (limited, personal) experience, you’re probably wrong about this, just because Roma teenagers and twenty-somethings are already married. It’s not unusual for Roma kids to get married at age twelve or thirteen.
It is, and I’ll be blunt, that at least in Eastern Europe, it would be unlikely for a non-Roma to approach and flirt with a Roma person in a bar. You know how in the US, if you violate a superstition, like break a mirror or open an umbrella in the house, they say you’ll have seven years bad luck? In Bulgaria at least, if you violate a superstition, the bad thing that will happen to you is that you’ll marry a gypsy.
I’m pretty sure ZPG Zealot no longer lives in Eastern Europe (although I believe she is originally from somewhere in the former Yugoslavia) so I’m not sure how well the line of separation that exists between Roma and non-Roma there translates to other regions.
Other people’s weddings, family parties, a matchmaker introduces you, etc., Some Orthodox Jews and Muslims and Christians have similiar social patterns also. When the purpose of “dating” is finding a marriage partner, so you are only interested in someone who at least mets your dealbreaker criteria for marriage because anybody else is just wasting your time.
I think it’s silly to dismiss ZPG’s culture out of hand. I did some reading up on Roma culture out of curiosity (since never have I encountered a Rom outside of a Stephen King novel before). And apparently it’s a widely-upheld Roma view that Roma do not marry outside their group. Doing so would lose them their Romanipen and they would in fact not be Roma any longer.
However, I also don’t think that a Roma female would ever be considered white. So it’s really outside the context of the thread. But still enormously interesting reading.
I’m willing to be proven wrong of course, but it seems like Roma are brown-skinned as a rule, with the VERY rare potential exception where an outsider is decided to have Romanipen–see Romani society and culture - Wikipedia. Generally this is an adopted kid thing though, and not something a white person can marry into.
I’m originally from Chicago and lived in Yugoslavia while it was in the process of becoming the former Yugoslavia. In the former Yugos a non-Roma man approaching a Roma woman anywhere would either be involved in the black-market or involved in a lot worse.
White woman (seriously ghost like, scares small children white) and I’ve never felt threatened by someone because of race, socially or otherwise.
In fact, doing a rough count of those around me I would say the ratio on this floor is somewhere around 40% white and that’s fairly high for an IT group in Toronto.
Indeed, you’d have trouble finding an all-white crowd in Toronto without actually going to, say, an Old German People’s Club or something. And maybe not even then.
Absolutely not. When I go to see shows in NYC at night, I sometimes get home after midnight and walk the half-mail from the bus stop to my house. Never had a problem.
What I want to know is why I never seem to encounter any dewy eyed innocents who are genuinely baffled at the notion of racism and would certainly never entertain such thoughts in the real world.
Everyone I know has, to one degree or another, been impacted by the cultural poison of racism or bigotry or xenophobia. The better people I know confront these attitudes that they have inherited and do what they can to overcome them.
No. I’m not single, but when I am, I am mostly interested in non-white men (tho I’ll consider anyone good-looking enough and dark-haired). Perhaps for that reason, I tend to get specifically annoyed by the frat-boy/yuppie variety of posturing white guy. I’ll take any other group of guys over those idiots. Anyway in my area it’s rare to go out anywhere and find yourself surrounded entirely by white people.
I get yelled at a lot on the street too, and as long as what they’re yelling isn’t horribly offensive and/or I don’t feel I’m in danger, I don’t find that threatening either, whatever the race of the guy doing it. Rude, yes.
From the infanticide reference, I’d assume zero population growth. (ETA: Oops, I didn’t see the second page.)
Back to the subject of scared white women, I’ve never been anywhere that was monolithic enough in color that I could actually observe such a reaction. I suppose if somebody did live in a place like that, some discomfort wouldn’t be surprising. People can have irrational reactions based on unconscious bias without being bad people, so long as they recognize it and try not to act on it.
Quite the opposite. I have a touch of jungle fever. I’d be all, How YOU doin’?
The only way I’d be uncomfortable would be if I were in a situation where I was the only white female in the room and there’s some really awful Hate on Whitey rap music playing. I don’t want to be the only target in a room full of aggressive men who are hearing ugly lyrics about how much fun it is to do mean hurtful things to women. The race issue is sort of incidental. It’s more about fear of being overpowered by a bunch of aggressive men and being physically hurt or killed.
In The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker, the author asserts that, secretly, deep down, most men fear humiliation. The worst thing you could do to a man is humiliate him, especially in public or in front of his friends. Women, deep down, secretly fear that men will kill us. Because most of you are physically capable, if not also mentally capable, of killing me with your bare hands.
I think for a lot of women (maybe even most) that underlying fear of always having to look over your shoulder for the one deeply insecure, violent woman-hater in the room is always there. I don’t care what color you are; I’m uncomfortable if I hear you referring to women as hos or bitches. That will convince me that your motives are probably less than honorable and I could be in danger just standing there talking to you. I try to make sure I don’t ever put myself in that position.
Not a white woman, but, I think I have something to contribute to this thread, still.
There really is such a thing as ‘where da white wimmin at’. It exists. There are certain men that go to certain clubs/bars/pubs in the hopes of meeting white women. Sometimes, they will target a bar so suddenly that the bouncers begin a coded way of keeping them out “no hoodies tonight, fellas. Can’t let you in. No sneakers. Can’t let you in. Not up to dress code, buddy. Go try a nice button up shirt.”
When I have gone to ‘white’ clubs with black friends who are looking for white women (don’t ask how I get in these situations) I do notice that certain suburban type women are more…hesitant to respond to their advances than the hipper city white women. So I kind of vaguely understand what the OP means by ‘socially threatened’ or whatever.
The funniest thing about these kinds of clubs is that, eventually, the guys who are there for white women make the place look more diverse. Then more black men come…and they aren’t just there to look for white women. Then they attract black women. Then before you know it, the place if full of black men and women who are socializing with each other. And the white people find a new club to go to. Then the black men who are looking to date white women find that club. The circle of life.
At least, that is how I’ve seen it often play out in upstate NY.
Me: doing something obnoxious
Him: Don’t make me do the Batman dance. I will and you’ll be sorry!
All joking aside, I’m not colorblind. I remember a few years ago I was in an elevator with another white woman who was a stranger to me and we were heading up to, say, floor 10 (I don’t actually remember the details of this story, but I remember the gist). We stopped at floor 2 and a black man got on the elevator. The woman punched a button for a lower floor than 10 and got off there. I was embarrassed because in my head I thought it really looked like she was getting off the elevator because he got on the elevator. And I was socially very uncomfortable, feeling like there had to be something I could do or say that would show I was perfectly willing to share an elevator with this guy.
And then, if I remember correctly and I might not, I realized I actually needed floor 9 but I couldn’t bring myself to punch the button, so I rode it to floor 10 then walked down the stairs.
So yeah, I’ve been in situations where I felt some social discomfort basically by being too sensitive. For a long time, I figured I was blowing it completely out of proportion and that he probably hadn’t noticed, but when I did tell my boyfriend the story, laughing at myself, he said that actually he probably would have noticed.
My ex-girlfriend stated many times that she hated it when black men came onto her. Was she a racist? Not really, she was a schoolteacher at a inner-city Baltimore school where all of her pupils were black…I think it was a cultural thing for her, having grown up in a rural area of the South where no black people lived, and she also disliked what she called the “Hey Baby” type of introduction that she said was commonly used by black men. I have no perspective on the issue (not being a white woman) and I’m just stating how she felt and her opinions.
Bravo, ma’am or sir. It sure would be nice if the world was as color blind as some on this board pretends to be. ZPG Zealotmay come off as a nutter, but at least she’s honest about her feelings and not falling all over herself to look as accepting and saint like as possible. Not referring to anyone in particular, just wondering why so many people have to feign ignorance of and / or indignation about what the OP is asking. Thanks also to **Nzinga, Dogzilla **and Rhubarbarinfor actually addressing the question at hand.
As for me, I just rambled on so long I forgot what the question was. . . Oh yeah, men of color in social situations. Sometimes; depending on behavior and context. I’d expound if anyone is interested, but isn’t that really the way most situations involving strangers comes down to?If I’m sitting in a mostly white, Enlgish pub and and a group of ghetto looking dudes comes in, I’m not going to run in fear but I am going to wonder why they’d be interested in being there. They might plunk down on the stool next to me, order a Strongbow and ask how Villa did that morning and I won’t think about their appearance again, but my point is it’s human nature to question or suspect or whatever anyone who seems to be “other” in a given situation, even if it’s only for a brief moment.
