Dating outside your race does not automatically make you less racist. In fact one’s true colors can shine if people spin the color wheel while choosing who to spend Saturday nights with Netflix and chilling.
Yes, the United States has come a long way, as “8.4 percent of all marriages are between people of differnt races” up from the 3.2 percent of marriages in not so long 1980, according to Pew. This growing acceptance and prevalence of interracial marriages shows slowly, but surely people are choosing life mates outside of their race and not conforming to rigid standards of old.
Unfortunately, in an ironic twist this growing understanding creates a cult community of progressive whose white guilt causes them to completely misconstrue relationships into a pseudo real-life therapy session.
White women, led by the Kardashian Klan are seeking out big black brutes for their ability to carry on long, stimulating and thought provoking conversations. This revolution is a stark rebuttal to the old trope, in which white women could only fear black men; their feral behavior precluded them from controlling their sexual urges.
White men are not sinless either in this new era of inclusive dating.
Recently the curves, spirit and spice a mahogany-skinned woman can bring to the doldrums of daily life have increased their stature in the dating world — as long as she’s “pretty for a black girl.” There was a time if a black woman caught the eye of a white man, it was because she was his property, he needed to break her in and teach her to respect his authority.
Thankfully, those days are long gone.
What replaced this arcane way of thinking is being “chosen” by a white man. He saves her from being known purely known as a black woman. Furthermore, some only choose to date black women as a way to boast in the private cloakrooms of country clubs on their conquests in the bushes of the Congo.
While whites are more infamous for assuming a partner’s race cleanses them of any and all discriminatory tendencies, people of color also perpetuate problematic interracial dating practices.
Black men are guilty of putting Asian woman on jade encrusted pedestals. This exotification rips these women of their full being and creates a narrative where if she does not have jet black straight hair, is a size double zero, erased her accent and cooks a mean General Tso’s chicken, she is worthless.
It is problematic for people of color to think this way. We will never be able to paint with all the colors of the wind if, all hues are not equally appreciated.
Ethnic pieces of clothing, dishes and the ability to beast at any and all sports should not be the checklist people use to pick out potential dating partners. Colorblindness is not a good idea either. The right balance is discerning whether one’s tendency to look for those outside their own race stems from a sense of novelty or if one is genuinely interested in understanding and being a part of another’s culture.
If the latter is true, then by all means taste every ice cream flavor spelled in a different language.
However, if you buy vanilla ice cream from the Asian marketplace just because the container is written in Japanese, then get over yourself.
Garrett Hines is a 21-year-old political science senior from Monroe, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @garrettH_TDR.