Dating and Race: Are Racial Preferences Really Racist?

In this episode of The Perspicacious Perspective, I dive into a sensitive and often misunderstood topic: racial preferences in dating. I ask the tough questions—can having a preference be considered racist? How do we separate genuine attraction from prejudice? And how much of our own bias do we carry without realizing it?

I also reflect on my personal dating experiences and share how my perspective on race, attraction, and relationships has evolved over time. Join me as I unpack the nuances of race, culture, and love, and explore why these conversations are essential for anyone navigating modern dating.

Transcript

Welcome to the Perspicacious Perspective.

I’ve always wondered whether having racial preferences when dating is racist or not.

That’s what I’ll be talking about in this episode.

I think it’s worth talking about because it’s come up in conversation a few times and I’ve never attempted to articulate my ideas around this and whether there can be any general consensus reached around this topic. I guess this is my opportunity.  

I’m in an interracial relationship myself and I’ve thought about it quite a bit.

I’ve tried to be conclusive about this topic in the past but let’s be real. We all have prejudice. But at the same time we all have free will. And our prejudice actually help us to select potential suitors so it can be a conundrum this topic at times.

I do have a theory surrounding interracial dating due to both empirical understanding and observation so I’d be interested to see if you agree with my theory. But before we get onto that, I think we should define racism first before we try to ascertain whether having racial preferences is racist or not.

·      What is racism?

Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

So the three words I wanna focus on here are prejudice, discrimination and antagonism.

To be honest I personally don’t even believe that racism exists. Why? Well just look at the definition. It’s so vague that it’s impossible to prove that someone is or has been racist.

Prejudice is something we all have. Even animals. ‘Pre’ meaning ‘before’, and ‘judice’ refers to a judgement. Don’t we all make judgements based on the information we receive about people and things?

If I see a lion walking down the street. Do you think I’m gonna wait around to see if it’s a friendly lion? Of course not. I’ve made a judgement based on the information I have about lions. I’m no expert, but I don’t need to be to know that a lion has a biological inclination to murder me red tooth and claw.

In the same light, I could see a rabbit in the street. And my natural instinct would be to not flee since there’s nothing predatorial about a rabbit.

So let’s move on to people. Even as a man, if I see a guy who is twice the size of me walking down the street, I will feel intimidated. How intimidated I feel will be based on my judgement. My judgement is there to protect me even though in theory I know nothing about the guy. And obviously, as I glean more information about the guy: what he’s wearing, how he’s walking, who he’s with, where he is, how he speaks, his body posture, etcetera is gonna tell me whether I’m safe, or whether I should keep a wide birth from him.

Obviously prejudice in respect to racism is supposed to operate differently. Prejudice in a negative sense is the idea that we’re making bad judgments about the people we’re exposed to. So if you make an incorrect judgment, let’s say about someone from a minority group, then that’s deemed on a societal scale as racist. Which is nonsense if you ask me.

A better term for this from my perspective would be ‘ignorance’. Your judgement was bad which means you haven’t exposed yourself to enough people like the person you judged to make a more accurate judgement. And I don’t think you should be punished for this.

You can’t force people to expose themselves to people they’re not familiar with. I say let the ramifications play out in the way they inevitably will. Whatever that means for that person.

Now discrimination can only work with prejudice for behaviour to be considered racist. It’s having a bad pre-judgement, and then acting on it by discriminating against someone based on the incorrect judgement you had of the person or people. Which again can be difficult to prove.

Discrimination is another thing that we all naturally do. We discriminate when we make friends, we discriminate when we play sports, we discriminate when we date, and we discriminate when we socialise. It’s free will.

Now manifesting antagonism to a person or group of people based on their membership of a particular race or ethnic group is what I think most people are referring to when they think of racism. It’s the unwarranted hostility shown to someone or a group of people based on what culture or ethnic group you believe they belong to: which is predicated on ignorance.

Now even though the antagonism may be unjustifiable, it’s another thing that’s difficult to prove. We have to first prove that the antagonism is there based on a prejudice, and that the person acted on their prejudice by discriminating against the person or group of people based on their culture or origin. There’s too many hoops to jump through here. Which makes it virtually impossible to prove someone is racist. And that’s because, well at least as far as I’m concerned, racism doesn’t really exist. It’s just ignorance.

·      So is it racist to have racial preferences when dating?

As far as the socially constructed definition, yes, I do think it’s racist. Hear me out.

Well as I said, I think a better term for discrimination or antagonism based on a prejudice is ‘ignorance’. You can’t know what you don’t know.

I’ll give you an example.

Before going to China I had no idea that I would be physically attracted to many Eastern Asians. That’s because I grew up in Manchester, which when I was growing up at least, there was a very small Eastern Asian demographic. In the areas I went to school and hung about, I very rarely fraternised with any Eastern Asians. I had a somewhat negative stereotype of Eastern Asians and they weren’t deemed as ‘cool’ in pop culture.

If you asked me then whether I would ever date Asians, I would have said ‘no way’, since I had never met any Eastern Asians I was attracted to and I knew little about their culture. I was extremely ignorant about Eastern Asia at the time.

However, when I went to China, which is the most populous region in the world, the probability that I would not meet an Asian that I was physically attracted to dwindled right the fuck away. I was all of a sudden exposed to millions of Chinese guys that I was attracted to physically on a daily basis.

Let’s take into consideration that I’m a relatively masculine man. That means I’m generally interested in guys based on physical attraction as opposed to women, who tend to like guys on more of an emotional level. That considerably changes things by the way.

I discussed the laws of hypergamy in another episode and it comes to play when considering racial preferences surrounding dating. Remember hypergamy is the concept that women are biologically programmed to date across and up when it comes to financial and power dynamics due to the inherent need for women to seek men who can provide resources that can guarantee survival of her and her offspring. And this ties in neatly with my theory.

Because of the way men like women stereotypically, you’re less likely to see a man have racial preferences when it comes to dating- particularly if there’s a short-lived sexual experience. If she’s hot, there’s very little that would stop a guy hooking up with her.

Now when it comes to actual dating-meaning not just a one-night-stand, even men become more selective, and we discriminate. Just in the same way women discriminate due to financial prowess and power; or influence- men also discriminate.

But while you might feel bad for discriminating against the person due to their ethnicity, it’s probably rarely the case. You’re probably discriminating against the person based on their culture. If someone is from another ethnicity, there’s a higher chance your culture is incompatible with theirs.

So my theory is that we date meaningfully based on a shared philosophy.

Before I met my Chinese partner, I dated another Chinese guy for three months while I was in China. I decided to break up with him. Why did I break up with him?

I was physically attracted to him which is why I even met him. But I was also even more physically attracted to other guys before I had met him. So why did I decide to pursue this guy? Well, he spoke English. And he spoke it pretty well- but due to my ignorance, and my relatively little experience interacting with Eastern Asians, I was unaware that although he could learn to speak English well enough for me to consider dating him, our culture was completely incompatible.

Anyone who’s lived in China, will know that the Eastern philosophy is completely different to the Western one. In the Western world, we believe in individualism and liberty. That means we generally place ourselves above others and we’re encouraged to find ourselves, even if it’s at the expense of our families. 

That was the experience I was having. I had unshackled myself from the chains of my family by traveling to discover who I was by dating who I wanted and living where I liked, and doing what the fuck I wanted. 

He was the opposite. He relied on his family financially, he was happy to do so to pursue his career in law, he hadn’t come out to his parents and had no intention to do so even though he was a few months older than me at the time. His philosophy was predicated on family- he was willing to sacrifice who he truly was to honour his family. Obviously that was a huge problem for me as I saw him as having his cake and eating it. He gets to enjoy the stability guaranteed by his family, whilst also having a black boyfriend on the side. That was a deal-breaker. And it wasn’t a unique situation in China either.

A lot of Chinese parents know their children are gay-especially the mothers- but there is an unwritten agreement that as long as you don’t come out-they’ll continue to subsidise your life- inasmuch as necessary.

I remember him telling me that he believed his mum found a dildo under his bed once, but when he went to find it, he noticed it had been moved. She knew he was gay.

So how I ended up dating my current Chinese boyfriend was by asking him whether he had come out to his parents. When he said he had, I knew there was a good chance our philosophies were aligned, particularly because he was younger than me. His circumstances had forced him to come out to his parents which meant that his philosophy was compatible with mine.

Another instance in China was a close female friend of mine who claimed she was attracted to black men exclusively at the time. She, a white girl, had started dating this Nigerian guy. The relationship didn’t work out and I realised why. Their cultures and philosophies were incompatible.

Now there’s large diasporas of Nigerians around the world so you’ll meet all kinds, but this Nigerian, although he seemed relatively Westernised, had a particularly Nigerian philosophy. That meant he had different expectations about the role a women would play in a relationship, it meant he had some regressive views about unconventional relationships, and most importantly a different vision for how he would perceive a functional family.

So back to my theory, I believe that we date people based on the culture or philosophy we believe we share with that person.

Most Western women like to date men who are receptive to them having their own career and freedom. They look for a partner who is willing to marry them, buy a home with them, and are more than willing to live far away from their parents.

Let’s take Muslims in the UK. Living with parents might be a pre-requisite when considering dating someone. Muslims in the UK tend to share the same household with extended family. That means depending on the gender, a women might be expected to live with their in-laws when they marry.

Whilst we’re talking about Muslims, there’s another interesting observation I had made. When speaking to Muslim women and men, I was surprised to hear that a lot of second-generation Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were closed off to the idea of marrying a Muslim who was born and raised in Pakistan or Bangladesh. I thought why? They’re Muslims like you, they worship the same God, eat the same food, follow the same rituals. 

But what I noticed was the philosophy of a second-generation Pakistani or Bangladeshi is completely different to the philosophy of someone who was born and raised in Pakistan or Bangladesh. The second-generation Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have a philosophy that has acclimatised to Western philosophy. Meaning there is an element of their culture in the West that might be deemed as more progressive. And that Muslims born in Muslim countries might have some archaic views about their roles in the relationship and family that may make them incompatible. 

So that’s why I hypothesise that we date people based on shared philosophy rather race. And when someone says they have a racial preference, what they want to say is that they have a cultural preference which is based on philosophy. It’s not as simple as saying all Muslims date other Muslims- because it’s not true. They discriminate amongst one another equally.

·      So what about when women say they have a racial preference when dating?

If a woman who is part of the majority ethnicity of that society believes she has a racial preference when dating, and the race she claims to prefer is also part of the majority race, she probably is just looking for someone who shares the same culture and philosophy as herself. The closer she is to her family, particularly her parents and grandparents, the more likely I think she is to want to bring home someone who communes authentically with the culture and philosophy she was raised with.

That will make it easier to plan marriage, have a baby, buy a house, and still have her family heavily involved in the relationship. The same could be said about a man.

If a woman isn’t that close with her family, or doesn’t necessarily care about what her parents think about who she’s dating, and she claims she has a racial preference that is not part of the predominant race in that country, that’s where I think things get interesting.

If like my friend in China, she’s white and claims to like black men, I don’t think it’s a racial preference, I think it’s a cultural preference.

Any white girl who claims to like black men probably just likes hypermasculine men. Now hypermasculine men exist in all ethnicities and races, but culturally, it’s the black race that celebrates hypermasculinity the most. So much so, that black girls who manifest masculine traits are probably an immediate turn off to lots of heterosexual men.

So the culture and philosophy of a stereotypical hypermasculine black man is compatible with that of the white girl, because perhaps she feels feminine around this black guy, and likes the prospect of taming this dominant hypermasculine man.

I truly believe that white girls who claim they like black men think like this, and if they externalise their racial preference as black, I just think they’re inherently ignorant to the fact that there are many hypermasculine men in other ethnicities-they’re probably just hard to find since hypermasculinity amongst white men in the West in not as overt.

You can look at it like a spectrum, on one end is the stereotypical hypermasculine black guy, and on the other end is the stereotypical passive white guy- at least in the West. Due to culture, philosophy, dominant vs submissive roles in the relationship, a women will naturally gravitate towards what she believes to be the most compatible with her lifestyle, sexuality, culture and philosophy. And if she’s unable- like I believe most people are- to articulate what she likes; she’s most likely to attribute her preference of men to a specific race- which is based on ethnicity, culture and philosophy.

Think about it, commercial flights only existed since the 1950’s. Before then, it was only the elite class who were able to travel by air. The introduction of jet airliners revolutionized travel by reducing flight time and increasing capacity. Airlines began offering relatively more affordable flights. Even then, flying was still seen as a luxury — passengers would dress formally, and tickets were still expensive for average workers. 

So that means we’ve being emigrating to foreign countries only really since World War 2. That’s less than 100 years. Even though we are all technically mixed race right now, the population of the world is gonna become even more mixed race eventually, and the idea of racial preferences won’t make sense anymore. So even on a biological level, it’s impossible to have racial preferences since we’re all homo sapiens and are able to procreate with one another.

I say this to say that claiming to have a racial preference is based on ignorance- innocent ignorance if you like. But truly- you’re probably attracted to someone’s culture, philosophy, and sexual dynamic.

I’ll give another example. If a Western white women says she doesn’t like Eastern Asian men, she probably just has a stereotype of what she believes most Asian men are like- which is probably less masculine than she claims to be attracted to compared to other ethnicities. 

Now because China is the most populous region in the world, it’s virtually impossible that she wouldn’t find a Chinese man who is hypermasculine, and possessed all the traits she’s physically attracted to, let’s say tall, dark, handsome, and masculine of course. But what’s the chances of her meeting that tall, dark handsome Chinese guy who speaks English fluently, shares the same culture, philosophy and sexual dynamic? Probably a lot slimmer than meeting a white guy from the same country who is tall, dark and handsome who shares the same culture, philosophy and sexual dynamic.

So what’s the best way to go about it? I would say it’s best not to claim to have a racial preference. Why you might think? Well I’ve noticed before that lots of people will communicate their racial preferences on dating sites by excluding the ethnicity they don’t believe they’re attracted to which I find quite distasteful.

How would you feel if you saw the profile of someone you were physically attracted to, who looked like they shared the same culture and philosophy as you who stipulated on their profile ‘no Asians’, or ‘no blacks’, or ‘no whites’? Wouldn’t you feel offended?

To be honest it’s probably just a loss for the idiot who put that on their profile since they’re losing potential opportunities to connect with people who actually might be compatible with them. But I say this to say that if you externalise your ignorant thoughts in this manner, it’s ignorant and distasteful.

There will be many opportunities to communicate your dating history when dating- which ethnicities you’ve predominantly dated in the past, what ethnic group most of your friends and family from, which ethnicity and culture you feel most resonant with, and so on. But you shouldn’t let it limit your dating pool. If you do- it just makes you look ignorant. And you’re likely to get away with it if your culture and ethnicity is predominant in the country you’re living in, and the person you’re dating is from the same culture and ethnicity.

You’re also likely to get away with these ignorant externalisations if you only allowed yourself to be exposed to people who belong to the same ethnicity and culture as you, even if it isn’t the predominant one in the country that you’re living in. But it doesn’t make it right.

My intention here is to give you food for thought for how you communicate what you think you’re physically and emotionally attracted to. That it’s most likely not based on race- so rather than coming off ignorant and closed-off- you could consider how you communicate your dating preferences.

Is it not more educated to communicate the characteristics you like to see in your potential suitor rather than their race? Is it not more cultured to not use language that discriminates when talking about your dating preferences? That’s all I’m saying.

Let’s talk about Umar Johnson for a minute, a prominent Pan-African activist who is controversial due to some of his criticisms of interracial dating and marriage—particularly between Black men and white women. He believes marriage is an economic institution and opposes Black–white unions on the grounds that white spouses—often from higher socioeconomic backgrounds—can inherit Black wealth and not reinvest it in the Black community. 

In a 2022 interview, he controversially stated:

“No interracial relationship is acceptable … Why would a black man need to … build a family with anything other than a black woman, when you have so many black women available?”

Now although Umar Johnson does have some interesting perspectives, I think he’s far too conclusive when it comes to interracial dating. Think about how hard it is to date without the racial discrimination- the divorce rates prove that there’s nothing easy about finding a lifetime partner.

The reality is that African American men dominate the top wealth tiers in America both in number and in total net worth compared to African American women- due to the wealth gap between African American men and women, and due to the opportunities afforded to African American men- particularly in sports like basketball and American football.

That means that the likelihood an African American man is going to find a black women who shares the same culture and philosophy is much slimmer, as now the nouveau riche black guy is part of the coveted 20%- due to the Pareto Law of Distribution which I also mentioned in another episode- which dictates that 80% of the women will now be competing for the top 20% of men. That means black women will only make up 13% of what he can select from, and since white people make up almost 60% of the population- there’s a higher chance the black guy will find a compatible suitor who happens to be white.

I hope this episode has given you something to think about. If you enjoyed it, subscribe to hear more topics like this.

Until next time.