No Asian. No Indian: Picky dater or racist dater?
zosia bielski
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 5:57PM EST
Last updated Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 9:17PM EST
A burly white man named Jim describes himself as, Just a normal guy
Not into Asians.
A Dolph Lundgren-lookalike named Danny is more equal-opportunist in his bias: No Asian, No Indian, No Latino, No Black, No Fat, under 30 years old.
And it goes downhill from there: NO CHOCOLATE/RICE, writes a guy named Dev. Another uses emoticons to send the message: two men, one in a turban and another in a Mandarin hat, followed by a red, negating X.
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The comments bubbled up recently from the harsh world of Grindr, a location-based app that lets gay men hook up through GPS pinpointing. In an endless parade of shirtless beefcakes, many state racial biases as openly as other turnoffs, like flab.
The culture of sexual liberation has been replaced by sexual segregation, wrote Alex Rowlson last fall in Fab magazine, lambasting the widespread racism on gay hookup sites.
Explicit prejudice is not exclusive to Grindr racial filtering is alive and well on mainstream dating and hookup websites, which give users the option of checking ethnic preferences alongside ideal body types and social habits like smoking and drinking.
As Canadian and American census numbers consistently show that interracial unions are on the rise,
online dating is now the second most popular form of matchmaking, behind meeting through friends. Here, race remains murky territory.
While most critics agree that the ethnicity checkbox is vastly preferable to specifying No Asians, they disagree about whether the option is a step backward. Is it any different than hunting through niche sites like Shaadi, an Indian matrimonial website, or JDate, a online matchmaking service for Jews?
More crucially, can our sexual preferences be deemed racist, or is attraction a matter of personal taste? Do we need to prefer everybody?
In Out Magazine last month, Alexander Chee documented the anti-Asian sentiments prevalent on Grindr:
Men who put NO ASIANS on their profile are not stating a preference, Mr. Chee wrote. Youre using the disguise of a semi-socially acceptable way to say youre a racist and looking to hook up with other racists.
Continued:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life...n-picky-dater-or-racist-dater/article2348129/