Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Interracial dating: The Comfort of Dating Within Your Race vs Personal Desires






It's everywhere. People of one race seem to flock more to the people of their won race. Whether it's an Asian couple, a black couple, or a white couple it is so often that we see two people of the same ethnicity doing something together in public, holding hands, kissing or just being together. It is so common, yet it brings up the question of whether or not these people would have initially been in a relationship with other people, of other races if given the opportunity and without public stigma attached.

Where does personal preference end and where does society's interference begin? Is it in our genes to want to be with people of the same race or different races by nature? These kinds of questions are so interesting to people who admit to themselves that they are interested in interracial dating since they are the kinds of validation points for them personally as to what justifies going out with someone who society, or even their own family might not approve of. In the end of the day I think it is all based in physical attraction. In terms of physical attraction where does the line get drawn with actual attraction preferences towards someone's own race and the race of others? I can only speak for myself, but for me, it is hard to deny that people of all races can be very attractive. I can see a black woman, white woman, or asian woman and see them as all being incredibly sexually attractive. There is not one racial group that I look at and legitimately never have an attraction towards. I feel like it is not genuine if you do, or it is simply learned hatred or just being raised without that kind of comfort.

In today's day and age with the television and movies showing all types of people, al types of cultures all over the world exposure to all kinds of people is inevitable. Technology has linked the world in a way that has made everything transparent. A white kid in the United States can see an African woman or a Chinese woman just as easily as they could a white woman on television. The boundaries are slimming and I believe that kind of lack of censorship to the people they see everyday just goes to allow them to realize attraction at a younger age.

I think the only real substantial reason so many people date within their race is comfort and geography. People of certain ethnicities tend to live in generally the same area. Those people's parent's often times are also of the same race which means they have grown up seeing that as a normal couple. Dating within one's own race is then not even as much of a conscious decision as you would think. If you weigh in the factors of who lives near you and who you could even date then most people are vastly more likely to date someone of their own race or ethnicity simply out of exposure and ease. The real attraction is not necessarily rooted in the idea that they find their own race the most attractive or that they would only want to date someone like themselves.

The idea of dating outside of one's own race is nothing new. I believe it will grow in popularity exponentially as time goes on and as people and races mix more geographically and in the world in general.

By Mark

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Interracial Dating: A Generational Perspective

Giving and getting the first hand interpretation on interracial dating can be some of the most interesting feedback to live through and experience. Through my personal journey of interracial relationships I have encountered everything from bigotry to blind acceptance. One of the best and most interesting ways to view the reactions to my relationships is with people who are from different generational gaps. Over the years I have met my parter's siblings, parents, and grandparents. This has allowed me a unique perspective from each of those different age groups and shown me the ways that not only those individuals reacted, but the way that age group in general would react.

Let's start out with the youngest group. My first long term interracial relationship partner had a much younger brother. He was about 9 when I first met him and he was a pretty good kid. He was from a small town where there were very few people of any minority race which made it interesting that I was dating his older sister. Even though I'm Asian, at first he assumed I was hispanic since that was the only race other than white which had permeated that small suburb. Long story short, over time he came to view me as an older brother. He loved me and accepted me with no bearing of race on my personality at all. To him, I was just another person who happened to be integrated into his family through being in a relationship with his older sister. As I saw some of his friends make racial remarks or base judgements off of race I never saw that from him.

The median generation, that of our parent's age group was much more divided. Being a small, country town there was plenty of racism going around in conversation and through various groups of people. Since the majority of white people in the town so far outweighed the number of anything else it was a pretty uncomfortable feeling for most of the minorities. Although my partner's mother and father were very accepting of me I got more than a few judging stares and suffered through quite a few awkward glances at my partner and I holding hands simply because she was white and I was not.

The last generation I had particularly direct relationships with was that of my partner's grandparents age group. This was by far the group from which I received the most negative feedback and judgement. There was a plethora of older people in the town we lived in and for most of them they had not really seen up close and personal a couple from two different ethnicities. Some of them visibly and emotionally were upset at the sight of it. This made me pretty mad at first since we live in such a modern society of acceptance, but this town in particular was a slice out of the past. It hadn't grown the same way most of society had in recent years and because of that the people there were not all very kind. It did show the trend of people just getting less and less accepting as the years went by and as the generations grew older. This is a trend which I think people all over the world share.

As people get older they get stuck in their ways. It is hard for them to adapt to the world changing in ways they've never seen before or are uncomfortable with. Hopefully this pattern of people getting more accepting in their younger age from exposure to media and the real world will continue and eventually the ideas of racism and judgment based on skin color or orientation will diminish even further.

By Mark

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Interracial Dating: First Person Perspective

As the readers know by this point I am one half of an interracial relationship. A day in the life of a relationship such as mine is nothing new. There are people all over the world who are the minority in an interracial relationship. Sometimes the perspective can be lost though, so I'm here to tell exactly what it's like.

To begin, I'll just give a little background on our relationship. We met online. Some people would be embarrassed or hesitant to divulge that aspect, but to me it doesn't matter one bit. Online relationships and meeting people online is the norm in today's world. Why not open your boundaries to the entire world of the internet and not just the same, small group of people you already know in real life. If it wasn't for the internet I would have never met the incredible girl I call my partner and who knows who I would have settled for in the mutual friends and random coworkers I have around me.

Right off the bat we hit it off. There was instant chemistry from the pictures we saw of each other and the way we talked and talked. When we first met in real life it was just the same. We talked until the restaurant we met at closed and the feeling we both got we knew we were right for each other. The fact that she was white and I wasn't made absolutely no difference in how she or I felt. The real test, for many relationships like this, is what each person's parents think of the idea. Also, how people react in public. Although that isn't a huge problem no matter how they respond since all that matters in the end of the day is if the people in the relationship are happy, it still weighs heavily on the stress and overall comfort of the relationship.

Luckily, both of our families are great. They both took one another in without a second thought and it makes no difference in what race we are. In public it can be a different story. There are times when people look at us and give that second glance, or the awkward look which shows surprise or just a split second reaction of disbelief. We both come from pretty snobby areas where it's basically a majority of white people and usually they are with other white people. I guess seeing her with me makes them turn their heads occasionally.

All in all, we have never really had any big problems and no one has given us a real fuss. We go about our lives like everyone else and sometimes have normal amounts of public affection and do as we please. There's nothing anyone could say that would change the way we feel about each other and certainly no one's reaction to us being of different races would make us feel any less close. So, if you're in an interracial relationship and you feel like people are judging you. Try not to let it bother you. It's their problem, their bur
den, and their bigotry that will hold them back, not you.

By Mark

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Popularity of Interracial Dating in the USA




I recently came across an incredibly mind blowing info-graphic of the popularity of interracial dating in the United States. I'm from the New England, North Eastern part of the country and I know it's pretty accepted, but I had no idea how accepted compared to the rest of the country. The states that made the top twenty were not only surprising to me, but some of them have a downright negative connotation for the way people think of racism. This just showed that the acceptance and commonality of interracial dating is getting to the point where even the states that people think would never be accepting of it are coming around to get with the times.

The number one state is no surprise. California takes the crown and I don't think that shocks anyone. California is always on the cusp of conventionality and makes room for everyone since the state is so ethnically diverse itself. Then after that is when it starts to get more and more surprising. If I had to throw a guess out there number two would have been one of the least friendly states for this, but I guess this just shows how I am exhibiting my own preconceived notions about stereotypes. Texas made the list at second place. The state somewhat famous for their lack of acceptance of other races in the past is apparently changing their ways according to recent polls. This is an incredible shift and just shows how the US is changing with the times.

The most shocking part of all of this information is the appearance of the map. You would think it would mostly be the northeast and the west coast. It is shockingly based on the east, other than California, and almost all of the southern states, excluding New Mexico. This is precisely not at all what I would have expected.

I am very happy that the south of the United States, which so many people think of as being a racist haven which isn't accepting of interracial people or relationships is showing exactly how untrue that is. The funnier, or interesting take on the information also is how the map breaks down the states by political preferences. The split of democratic and republican states is right down the middle at 10 a piece for the top twenty states which is another surprising statistic. You would expect the more liberal states to take most of the spots as they would be more open to anything, but that again is not the case.

This is one of the most interesting info graphics that anyone who is interested in interracial dating and relationships should take a look at. It can be found at, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/top-20...

by Mark