The Look of Love
“I’ve got a thing for mixed race girls’, “I only date black guys because they’ve got huge penises”, “I’d never date a guy named Mohammed” – do these statements make you cringe? Good, they should do and, if not, maybe this piece will be a bit of a hard but healthy pill for you to swallow.
It’s nothing new to hear that the majority of us have a type; someone who, if we were lucky enough to cross paths with, would quicken our heart rate and cause a swift double take over the shoulder. Blonde hair, green eyes, a half decent bit of facial hair – it’s totally normal to look for these physical traits in a partner, but what about when this goes further than just skin deep?
Few of us would openly admit to assessing possible suitors based on race but, the ugly truth is that it happens. We may not even realise we’re doing it but think about how quickly you search for a face in a room and, nine times out of ten, what that face looks like. This is where things get complicated and our underlying prejudices begin to rear their ugly heads.
I’ve always been familiar with the feeling of belonging to the ‘other’ or to a group of females who have to work just that little bit harder to grasp the opposite gender’s attention. Far too many times have I heard “I just don’t find black girls attractive; they’re way too aggressive” which, believe me, is just as offensive as “I’ve always wanted to sleep with a mixed race girl”. It’s rude, belittling and, most importantly, racist.
Now, you may have got to this point and thought to yourself “Oh, here we go again. Another outspoken black girl is getting her back up about something race related”, and, to a degree, you’d be right. But take a step back, put our culture under the microscope and work out where this whole issue stems from.
Channel 4, our TV pal that loves to be a bit controversial, recently aired a one-off show titled ‘Is Love Racist?’. Me being me, I set aside some time to tune in that evening and ponder the question of which the answer is already very blatant for the minorities. The programme was hosted by Emma Dabiri, a visual sociology PhD researcher and teaching fellow in the Africa department at SOAS, who proudly introduced the question to viewers nationwide.
Ten varying members of the public were brought together to take part in dating related tests, unbeknownst to the real purpose of their participation. A survey of five-thousand people was also brought to the table, making it the first of its kind since the introduction of digital dating.
These individuals endured a number of tests which, in the majority of cases, led to some pretty conclusive results which were reinforced by the survey’s own. Coming in with little shock value is the fact that white bias and white privilege dominate even the romantic aspects in our lives – we may not consciously see it, but it’s most definitely there. From one participant who insisted to the very end that he “wasn’t into mixed race girls” to an idiot of a guy in the street who branded Asian women as “more submissive”, having a type has taken on a whole new meaning. Eurocentric standards of beauty have impacted everything to the point that our attraction towards someone must fit into a certain looking mold; one which, for some, will never be achievable.
Emma also went on to explain how the digital world we find ourselves immersed in is feeding into these intimate segregations. Swipe left, swipe right, swipe left two more times. I haven’t even said its name and I bet you already know what I’m talking about. Chances are, you guessed it; it’s the troublesome burnt orange app that lays dormant on the hidden page of our home screen until we’re ‘wine drunk’ or hungover on a Sunday. Tinder is that old acquaintance which you hate to take on a night out because it always ends in a right mess but hey, they sometimes get a round or two in. And then there’s Grindr. The app which often seems to blur the lines between stalking and coincidence; right place, right time? Who knows. Either way, there’s a whole night of possibilities at your fingertips.
These romantic manifestations of coding and algorithms have taken smartphone users by storm, allowing them to find love, and everything in between, with a simple swipe or bend of the thumb. But here lies a more sinister side to this game – we’re allowed to filter who it is we come into contact with, including someone’s race. Plenty of Fish allows you to adapt your settings in accordance to the ethnicities of potential suitors you wish to stumbleupon and, if that isn’t concerning, then I’m not sure what is.
Taking to Twitter whilst the show was on was an ugly experience and one which I wish didn’t appear to be normal conversation for some. Objections to the programme went along the lines of “So just coz I’m not gay means I’m homophobic then?” or “People love to pull the race card on just about everything these days”. It felt as if people were well and truly missing the point here and decided to cover their eyes and ears before listening to the facts, seeing it from a well-supported point of view. All too often, it seems those with guilty consciences would rather run and bury their heads in the sand than admit our society is flawed.
The chances are, the majority of us do have a type. Whether we notice that or not varies from person to person and, occasionally, we surprise ourselves with who we gravitate towards. However, when we start to disregard a whole race of people, we’re potentially missing out on that one individual who could well be our soulmate. In such a diverse world where we have more freedom to date whoever we want than ever before, why limit ourselves to what we know as ‘normal’?