A cut & pasted comment from a protected entry in a friend’s journal.
How do you feel about the fetishization of asian, latino, not asian, anything-but-black, etc? Racial preferences? Whatever. I think that race has an effect on aesthetics, but culture is where it’s really at.
The question of cultural identity is huge. I think my (probably upper class) Burkina Faso classmate rocks. I think (a particular) African American classmate is annoying. And I know it’s a cultural thing. This makes me feel really sorry for the people in the African American underclass. Caucasian Americans leave them behind, and many Africans who emigrated voluntarily view them with disdain. You generally don’t choose your culture. It’s more voluntary than sexual orientation, but not generally a deliberate choice people make.
Latin American machismo irks me. You don’t have that, as far as I can tell, because you are not of that culture [despite being ‘affiliated’ by race]. I don’t think I’m racist to any significant degree, though I think I’m culturist. Since culture and race are highly correlated, the two types of discrimination are easily confused. And I do think racism is alive, and lurking in the shadows.
For some reason this post made me think about Selma Hayek instead of racial prejudice.
Thank you.
Some cultural preferences really don’t have many important values behind them, other than the psychological value of having one’s own aesthetic preference affirmed as opposed to some other symbolism. I think at least those preferences are highly problematic when they have a racially disparate impact.
Other race-neutral preferences, like anti-machismo–I would just say suck it up. Machismo has important negative effects other than ooo-i-don’t-like-how-you-be-saying-that-i-prefer-good-grammar There’s nothing preordained about machismo, and people who want to be that way can suffer the consequences (or benefits) of it.
i’m not sure i understand what you mean by “suck it up”. could you please clarify? to me it sounds like you are saying you think it is okay to be anti-machismo in attraction, but also that should just get over his anti-machismo preferences.
I meant that if someone is the “victim” of a race neutral preference against anti-machismo, and that preference happens to disproportionately impact Latinos, Russians, etc., I think that person should “suck it up.”
Too many negatives, lol. I’ve had a long day. Please delete “against” after the word “preference.”
OK, it’s been a REALLY long day. wtf. Forget that last correction. Delete “anti-“
😀
gotcha.
Also, dude, if you had a sexual preference for “only people with brown hair, no blondes please” noone would call you a racist.
Its only when your preferences for tiny-genetic-variations that manifest themselves only in physical appearance happen to align with cultural groups and historically percieved divisions that they become remotely relevant to any sort of race question.
So, in a sense “racism” is discrimination based on those genetic appearance features that have cultural associations. Discrimination against people with green eyes, or who can roll their tongues, is just plain old neuroticism.