This.

Again, if you're going to have this conversation, at least be honest. Don't pretend to be discussing race openly by acknowledging a "preference" while also denying any prejudice. If you want to be open then be open about it.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008...eing-offended/

dale,

Your position is ridiculous.

El D,

No, it's not. Reducing someone down entirely to their race and then excluding them is, in fact, racist. Do some Google searchs of "dating racial preferences." This is not exactly a fringe argument. To say it's "ridiculous" is pretty, well, ridiculous.

Opinion:

Reducing someone down entirely to their sex and then excluding them is, in fact, sexist.

This was a pretty good thread about the topic

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/62...f-nsfw-674670/

Yes it is.

dale,

It's ok man, I'm sure you have some black friends and stuff.

Dale, your position is absurd. Stop trying to argue in favor if it.

Or.... you could be wrong. Just because the history exists, doesn't mean that people can't have preferences for or against certain races for purely aesthetic reasons. Like with hair color.

I don't even read messages from girls if they are fat, have kids, religious, 3+ years older than me, no college. It's all about discriminating.

I'm middle eastern . Pretty sure my family would disown me if I married a black girl
saying people these days don't consider race as the #1 hiccup when contemplating a date is lol.
Not sure what it is now that I think about it but I guess people are just wired to be racist or something.

Chronic, your family disowning you for dating a black girl is racist. Your own personal preference for your own love life...not so much. If you choose to avoid a relationship with a black girl because of the potential family strife it would cause then it is not necessarily racist on your part but the pressure your family put on you is.

Yes, but what are the sources of those "purely aesthetic reasons"? Aesthetics are culturally constructed. They don't exist in a vacuum. Why is it that the vast majority of white people find people of African descent unappealing aesthetically? Is this an innate feature that white people are born with? Why is it that the vast majority of white women refuse to even consider dating an Asian man? They were just born with it in their DNA to not be attracted to Asian men? Or are there cultural reasons unique to our society relating to our conceptions of race?

I'm not saying that people who don't find certain races attractive are overt racists and horrible people. That's exactly the point. It is pernicious because it is racist and yet people refuse to address it. Case in point being this thread.

Dale's position isn't that absurb, but could allow for some more nuance and flexibilty. I'll let others ellaborate.

I'll white knight (what a loaded term that is) for him a bit when I get back if this discussion is still going on.

I think Dale is arguing on a different level to everyone else and theres lots of very smart people who agree with him. Everyone else is just assuming 'im not that into black people' is just a preference without ever thinking about why they dont find black people attractive, why they prefer blondes, why they dont like fat chicks etc etc. This isnt something you come up with solely by yourself...

Pretty much nailed it

Really? I mean, aren't some things innate? People want healthy offspring, and fat people are much more likely to have health problems. Men like younger women because old women are unable to have children. Women like men with money because they'll be better providers. Seems like a lot is just nature.

No they aren't. At least not entirely. Examples of universal aesthetic values that aren't culturally constructed:
-Raw sewage smells bad.
-Nails on a chalkboard is an unpleasant sound.
-Elderly people are unattractive.
Racial preferences in attraction are certainly affected by culture in general, but it is possible to imagine someone whose preferences are indeed "in a vacuum."

What if I am not into dark skinned black chicks, only light skinned chicks? What does that mean? For that matter even dark skinned latinas are not as attractive as light skinned latinas in my opinion.

FWIW my girl is caucasian.

Hispanics are not a race.

I have 3 questions in response to your questions:

1) How are you defining racism?

2) What are the sources of the aesthetic reasons that some people prefer certain hair colors?

3) Well, not a question, but I think people tend to be attracted more to people that look like them. Probably some evolutionary thing to help preserve your genes (and those that look more like you are more likely to share more genes with you, I would think -- at the least, in the absence of real genetic tests, this seems like it would have been the best cavemen could have gone on).

For the sake of this discussion, can we just pretend that everything is a race? There's already the convenient term "racism" that we can use here. If instead we went with ethnicity, or culture, then we'd have to use awkward words like "ethnicitism" or "culturism" which I think I just made up. Also, we are discussing looks, so it doesn't really matter whether something is technically a race or not for this discussion.

Isn't diversification of genes a good thing? We all know what inbreeding does to mammals...

Racism: a general prejudice and/or discrimination against people of a certain race.

No really sure about the hair color thing. I don't really know the history behind it. I would guess the preference for blondes is also racial since they tend to be associated with more racially homogeneous people from northern Europe. Again, I really don't know why. I've never really had a hair preference.

My understanding is the opposite of this. Genetic diversity is suppose to be good, I thought. This is why you don't want to have offspring with a sibling or cousin, for example.