Ehwmatt wrote:So, putting aside Sushi's broad "personality trait" proclamations, do you think it's racist to not be physically attracted to people of a certain race? If so, just about every man and woman I know isn't into a certain race as a general rule [e.g., asians, blacks] etc. Find it hard to believe they are all racist.
Just curious.
No, I don't think that's racist; most of us have a few physical types that we are more likely to be attracted to on a purely physical level, and other physical types we are less likely to be attracted to; frequently that includes skin colour. I believe there have been studies done that show we are more like to be attracted to facial 'types' that we are familiar with, so we are less likely to be attracted to people from a very different racial background if we haven't spent time with many people of that background. So, if you've grown up in a society with a lot of mixed races, you are more likely to be attracted to people of different racial characteristics than your own, where as if you've grown up in a predominantly 'one race' culture, you're less likely to be attracted to people with significantly different racial characteristics. That doesn't make you a racist, unless you start ascribing personality traits and characteristics to match those physical ones.
I'm frequently attracted to men around 6' with brown hair and blue eyes, or big barrel chested guys, and men with long hair tend to catch my eye more than men with short hair, and I'm generally not attracted to shorter men, or blonde/redheaded men. But that doesn't make me 'heightist' or 'hairist' because I don't assume that there is any correlation between those characteristics and who they are or how they behave or think. Those might be the things that initially prompt me to go talk to someone, or make eye contact, or might be things that make it take a little longer to warm to someone physically, but in the end, I've dated men shorter than me, I've dated redheads and blonds, and what prompts me to go on a second date has very little to do with looks/physical characteristics and everything to do with personality.
Sushi isn't getting shit because he isn't usually physically attracted to black women, or even because he married a woman of Asian background. He's getting shit because he wiped out ever dating another black woman because of personality and behavioural issues he had when dating ONE black woman, and then made that statement after a couple of years of praising Asian women as the perfect mates, describing his wife as Asian/Japanese at every given opportunity, as though that says everything we need to know about her. Don is obviously attracted to Asian women too, but he doesn't talk about them as though being Asian is the only thing they need to be attractive and great to go out with.
I personally couldn't stand to be involved with someone who wants all evidence of my life experiences before meeting them to be expunged from our existance; anyone that insecure, manipulative and controlling would drive me batty. But I'm not going to make the mistake of thinking that because that's what Sushi's wife is like, that all Asian women are like that, or all Asian women who marry white men, or all Japanese women who marry outside their culture, or any other general sweeping statement, any more than I'd assume a white guy who marries an Asian woman is a racist twat looking for a submissive stereoptype.
The fact is, I've met a LOT of white men who are exactly that; they deliberately seek out Asian women because they are looking for a submissive, obedient partner who will ignore their faults, and who will be 'content' to be housewives, and they think that all Asian women are like that. Listening to my Vietnamese friends bitching about white guys hitting on them with that stereotype in mind is pretty eye-opening. But I also know quite a few white men who married Asian women simply because they fell in love, and race had nothing to do with it.
As far as I'm concerned, I already thought Sushi was a racist simply because of the way he describes his wife. She's never just his wife, his gorgeous wife, his sexy wife, his whatever wife; she's ALWAYS described as his ASIAN wife, or possibly his adjective-ASIAN wife. I sometimes wonder if she introduces him as her Caucasian husband.
It's an interesting thing that this thread has brought up though - we associate rascism as being about hate. I wonder if a lot of racist people don't think they are because they don't have antagonistic feelings about people of a different colour.
Shit, I'm turning into YouKnowWho again. At least I know about paragraphs though!Why treat life as a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in an attractive & well-preserved body? Get there by skidding in sideways, a glass of wine in one hand, chocolate in the other, body totally worn out, screaming WOOHOO! What a ride!
his last wife was so pretty. I can't tell if she's a woman either 
