Topics Race

Question My friend and I were having a discussion about racism. He made a claim to me that he would never date a black woman, but that he wasn't racist. Now, to me, that seems like a racist comment. But he says that I am misunderstanding him. These are his arguments: "I do not find black women attractive, and so I would not date one. You might call me racist then, but if I said I didn't like women with brown hair, or women with gray eyes, does that necessarily mean that I am discriminating against women with those attributes? It would just mean that I wouldn't consider a woman with gray eyes or brown hair a prospect for a sexual relationship. Furthermore, I could say that you don't wish to have sex with men, and by your logic, that would make you sexist against men." His arguments are persuasive, but I find something very wrong with them. It seems to me that if someone is otherwise compatible with you, it shouldn't matter what race they are (or, in fact, if they had freckles or blond hair, et cetera). It seems to me not only limiting, but racist. Unfortunately, I can't word my arguments as effectively as he can.

Accepted:
December 29, 2007

Comments

Your friend represents you as offering a bad argument: people who saythey're unattracted to people with characteristic X are prejudiced;your friend says he's unattracted to black women; hence, your friendsays, you conclude that he's prejudiced. But that doesn't strike me asa plausible diagnosis of what's going on. The problem isn't that you are relying on the bad argument your friend accuses you of. The problem is that yourfriend's supposed preferences are awfully hard to credit.

The obvious question to put to your friend is this: does he find all women with dark complexions sexually unattractive? If he says yes, then he might be telling the truth, but it's not easy to believe. If he says no, then things are equally puzzling: among people conventionally labeled "black," there is a wide, vast variety. Could it really be that there's something that all black women have in common that makes them unattractive to your friend? What could it possibly be?

And so we have a puzzle. Your friend is expressing a preference that's awfully hard to fathom given what we know about most people. When we're faced with cases like this, we cast around for explanations. And when race is part of the mix, the hypothesis that there's some unacknowledged prejudice at work has a certain plausibility.

Please note that since I don't know your friend and haven't ever talked to him about any of this, I can't claim to know what's really going on here. And since the word "racism" is so loaded, I've left it out of the conversation entirely. But one more general point might be worth making: human relationships and human attraction are both pretty complicated. If your friend isn't prejudiced, and if he's a properly modest thinker, then he might want to pull his horns in a bit. Few of us know ourselves as well as your friend's remark presupposes.