What does it mean to be anti-racist?
Before addressing the issue of racism in dating, we have to understand what it means to be anti-racist
– and why racism is sometimes hard to recognise within our budding and existing relationships. In his book How To Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi defines an anti-racist as ‘one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea’. He goes on to explain that ‘racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalises racial inequities’.
It begins with understanding that the process of being an anti-racist involves unlearning some of your behaviours.
It also means you need to listen to those who have been and continue to be affected. You need to listen to understand, not just to respond. But the first step is acknowledging that it exists and it’s happening every day.
The early signs of racism in dating?
Imagine you’ve got a date and the person has a different ethnicity to you. Start by looking at what attracts you to this person and examine what is attracting them to you. Is the attraction strongly related to their appearance, particularly their skin colour or their race? There is nothing wrong with appreciating someone’s physical appearance, but to fetishise a person based on their race is a serious problem. Pleines says there is positive and negative discrimination. ‘Some people have preferences for “exotic” cultures and appearances.
Yet, this is just as superficial as negative discrimination, since both reduce individuals to their physical appearance and cultural heritage.’
Racist behaviours in dating can also include making romantic or sexual assumptions about someone of a particular ethnicity
– like assuming a Black person is dominant, aggressive, promiscuous or sexually experienced, or having a preference for people of Latinx descent because you think they are all ‘exotic’ or ‘fiery’, and will call you pet names in Spanish. These assumptions are rooted in racist stereotypes. They’re a result of the demonisation and over-sexualisation of an entire race of people. It’s reductive, it makes people uncomfortable and it’s most certainly racist.