I remember when Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the two Asian-American journalists, were released from North Korea (after Bill Clinton went to North Korea to get them--must be nice, right?).
It was an emotional homecoming, which we all witnessed in the media (well, all of us that cared to witness it, witnessed it). One couldn't help but be moved by the raw emotion of the moment.
But, did you notice that both Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling came home to white husbands?
Other than the actual events that were occuring, I was totally struck by the fact that both of these Asian-American women had white husbands!
Not that it's all that shocking...
The proportion of Asian women who choose to date and/or marry white men (and who therefore don't choose to date and/or marry Asian men) truly amazes me!
If black women dated and/or married white (or Asian or Hispanic, or whatever) men in the numbers and proportion that Asian women date and marry white men, black men would just lose it!
I do not know how Asian men deal with that! I really don't.
But, the Asian woman/white man phenomenon illustrates my "issue"--if you want to call it that--with so-called colorblind, interracial dating.
It's interracial, but it's not really colorblind.
In the United States, interracial dating and interracial marriage in the United States primarily translate into white men dating and marrying black, Asian and Hispanic women.
They sure don't mean primarily translate into black, Asian or Hispanic men dating and marrying white women!
Oh, no! Not by a long shot!
Last year, I was on the campus of Carnegie-Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with my wife for her class reunion.
Carnegie-Mellon is one of America's premier engineering/computer science/technical universities, and (as there tends to be at such universities--a stereotype, yes, but true) there were plenty of Asian students on campus.
As we walked the campus, I couldn't help but notice (yeah, I was looking..., so what???) that the number of white male/Asian female couples that we saw just absolutely dwarfed the number of Asian male/white female couples.
In fact, out of the several hours we spent on the Carnegie-Mellon campus, I only remember seeing one Asian male/white female couple!
I must have seen 10-20 white male/Asian female couples during that same period on that same campus.
In fact, until I lived in New York City for a few years, I didn't know that Asian women dated Asian men in any significant numbers, I so rarely saw an Asian man/Asian woman couple! (Not that there weren't tons of Asian woman/white male couples in New York City--there were just more Asian/Asian couples there than I had seen elsewhere.)
So, when I hear white men advocate color-blind romance (you know: "I think everybody should date who they want to date and marry who they want to marry..."), what I hear is:
"I think that I, as a white man, black women, Hispanic women, Asian women... whatever--should all be available to me."
But, the corrollary to that is:
"That doesn't mean that white women should be available to Asian, black or Hispanic men!"
Sound fair to you???
Sound progressive to you???
It doesn't to me.
To me, that is almost precisely parallel to the interracial adoption situation.
When white people advocate for interracial, color-blind adoption, they are advocating for their freedom to adopt your non-white children--not for your freedom to adopt their white children.
How many black/Asian/Hispanic people do you know that have adopted a white child?
Exactly NONE!
At least, I don't know of any.
So, to me, the incidence of interracial dating and marriage, like the incidence of interracial adoption, is more often a symptom of inequality, than it is evidence of equality.
And, therein lies my "issue" with interracial dating and interracial marriage.
I don't think that people of different races or ethnicities shouldn't date and marry each other. To each his or her own!
I just don't think that the dating and marriage arenas should be additional arenas where the white male's social and economic privileges and advantages play themselves out.
If those two Asian female reporters had been black women, and they rushed out of the airplane into the waiting arms of their respective white husbands, I would have been totally shocked--and totally dismayed.
And, tell the truth: Can you even imagine two white female reporters running to the arms of their respective Asian, Hispanic or African-American husbands???
Not!!!
But two Asian female reporters running to their respective white husbands was entirely unremarkable.
What does that tell you, about how "colorblind" interracial dating is???
No comments:
Post a Comment