My ethnic make up is half caucausian and half chinese, however I don’t look very asian unless you look closely. My eyes are not hudded, my hair is brown, curly and full with red highlights and my skin, perhaps caucasian or asian is almost translucently white and not yellowish at all. I often envied my sister who had long raven black sleek hair and darker colored skin. Growing up people thought she was anything but white but could not place her accurately, East Indian, Arabic, Hawaiian. And for me well I was clearly white, however when people got closer to me they would begin to examine my features and pronounce me “Not quite white”. Something about my “whiteness” was off.
I never considered any of this thought racist, it was curious but had no sense of judgement, or negativity about it. In fact, when white people caught themselves asking about my race they’d become sheepish, apologetic, sorry even. Chinese people who’d notice would point at me and say “you’re a halfy”, emotionless, and then keep walking along without stopping or considering the pointing rude.
I have never really experienced racism in the Sydney Poitier kind of way. Never really been denied opportunity or access because of my “not quite whiteness” and mixes are not in great vogue at the moment! My father had experienced quite a lot of racism, both from Chinese people, white people and black people, (he grew up in Jamaica).
I have however understand that for some caucasian men there exists a “sexual preference” of women that is very superficial and often includes large generalities based on race. I like to call this preference arrogance. There is no accountability in this sexual arrogance, that the man using it maybe un-worldly, uneducated, or stupid, their generalistic, masogynistic statements about what color of women they find sexually preferable is argued to be just an aspect of freedom of speech, even if it has racial language in it which is comparable to the way white slave sellers and owners used to describe black slaves’ physical and facial features 300 years ago. Each one of my ex boyfriends, all caucasian had made statements that had a tone of sexul arrogance in it.
“I’m attracted to white and asian women, black women tend to have “primitive and heavy” features they look more masculin.”
“I’m attracted to asian, white and hispanic women however I don’t like the look of aboriginal women and black women, they look more man-ish, and you don’t want to think you’re sleeping with a man.”
All of these boyfriends came from other places in the country but I had met them in Calgary which is a conservative 1 Millionin population- big city.
As this racism put my kind (asian and white) in the “favorable” position to be liked by the arrogant white guy, I had a hard time understanding how the statement was a offensive to me. Then I understood that the language of the statement although seemingly racist was nothing more the masogynistic.
I find it hard to believe watching how much men fall crazy in love or more so in lust after beatitful women that any man would ignore his sexual feelings simply because of race. Still to this day no one quite knows what Jessica Alba’s ethnic make up is, with her dark skin and dark eyes, but most men…Calgarian or not would not turn her down. These are no longer the Victorian days or the days where “good breeding” is a term or a behavior that’s considered anything but archaic.
I also could not imagine a beautiful black women, let’s say Beyonce, finding anything attractive about these arrogant, probably smaller penis-ed (relative to what she’s used to) men. I found the statement laughable at best but completely uncomfortable.
While I lived in Montreal I experienced a culture where most women were far more attractive then men. This was in part that men in Montreal often had less money and less opportunity than the more affluent men found in Calgary. Also the ethnicities attracted to Montreal, french speaking africans, algerians, french, portugese, eastern european, created quite a mix of beautiful people and women, in beautiful setting.
Where Calgary men are encouraged to act more “American” or “Canadian” there is still the prevaling idea that one’s wife, if of another ethnicity is “exotic” and not… the girl next door (also an offensive term to any girl not purely white). Although the english, Candian men might find the exotic girl more attractive she is still “foreign” if not beautiful, and not home-home on the range enough. Or so I gather is the thinking?
Beautiful women exist in all races all cultures the 2 most beutiful women I had ever seen were Arabic and East Indian, (in Montreal of course) , and falling in love has no racial lines. Men are only setting themselves up for failure trying to keep their gene pool in one area, so why is there a convention to denegrade women out of sexual preference?
To bond, political with woman whose ethnic backgrounds appear politicall stronger and more similar. To political ally with an asian or causasian people more, as they are considered the most affluent on a poltical cultural scale. The statements are more political in nature then personal. All the cultures and races mentioned as being “not as desirable” are cultures where there is higher rates of domestic violence, more single parent families, less opportunity to post-secondary opportubity and higher rates of teenage pregnancy…. correction, in Alberta there is the higher amound of sexual assault reported than in any other part of the country… and that has no racial lines to it. But the point is the statement is political.
And this is why I find these particular white men on their white horses so offensive? These women may already have striked against them, let’s just keep them down there and call them ugly….. ?
I suppose I also consider these “personal opinions” arrogant as my own father travelled outside of his race to find a mate. However he did this in a political fashion too. My father said, “My mother wanted to set me up with an asian girl, no way, no way, I’m not following all the asian practices and customs, I’m in Canada now.”
Even, positive, perhaps men always believe they are marrying into a culture and political position with a female. As ex morman, white as rice friend Max had put it. “White guys who won’t go for black women are so stupid, when black women gain weight it’s far more propertional than white women, and their skin is seemingly always flawless.”
Perhaps the male mind, positive or negative about races always has a masogynist political tone in it, which sees the culture of person before it understand that person as an individual.
And although I find my exes, if anything unworldly, unwise, and totally stupid… for these comments I also note, that all of my exes are white…. perhaps saying something about my preferences or saying something about where I think power lies in racial politics. It says something about my sexual arrogance.
Jaimee