This is the third part of the series on Interracial Dating. Read the first two parts here and here.

Holding Hands

After you navigate the maze of the rules of attraction, there is the actual dating. This is when the fun begins, as the carnival of culture clash comes to your town.

Dimsum or Samosa?

Race, or ethnicity, is almost synonymous with culture. What race you are, usually pinpoints to the environment one grew up in, the customs observed, the festivals celebrated. It can impact the thousand different ways we carry ourselves, conduct our daily lives.

Hence, when two people of two different ethnicities come together, there are bound to be cultural differences. Maybe she is appalled that you can eat food with your fingers. Maybe he is rolling his eyes when you use water, not tissue paper. Differences can be a source of conflict, or it can be the starting point of mutual discovery.¹

To add another layer of confusion, even within certain 'races', such Indians, there are several small ethnic groups with drastically different cultures. Malays are not a uniformly descended group from one Malay ancestor, but a socially and legally enforced grouping of several small indigenous tribes. And of course, there are the myriad dialect groups in the Chinese community. There is more diversity than we think there is.

From my previous articles about Rules of Attraction, the readers would remember the Totem pole, a ladder of sexual superiority and inferiority, and the phenomenon of internal racism. The 'inferior' race may sometimes try to suppress her racial characteristics when with her partner, believing them to be unappealing. Or perhaps they think that the lack of cultural traits make them more like their partner, hence more relatable. Suddenly she stops wearing her favourite salvar kameezes, or maybe he doesn't listen to his Javanese folk music collection anymore.²

In the second part of this series, the author explores the flip side of Rules of Attraction. Read the first part here.

Exotification

Exotification is the rough opposite of sexual racism, but still has its roots in the totem pole. It is generally exhibited by, for the lack of a better term, 'superior' races, in whichever pairing it is. Caucasians with an Asian or Black fetish, or in a local context, maybe Chinese who have a thing for Malay/Indian/mixed people, tend to those who exotify others. Exotification, which often goes hand-in-hand with the colonial mentality¹, such an extent that it becomes a sub-culture, as with the potato-queen-rice-queen phenomenon in Asian countries. Or with the SPG culture.

Exotification can be flattering, but at the same time, a little discomfiting, speaking from personal experience. Yes, it is nice knowing sexual racism has been turned on its heels, and the person is attracted to you, not despite, but because of your race. However, it does raise questions about whether the person likes you for who you are, or because he/she projects this exotic image of who you are supposed to be. The entire SPG culture thrives on exoticism. Exoticism can also derive from a sense of superiority and domination, of a certain kind of racial power-play they are unable to enact with those of their own race, but can with those lower on the “totem pole”.
While exoticism is not bad in itself, the attitude behind it can be. It would be up to the person to maintain respect for the person, and see beyond his/her racial identity.

Internal Racism

So much about inter-racial dating, sexual racism and all. It would seem that the races at the top of the 'totem pole' are the bigoted ones, and the ones below the 'victims'. But things aren't that simple. There is another, hidden layer to inter-racial dating, which is internal racism. Certain people can actually be prejudiced against their own race so much that they will refuse to date them. This may seem incredible, but this phenomenon is well and alive.²

There are two types of internal racists.³ The first type are those who think of themselves as inferior due to their race, or see some defect in their race. They are unable to respect and be attracted to someone of their own race enough to be in a relationship with them. This attitude is endemic in most potato queens, naturally. And this is an attitude I've encountered many times in local Malay and Indian queer folks. This is also directly related to the point about media and beauty. It saddens me to see people fall into this trap, time and again. I will freely confess I was in this trap until a few years ago. I did not find south Indian women attractive, as in my mind, the ideal of beauty was something else. Only by changing my perceptions about beauty and all was I able to gain self-confidence and lose this internal prejudice.

The second type are those who do not have inferiority complexes, but see something fundamentally wrong with people of their race, and consider themselves to be different from them, hence worthy. Ever heard of the phrase 'familiarity breeds contempt'? They do tend to look down on their own kind, and may have a white inside, brown outside mentality. They may date people of almost any other race except their own, but since the prejudice is against their own, they may not even consider it racism.

Trophy Partners

The above-mentioned internal racists can also fall into a group of people who consider their other-racial partners as “trophies”. This is an almost subconscious attitude, one which is hardly ever articulated. If you will remember in the first part, I spoke about the totem pole, and how if the “superior” race on the totem pole is to pay attention to the “inferior” race, it is considered a “gift” and a privilege?

This attitude can be internalised so deeply that a person can consider the fact that he managed to “ensnare” someone who is “superior” a compliment to himself and his attractiveness. Having this attitude, it might be almost unbearable of them to “downgrade” themselves by dating people of their own race or those lower on the totem pole.

In a nutshell

Clearly not all the phenomenon I have described exists in all interracial relationships. There are people who are in happy, healthy relationships with none of this racial baggage. Nor are people who have only dated their own, racists.

One is free to date whoever he or she wants. And one is free to have preferences of whatever nature. However, do keep in mind especially us queer people cannot quite afford to discriminate against people based on colour, being a small community. Not to mention it would be the most stupid thing to do: how do you know Mr or Ms Right isn't that person whose profile you just closed once you caught sight of his/her race?

***

Related Links:

Review of Rice Queen Diaries – A classic example of exotification
Confessions of a Rice Queen

1. Colonial mentality not just refers to the dictate of the Caucasian 'supremacy', but also how it has been transposed in certain countries to make the 'whiter' race 'superior', as with the Chinese [back]
2. Clearly, not all people who have only dated those of other races, are internal racists. Some people just happen to fall that way, due to circumstances or due to their own attraction-preferences. In this context, however, I refer to those who do not consider their own ethnic members potential partners at ALL. [back]
3. In this discussion, I am limiting internal racism to those who are lower on the “totem pole”. I cannot speak for people on the “top” of the “totem pole” who are internal racists. But this attitude, I’ve noticed from entirely personal observation, come from those who exotify others [back]

This begins a tri-part column on the racial politics of dating. The author, a bisexual Indian female, speaks from her own experience and all her viewpoints are representative of herself, not the organisation. This article addresses audience of both genders.

Images from fotosearch.com

Rules of Attraction

I am by no means a Casanova, nor a dating guru. Quite the reverse, in fact. But that does not mean I've not had enough experience in the matters of inter-racial attraction [both ways], because almost my entire history is taken up by this phenomenon.

I would also like to say that I am speaking of general trends, and what I say may not apply to everyone.

Let's start from childhood. I was about 11, and hormones had started to course through my bloodstream, altering my body shape, moods and personality. But I knew puberty had really hit home, when I had a crush on a boy in my class, who happened to be Chinese. This, in the fashion of adolescent love, lasted a couple of months and took up a lot of space in my diary. And of course, being an idiot of that age, I tried all kinds of ways to make him fall for me.

My biggest insecurity of that time, of course, was that he was Chinese, and me Indian. The funny part about this insecurity was that if we both swapped genders, I would have no such insecurity. When I confessed my crush to my friends, one of their first ways of teasing me was emphasising the racial difference, and a unspoken sense of going for someone 'too good' for me.

Totem Pole