“I’m a straight white dude and recent college grad who has very progressive beliefs and is looking for a committed partner who, in time, can equitably raise a family with me,” the anonymous author said, adding specifically, “I want to prioritize dating women of color.”
“Despite my well-meaning antiracist principles, is this preference (as friends have suggested) wrong, insensitive or somehow itself racist?” they asked the New York Times’ supposed “ethicist.” “I am dedicated to educating myself on issues of racism, sexism and other forms of kyriarchy while also learning from marginalized people. For me, principles lead the way to attractions.”
Rather than rationally explain how fetishizing antiracism is a bizarre and unhealthy strategy to prove someone’s devotion to identity politics, the New York Times’ advice “ethicist” characterized the approach as “impressive.”
“You’d be using your erotic ecumenism to level up. Where your shallower classmates have hookups, your dates would be teach-ins. ‘Do the work,’ the slogan urges, and you’re rolling up your sleeves,” wrote Kwame Anthony Appiah. “Your devotion to self-improvement is impressive. Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage.”