I saw the silliest thing on Facebook the other day. If you are into Facebook, then you know there are all these snapshot polls and personality quizzes people like to pass around. I think you can make up your own, which is kind of cool actually. But one the other day was likely a good intention gone bad.
The quiz was “Which ethnicity should you be dating?” Frankly I did not click on the link or participate in it so I don’t know where it goes or how it makes the conclusion. And at first blush it seems to me that the designer of the quiz probably meant well since even the notion that people should consider dating someone of a different ethnicity is a good one to put forth.
But my problem with the premise of the quiz is that it makes it seem like we should date someone based on their ethnicity – “what ethnicity should you be dating?” That flies in the face of what most of us who are in inter-ethnic relationships believe. We simply believe that we should be allowed to date anyone we choose regardless of their ethnicity, not because of it. Secondarily I don’t even want to know how they make the determination in this poll or quiz, because I am afraid it has to be based in part on stereotypes of the ethnic groups to make such a determination, since how can it take into account that people are individuals regardless of ethnicity.
Anything that makes it seem like we are choosing our partners for any other reason than love based on a personal connection is, in the long run, detrimental to getting us past an ethnic or race based way of seeing the world. The point is to love based on no boundaries, not because of distinctions.
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4 comments:
True, makes it sound like shopping for a hair style, or Suit. Some of those quizzes are getting ridicules.
You are absolutely right. I might add it to a post of my own. Thanks.
You are right. It's more on similar values imho.
Thanks for the comments. It is just ironic to me that even though such an effort can be well-intentioned, the fact that there are people who are say, black who only look for whites, or whites who love dating blacks, that notion is still based on race, and in the long run, still rooted in seeing color, not the person. Which is not a step forward. Seeing color or ethnicity and celebrating it, is a good thing. But it should not be why we pick someone. It should be a bonus. Not the main thing.
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