part 1
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part 2
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part 3
Welcome to the Asian panel on Interracial Dating. We actually did end up doing a South Asian panelist breakout, which will go next Thursday. Our panelists are:
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N?Jaila Rhee, the mastermind behind?BlaysianBytch.com?(link NSFW);?Elton, long time commenter and friend of the blog;?refresh_daemon,?blogger?and?occasional contributor;?Christina Xu, friend of the blog andoccasional contributor;?Eric Zhang,?occasional contributor; and?Holly,?contributor at Feministe.
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What types of messages did you receive about interracial relationships growing up?N?jaila:?It was very odd for me because while my father was Asian, I never felt like I or he was ?mixed?. Growing up mixed was Black and White. Black and Asian just made Black and what was more important was my parents were West Indians. I don?t believe I even felt ?mixed? or ?Asian? until much later in life when I began dating myself. My parents did not see themselves as a mixed race couple so I did not see them that way. On television you never see Asian people with anyone other than whites so to me I always felt like dating inter-racially was code for dating white.
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Elton:?My mom doesn?t care who my sister or I marry as long as they are good, hardworking, honest people who live what she calls a ?quality life.?
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My family is part of a wave of Cantonese immigrants to the Southern United States that goes back to the 1930s or earlier. One of our forefathers is turning 100 this year. Another from that generation married a white waitress who worked at the first Chinese restaurant in the area. Their marriage lasted until death. Their mixed-race children are retirement age and a few served in the Army in the Vietnam War.
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Despite the predominant media message, neither interracial relationships nor Chinese immigrants to America are anything new.
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refresh_daemon:?My first generation Korean immigrant parents view of interracial dating has evolved a little since I was young. When I was younger, it was unfathomable to them that I would date someone who wasn?t ethnically Korean and so the particular message that I received growing up was a big ?NO.? My father, having since moved back to Korea still holds to this view strongly, although only for me as being the first son has implications that do not extend to my younger siblings; for my younger siblings, I think his line of thinking is similar to my mother?s (although Korean beats all for him). My mother would prefer that I marry, in order: 1) A Korean American woman, 2) an Asian American woman, 3) a Korean woman, 4) a white woman. She?s become much more open since my youth, but she still has clear racial biases. Obviously, marriage preferences determine who it?s acceptable to be in a relationship with. As my father says, ?Friends fine, but you can?t marry them.?
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Christina:?Growing up, my parents certainly hoped that I would date Chinese-Americans but I think they knew it was going to be tough since we moved from China (lots of Chinese people) to Ohio (not quite so many) when I was 7. By the time I hit college, they had all but given up on the idea. For them, it was primarily an issue of linguistic and cultural compatibility; they wanted a son-in-law that they could converse with easily and, eventually, grandkids that spoke Chinese. As a result, other East Asians weren?t necessarily favored over whites. Blacks, Arabs, and?surprisingly?South Asians were strongly frowned upon, in that order. Refresh_daemon?s father?s ?friends fine, but you can?t marry them? was very much the philosophy in our house as well.
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At some point, I was surprised to hear my mom tell me that she?d actually come to dislike the idea of me dating Asian-American men, citing the probable incompatibility of their more tradition gender views with my loud tomboy nature, progressive politics, and other strange ideas. I think for her, it was part reluctant acceptance and part mercy for any good Chinese boy that might have the misfortune of stumbling upon me.
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Eric:?If my parents mentioned dating at all when I was growing up, it was to say I wasn?t allowed to date until college (ha!). As is the case with many other aspects of discussions about race, I was taught about interracial relationships on a particularly black-white axis, and rarely considered interracial relationships between Asians and non-Asians. I think I did grow up with an unspoken understanding that I was expected to marry another Chinese, and my parents would pair me and my brother with other Chinese girls ? you know, the cute thing where parents decide their children are boyfriend and girlfriend when they?re six years old. When I moved to a new neighborhood that was 96% white, my mother paired us with white girls instead. Then I moved to a neighborhood with a larger Asian concentration and my ?girlfriend? was Taiwanese. Of course this was all before I became old enough to understand dating, and this was, again, our parents deciding it would be cute for us to be ?boyfriend/girlfriend.? I think, though, that because we spent a lot of time living in neighborhoods with relatively low Asian populations, my mother was more open to the idea of an interracial relationship. After my parents got divorced, for example, my mother dated a half-Colombian, half-Egyptian man, who is still a major part of our lives.
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Holly:?I?m the product of an interracial relationship between my mother (1st generation Japanese immigrant) and my dad (white guy) so THAT kind of interracial relationship was held up as a good, ?diverse? thing in my family, and something which my parents had struggled with oppression and misunderstanding around, including from their families. It wasn?t seen as strange at all when I was growing up that I?d date white people or asian people ? and in high school I dated someone who was quarter-indigenous, and that was totally thumbs-up as well. The liberal-multi-culti facade of all interracial relationships being cool was torn up a little bit when my sister started dating black guys, however. There was a lot more disapproval and ?what does he want to do with his life,? which I?m sure could be attributed to class differences as well. Come to think of it, they did raise similar objections to a white guy she dated who was a slacker musician without much of a ?future.? When I put it all together in my memory, the message we received was holistically about fitting people into a nice, harmonious middle-class liberal picture of diversity where everyone basically ought to want the same thing: college, a career, a nice home, stability, marriage, kids, family closeness, etc. As far as my parents? relationship went, it was pretty clear to me that my father?s relatives found my mother off-putting and cold in ways that had everything to do with cultural differences, and which she in turn found very alienating. In a lot of ways, that and other differences felt kind of like a classic ?here?s why cross-cultural relationships often don?t work? example, playing out into a divorce right in front of me.
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How does culture factor into conversations about interracial dating? Essentially, are all Asians seen as equal and fair game for dating, or do most people have a specific nationality based preference?N?jaila:?Well , as I said before the culture of being Caribbean came before race for my family in particular. I think that might have much more to do with my father?s rejection of his Asianess in favor of adapting a more Trinidadian form of Blackness. My father actually showed a lot of disfavor for me dating Asian men. My mother was quite indifferent. My parents try hard to put aside their personal prejudices when it comes to who my brother and I date. They might make an off color joke, but I?ve never been told that one Asian ethnicity was superior or inferior to any others. I think many people do have a preference ethnicity-wise, mostly based on what they feel is more acceptable and who would be the most likely to accept them.
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Right now I?m in a place where I feel truly open to dating anyone. I want someone that will be loving and a suitable partner for starting a family before I think of their race, but I?m always mindful that one of the requirements to being a good partner is the ability to raise my Blasian kids without them having to take to many trips to the shrink.
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In all truthfulness I highly doubt that person is going to be Asian American.
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Elton:?Despite their ostensible acceptance of anyone I might choose to marry, my parents do prefer that I marry a Chinese American. I believe that your mate choice reflects upon your values. If being Chinese is important to you, then your partner should probably be Chinese. If something else is more important to you, then choose a partner based on that.
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refresh_daemon: I do think that there is some arguable reason to choosing to ?date in?. In particular, it?s one of the many ways that you can date someone who shares similarities with you. And culture is one of those factors. When you share a culture with someone, then the opportunity for friction and misunderstanding to occur because of cultural differences is reduced. That said, for many second generation Asian Americans, their ties to their parents culture are often much softer than first generation or 1.5 generation Asian Americans and consequently, I find that many second generation AA?s are much more open to pan-Asian cross cultural dating.
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Of course, I do think that this is dependent on each individuals own personal ties to their specific ancestral culture and how much of that culture is practiced. I feel that those who are least tied to it are most suited to pan-Asian or interracial relationships, and obviously, those that are more tied to their ancestral culture will find greater challenges in cross-cultural relationships. Of course, cultural understanding won?t necessarily be the largest challenge in any given relationship, but it can be one.
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Eric:?I think the perception persists that ?we?re all the same,? and that to non-Asians the differences between Asian ethnicities are miniscule at best. This is changing of course ? I have more and more white people telling me that they can ?tell us apart,? which to me is problematic in a different way (to quote Margaret Cho: ?I can?t even tell us apart!?). In general, it seems like the Japanese are more in vogue, especially because of the geisha image and the proliferation of Japanese media in the Western world (anime, video games, etc.), and Koreans seem to be rising as well with the hallyu or ?Korean Wave.? Of course I also have many white friends who are particularly invested in Chinese culture, Vietnamese, Filipino, etc. I can?t say that there is a general preference, though, but rather that it differs on a largely individual level. However, racial characteristics that supposedly make Asians more or less attractive always seem to be applied on a generalized level, so that the idea that ?Asian culture? makes us act one way or another supercedes the idea that ?Japanese culture? or ?Chinese culture? makes us desirable or undesirable. Both ideas are ridiculous of course, but my point is that these stereotypes are often exaggerated to apply to diverse groups of people in a way that makes nationality or ethnicity less visible.
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Holly:?Where my parents are concerned, my mother?s the only one that cares. She?s already crossed (and burned) the bridge of ?marrying and having kids with a white person? so she doesn?t care about her kids doing that. But she is pretty clear that she considers herself above any ethnic group she considers ?dirty,? which basically just corresponds to an immigrant community?s relative position on the economic totem pole. In 2011, is your community mostly run service businesses or restaurants with low margins, in lower-rent neighborhoods? My mother has probably said something uppity and racist about them, and wouldn?t want her kids dating you! In society in general, yeah, I?ve encountered a lot of people who are intrigued or excited by the fact that I?m Japanese, in particular. It?s hard for me to say relative to other groups of Asians, but throughout my life people have honed in on a lot of particular elements of Japanese culture ? from sushi and ?stiff bowing? in the 80s to ?you guys are all hentai tentacle-rape perverts? in the 90s and so forth.
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If you have dated interracially, did you have any fears or misgivings going into the situation? Did you peers react to you differently?N?jaila:?Well, I do date interracially, and then I don?t. Most of my serious long term relationships have been with Asian or Asian American men. I am Asian American but a mixed Asian that most would not identify as Asian. I think the majority of the men that I?ve been with did not see me as a fellow Asian. If asked I?m sure they would call me their ?Black girlfriend?.
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I?ve had so many strong negative reactions to dating Asian men that when I was a freshman in college I actually thought there was something wrong with me. I went to the counseling center to ask about it. I was very embarrassed to find out that the counselor who I thought was white was actually Chinese American. She couldn?t?t help but laugh but she at least made me realize that the problem lied with the people judging my relationships not me for having it. I had never thought anything of my choice of partners until college. My co-workers mocked who I dated, other Asian girls mocked who I dated, even one of my professors had a comment for me.
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The odd thing was , I felt that people weren?t so put off that I was dating Asian men, but that I wasn?t dating White men. It was like there was a proper flow of interracial dating and it started and ended with a White man.
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I think the biggest misgiving that I had was that I could approach dating someone that looked very much not like me the same way my parents did. Just ignore the elephant in the room, that was relationship poison. The biggest fear , is always not being Asian enough. Actually, I think the fear is being Asian enough for sex, but not for a serious relationship.
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Eric:?Interracial couples with Asian men are interesting. Popular media has told us for so long that Asian men aren?t sexy, they?re nerdy or weird or criminal. As a queer Asian American man, I become more feminized, and I feel as though stereotypes about Asian women are more relevant to my lived experiences than stereotypes about Asian men. I?ve been asked straight up if I crossdress, with no prior hint that I would engage in drag (for the record, I do occasionally, but a note to all the gays out there: you shouldn?t be asking me this unless you know about my stilettos and makeup collection!). I?ve been called geisha or bishonen, which is Japanese for a beautiful boy, and is a popular trope in girls? anime series in which a boy is attractive in a very androgynous, feminine way (e.g. he is slender and has long hair). If you look at me, I am not feminine in appearance at all! But because these types of tropes exist about Asian women, I think they are often applied to me by my non-Asian partners.
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To that end, I think when I am going into interracial relationships, I am always wary of those who seem to fetishize me as exotic and feminine. I have sometimes had to reconcile my attraction to another man with his tendencies to speak about me in racialized ways that make me uncomfortable. I am often hyperaware of ?what my friends would think,? not in the sense that I fear that they would disapprove of my relationship because I know they wouldn?t, but that they would judge me for compromising my anti-racist beliefs by dating a man who calls me geisha, even if there is a conscious irony when he does so.
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Holly:?Nothing sets off my ?gross, get me out of here? alarm more quickly in a dating situation than attitudes about race that I find unsavory. I guess I?d extend that to race politics in general; I simply won?t go on any more dates with someone who believes that racism is a thing of the past, or that white people suffer equally from racism, or tells me that they?re ?color blind? and therefore can?t be racist. This definitely affects my prospects in terms of dating; there are certainly plenty of white people out there who are blind to their own privilege. I definitely didn?t even consider dating the guys who told me they were ?so into Japanese culture? upon meeting me or who pointedly asked me ?hey are you half-Japanese? I knew it, you have that half-Japanese look.? I once had a one-night stand with a girl who texted me later and told me that I was ?an anime wet dream.? I nearly barfed up my breakfast, then deleted all her contact information. So yeah, that?s misgivings, and I have more and more of them as I perceive my potential dating partner to be more and more privileged, entitled and/or clueless.
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refresh_daemon:?Along the lines of Eric?s and Holly?s comments, a (perhaps not so) surprising trend I?ve seen developing alongside the increasing popularity of anime/manga as well as Jpop/Kpop and Asian drama is an increasing degree of fetish-ization of Asian men as well (as Asian women were long subject to fetishization). I?ve personally been messaged that ?Korean men are so hot. You look like X.? And you can fill in X with whatever Korean actor or pop star that I in no way resemble. Perhaps there are Asian men out there that would appreciate this objectifying attention from non-Asian (or Asian from another culture) women, but I find it rather disturbing that instead of fostering greater understanding, this increase in popularity of Asian entertainment media is just applying a new set of stereotypes and objectification to Asian men and women. As a result, I?ve become wary of non-Asian women who express an enthusiastic interest in Asian entertainment and even non-Korean Asian women who express an enthusiastic interest specifically in Korean pop music or dramas.
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Christina:?I?ve had two different white partners tell me that they hesitated (not enough, apparently!) to start dating me because they were afraid that others would accuse of them of having Asian fetish. This seems silly, but the white boy/Asian girl actually is an awful trope in the geek world that the many healthy, sane couples that match the description are overshadowed by the ones who have, shall we say, problematic relationships. It?s an awkward thing to go out in public with your partner and feel the burden of that stereotype?my partner is worried that others will accuse him of having yellow fever (or even worse, someone who does have racist, sexist views towards Asian women will believe that he has similar opinions to them), and I?m worried that people view me as the token uninteresting, submissive Asian girlfriend. It really couldn?t be further from the truth, but it?s something to constantly combat!
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N?jaila:?Christina, I am Asian and I was afraid I had an Asian fetish because I dated Asian men. I think I just have daddy issues.
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Since minorities are seen in different lights (and with different accompanying stereotypes), what types of reactions have people had toward you and your partners? How are white partners perceived, as opposed to minority partners? Were any partners considered ?off-limits? or ?forbidden???
N?jaila:?I only know the perspective of the ?forbidden? partner. My skin is brown and my hair is curly, my breasts are large and my booty is big. For many of my partners I was something sexually alluring and ?dangerous? that was my main selling point. I was forbidden fruit. ?I think a good number of my sexual partners took me as a conquest to prove their virility. ?Asianness and Blackness is almost synonymous with sexual deviancy for many people.
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Growing up I think that white partners felt the most off limits because they were so outside the realm of what was familiar to me. ?If they were so alien to me I couldn?t imagine them looking at me and not seeing a laundry list of stereotypes either a dragon lady, mammy , Jezebel or otherwise. ?I guess you can say I did not trust white men to make the distinction between genuine attraction and fetish exploration.
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Eric:?This may be a little bit contradictory to what I said above, but I remember one specific moment, the only moment I had where my mother specifically addressed interracial relationships. She told me and my brother that we were not allowed to marry a black or Japanese woman. My brother took it as a challenge, because he is very much involved in Japanese subculture, but I really just refused to say anything about it. To some extent, my mother?s racist beliefs about black people may have affected me subconsciously, because I remember one time mentioning to my friends that I had a crush on a black classmate, and that he was ?the first black guy I?ve ever liked,? which in retrospect was not entirely true. As soon as I said it, though, I realized that I had been brought up to believe that I should not be attracted to black people, whether because of my mother or media representations.
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The Japanese part is a result of long-standing resentment in many Chinese of my parents? and grandparents? generations towards the Japanese during WWII. I think on an academic level this type of discrimination fascinates me even more, because I have a friend who is half-Chinese and half-Japanese, and she would talk about how her grandparents were scandalized when her parents got married. These kinds of interethnic hostilities are often unspoken about, I think, but many of us who grew up with Chinese, Japanese, or Korean parents have these beliefs instilled in us, so my Chinese friends understand more personally why I was surprised about this girl being half-Japanese than, I think, many of my white friends do.
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I often do explicitly wonder what my parents think about interracial relationships, and in particular about my interracial relationships. However, I try to keep them as separate as possible from my dating life, because I think they are uncomfortable with the idea that I date men in the first place, although I believe they accept it on an intellectual level. The only time I?ve told them about my partner was when I came out to my mother, and she was more concerned with the fact that he was a boy than that he was white.
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On the other hand, I think many people expect me to date outside of my race, probably because of this common perception that Asian men aren?t sexy, or that they?re not my ?type? (which is odd because I don?t think I have a ?type,? but I believe that people expect gay Asians to be twinky feminine boys, and rarely think of them as more ?straight-acting,? and that, in turn, my preference would be for a more masculine, non-Asian boyfriend, which is untrue). I think my friends especially would be surprised if I were to have an Asian boyfriend, because so far I have only been with non-Asians (though not for lack of interest). I secretly suspect that my parents similarly expect my brother and me to end up with white partners, but hope we will marry Chinese.
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Holly:?I?ve definitely had the experience of being the ?weird, unexpected? partner, because sometimes people (and I guess I tend to think specifically of partners? families) don?t know how to categorize me racially, and sometimes haven?t been able to make sense of my gender either. Sometimes I think the weird mixture of things has actually helped throw the radar way off: I had one partner whose mother was really upset that her daughter was gay and dating me (and I was her third girlfriend) but was also super-interested to talk to me about my family and Japanese background, plus the fact that she saw me as a ?successful professional? relative to the lower-middle-class white surroundings of her family ? I don?t know, maybe it was an exotic package that was both good and bad? I?ve had experiences of being seen as too masculine for some partners and too feminine for other partners ? and those kinds of things always intersect with race in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Asians are stereotyped and unconsciously perceived as ?more feminine? and that sets people?s expecations, which in turn means that they can disapprove of you because you meet the expectations, or be confused and dismayed that you don?t.
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If you have not dated interracially, what has contributed to the reasons why not??
Elton:??I have not dated. ?A perspective missing from the interracial dating conversation is that of Asian men raised not to date and to focus on education. ?Not having a girlfriend deeply troubled me as a teenager, but now I look at the modern Western pressures and expectations regarding romance with much more skepticism. ?Am I less of a man because I?m Asian American? ?Hell no. ?Am I happy being single right now? ?Hell yes.
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Latoya:?I?m going to break the mod wall for one hot second, since you brought up something often not represented in dating conversations, which is not participating. To speak personally for a sec, one of my close friends is Korean American ? she?s been on exactly one date, and its one I set up for her. (She expressed interest in dating a few years ago ? we are all in our late 20s now.) ?She has a lot of trouble picking up dating signals ? in our conversations, she told me that a LOT of her friends have never been on a date and never had a boyfriend and were now wondering about marriage as we approach 30. ?I have no idea how to cover that though, its so far from my experience?
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Elton:??It?s a big unspoken issue?not everyone conforms to the modern Western romantic ?plan? for dating and marriage, which is a very, very recent invention. ?So how can we deal with intercultural dating when different cultures have different concepts of dating itself? ?We can?t just assume that assimilation (Asian men need to ask more women on dates, problem solved) is the only way.
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Latoya:?True. But in that case, that raises more questions. (And perhaps this needs to be its own conversation, in another post.) So exactly how large of a factor are cultural norms, even in framing this conversation? And how widespread is this exactly? Last time I checked, there was something like a 15% outmarriage rate among Asian Americans; do we need to do an ?opt-out? rate as well?
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Elton:??I would be very interested to see a post on this topic. ?I think many young people are skeptical of traditional concepts of dating and marriage?not because we want to be promiscuous, but because we want to be independent and possibly childfree, we?ve seen how much misery the institution of marriage has caused our parents and others, and the conservative ?defense of marriage? agenda has made us wary (and weary) of marriage, period.
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Besides, who can afford to date or get married anymore?
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refresh_daemon:?Like Elton, I?m a non-dater and in my youth, it was because my parents strongly discouraged (but didn?t outright prohibit) me from dating so that I can focus on my studies and getting into a good college. And likewise in college for getting a good job. I was always a bit of a straight arrow, so I complied with their desires.
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However, why I am not actively seeking a relationship at the moment is simply because I don?t have the time to invest in one: I have more projects than I can handle at the moment on top of my day job and I?m very aware that were I to engage in a relationship with someone, I would very much be a boyfriend only on paper, which is something I would rather not be.
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Were I to actually start dating, despite my parents preferences, I am not opposed to interracial and cross cultural dating, although I would personally also prefer to be in a relationship with someone who can relate well to my parents and someone who would be willing to adopt and learn some elements of Korean culture if they don?t already have it, as well as learn or know the language. Note, it?s just a preference, but I foresee the possibility of working in Seoul as well as the US and so an ability to navigate both worlds is important, as it?s also important to me that a potential spouse would be well integrated into my family. ?And, I would likewise be willing, if she is of another culture, to learn and practice critical elements of her culture as well as learn the language of her parents in order to foster deeper communication with them and become a better integrated part her family as well. ?Of course, this is an ideal scenario and I understand that in real life, you can?t get everything you want. ?And I know that pragmatically limits me primarily to Koreans in terms of an ideal, but I?m probably more than willing to overlook these considerations if I meet a woman of another ethnicity or culture of great character that I share mutual attraction and compatibility with.
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N?jaila:?My parents forbade me to date when I was younger, it wasn?t until I was 17 that I was allowed to have a boyfriend. Of course my parents didn?t know that I was dating since I was 14 years old. I think It just taught me be secretive and feel a bit shameful about having relationships. Almost ten years later and I still can?t imagine taking a man to meet my parents. ?I can talk to my mother about going on dates, but never my father. Its just not spoken of.
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refresh_daemon:?I am kind of curious as to those who are unwillingly single versus those who choose to be single. ?It does explode my brain to think that someone (particularly women, given mainstream dating paradigms) could stay single into their 30?s without willfully choosing to do. ?It can?t be for a lack of interested partners, right? ?But, I do think that this is a bit off topic and more suited to a separate discussion about singleness.
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Conversations around Asian American men mirror the conversations around Black American women and dating. What do you think contributes to this positioning, and why isn?t there more cross cultural discussion about this issue??
N?jaila:?I actually think that the similarities with Asian men and Black women have been emphasized by grossly oversimplifying issues. I think most people think we are in the same boat because of the disparity that supposedly caused by Asian women and Black men choosing White partners. I think that how each group sees the ?problem? is very different.
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I think for a lot of Asian men , this is more of an annoyance than a life altering issue. Statistically speaking most Asian American men get married. Do they marry less whites than their female counterparts, no. I think there?s a very vocal minority of Asian men that make attaining a white woman a sign of manhood and belonging. Asian men on the Internet and the Asian men that are in my friends and family seem to see this issue very differently. Of course I grew up in Bergen County NJ where seeing mixed marriages and couples is nothing shocking or of note. So I might have a skewed view of this.
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I think many Asian men are angry about being excluded from the white dating pool because they?ve been fed the line that they are the ?white minorities? and if anyone was the most qualified to marry into whiteness it would be them. They?re finding that not to be the case. So I think for Asian men its more of a ,?Hey where?d my privilege go?? than with Black women.
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I think the much hyped ?Black Male? shortage for Black women has a lot more to do with Black women?s reluctance to marry non-Black men. A man of color with a White woman is seen as progress, a Woman of color with a White man is seen as regression. I think many Black women also see marriage and the need for a ?traditional on paper? home as something a bit passe. Black women also seem to get married a lot later in life so when people talk about that figure that 42% of Black women are not married they fail to ask what age demographic these numbers came from , usually they are talking about women 18-25 , when you raise the age to 35 the amount of unmarried Black women drops dramatically.
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refresh_daemon:?The position exists simply because the rates of out-marriage (or it just out-relationships?) mirror each other between Black women and Asian men (in comparison to Black men and Asian women). And I do think there is some correlation in terms of how the mainstream views Black femininity and Asian masculinity in particular, but I think that some Asian men and Black women unfairly take shots at their intraracial counterparts for some kind of perceived betrayal, rather than direct their attention to the overwhelming and subtle messages given by mainstream culture about what is desirable in a partner and who that partner should be.
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In terms of cross-cultural discussion, I do think that, at least on the internet, this kind of discussion does tend to happen, but only in hotspots where people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds collide, like on Racialicious. Otherwise, the bigger question that?s begged is: why aren?t we all in more cross-cultural discussion altogether?
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Holly:?I have a tendency to see this as intrinsically linked to gender stereotypes as well. With white people as the hegemonic ?norm? against which everyone else is measured in a white-supremacist society, all the ?others? are either seen as more submissive, feminine, smaller, weaker, but maybe smarter (asians, generally) or as more dangerous, threatening, bigger, more masculine (black people, generally). (Of course with the way stereotypes work, contradictions operate simultaneously and manage to both deny and reinforce these things ? as with the ?angry asian misogynist business-samurai? stereotype and the ?emasculated submissive ass-kissing black man? stereotype.) But generally, I think that the hegemonic view is that asian = ?more feminine? and black = ?more masculine.? Maybe it?s too simplistic, but this also handily explains why asian men and black women have lower rates of out-marriage. Black women are too loud, threatening, angry, big, belligerent, masculine. Asian men are too small, weak, feminine, hairless, whatever.
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Eric:?(I am going way off topic with this!!)
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Within the gay community, which has historically and still presently does at times reproduce many of the same kinds of roles as in heterosexual relationships (perhaps the biggest point of contention being topping/bottoming, which some activists have argued reproduces heterosexist views that one partner must be the ?masculine? top and the other the ?feminine? bottom), I believe Asian men are often seen as automatically the ?woman? in the relationship. Nguyen Tan Hoang?s work ?Forever Bottom!? documents the tendency in gay pornography, for example, to cast Asian men as the bottom. There have been exceptions, particularly in amateur gay porn, which seems more open to casting masculine Asian men as tops, but for the most part in mainstream gay porn, the Asian man almost always bottoms. Of course, we can get into a whole discussion about whether bottoming necessarily equates to feminine, and the gendered/sexualized questions about that, but let?s just say for the sake of argument that, at least in mainstream porn, the bottom represents the more feminine partner. Similarly, the fascination and exotification around the phenomenon of the ladyboy, or Thai transsexuals/feminine boys (depending), has created a market around Asian men as feminine.
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Although Asian men historically have been marginalized and desexualized, I see that a lot of attitudes have been starting to change. Aside from gay porn, I also mentioned earlier that K-pop has become increasingly popular, to the extent of turning a particular type of Asian men into sex symbols. Obviously there?s still a far way to go, but with the success of actors like Daniel Henney, Daniel Dae Kim, or Harry Shum, Jr., I think people are beginning to see Asian men as sexy. In a way, we?ve always been sexy in the gay community the way that Asian women are marketed as desirable to white men, but the stereotypes persist. In the most basic way, I have noticed that talk about Asian male sex symbols often tend to make mention of penis size (like on Glee, did we really need Tina to say that about Mike Chang? There was also a minor controversy about an amateur gay porn site that described a mixed-race model as getting his exotic facial features from his Asian genes and his ?big dick? from his Polish side).
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I can?t speak that much to the experiences of straight black women or even gay black men, but while gay Asian men are often cast as effeminate, submissive bottoms (an obvious analogue to the geisha figure), black men in gay porn are often the complete opposite. They are large in all senses of the word, they top more often than not, and usually they do not conform to stereotypes of the fairy fag. More often than Asian men, black men (and white men) are cast as ?gay-for-pay? actors to fuel stereotypical gay fantasies about ?turning? straight men. What does this say about non-effeminate, straight Asian men?
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refresh_daemon:?Eric, I know I?m answering a rhetorical question, but I believe that would mean that non-effeminate straight Asian men simply don?t exist. I think you are Holly are on the same track in noting the feminization/masculinization of race in mainstream culture, with white people being ?normal?, Black people being ?masculine? and Asian people being ?feminine?. (Where do all the other people fit on this spectrum?) But I have an issue with the masculine/feminine binary to begin with, especially as many modern cultures are exaggerating these aspects to cartoonish degrees and overemphasizing femininity and masculinity in identity and perhaps how the problem relates to Black women and Asian men having a dearth of relationships is connected to the hyper-masculinization/feminization issue when combined with those racial perceptions of gender.
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Holly:?Since white people get to be the unmarked, assumed-ordinary norm and actually experience subjectivity and individuality? who do you think has to play the roll of ?cartoonishly overemphasized icons? in the cultural formulation of gender? Black people, Asian people, everyone else. It?s part of being the other.
Asian American dating can be equally contentious as black dating ? so why the total silence in mainstream media outlets?N?jaila:?Its a simple and inconvenient truth, many non Asian Americans don?t see Asians as American as they are. People think we don?t matter and our opinions and issues don?t matter in ?the mainstream?.
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refresh_daemon:?Agreed. Plus, as far as population goes, Asian Americans are smaller and consequently less visible overall. Furthermore, I think Asian Americans even now tend to be less vocal and prominent in mainstream media, so it really has to do with our general lack of presence, combined with the perpetual foreigner concept that gets attached to us.
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N?jaila:?I also know a lot of Asian Americans that see themselves as ?White Minorities? who don?t need to be counted outside of the White mainstream. I think these people are insane.
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Elton:?I agree. But when institutions treat Asians as practically white, and downplay the fact that Asians experience racism, what do you expect? Especially in higher education, there is an invisible asterisk beside ?minority? or ?diversity? that says *actually we mean non-Asian minorities, and our definition of diversity is ?fewer Asians.?
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Eric:?I specifically remember the moment on Tyra when a gay interracial Asian-white couple made an appearance.
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About halfway through the clip, a gay Asian man in the audience and confronts the Asian man on stage. His speech mirrors many discussions I have heard about ?self-hating? Asian women, and in particular the debate around eye widening. Growing up, I had always been aware of the epicanthic fold and ?double eyelids,? but it had never registered to me as a beauty standard until high school when I met Asian girls who wore eyelid tape.
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Seeing this discussion on a national television show was pretty groundbreaking to me, even if I first watched it with a bit of contempt considering the kinds of melodrama that gets milked ? not just on Tyra ? but on daytime talk shows in general. And I think bringing these kinds of questions ? about self-hate and about racism in the gay community ? to a national audience is a pretty bold move for groups of people who already receive very little recognition in the mainstream (gay interracial couples, gay Asians, etc.). On the other hand, and I say this knowing that talk shows like this aren?t really the best resource for having meaningful, thought-provoking discussions, the portrayal of the relationship and of the two gay Asian men was a little hokey and did very little to talk about interracial gay relationships other than ?people are racist towards us and think I hate myself.?
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I think people don?t know how to speak about these issues, especially in the Asian American community, because we are taught about racism against blacks and rarely about racism against Asians. I don?t believe that many people understand that racism against Asians happens in the first place, or that interracial relationships with Asians can be strife with racist attitudes. People ask me why I consider it racist for a white man to have a ?thing for Asians,? or straight up tell me it isn?t racist in the least, and I often have trouble talking about it with them.
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Holly:?I?m nodding my head reading everything that everyone else wrote. Racism against asians gets buried easily. You can get away with a racist restaurant name, chinese laundry jokes, stereotyped accents. I?m not saying that because I think racism against other groups should be ignored! And in fact, it?s probably true of many groups besides asians too ? but I think it does contribute to asians being ?invisible minorities? and a lot of asians really like it that way. They want to be the successfully assimilated immigrants, even if the ?difference? stigma won?t ever really fade away in the minds of way too many people who see us always as foreigners first and foremost. There?s also an aspect here that has to do with sexuality and gender ? I think the hideous treatment of black women by our culture and its beauty standards is more of a ?guilty secret? that a lot of well-meaning people would immediately admit exists. Liberals feel bad about this; it?s how we got ?I Love My Hair? on Sesame Street. Asian women have a different problem that doesn?t create as much liberal guilt ? exotification and another flavor of ridiculous idealization, fetishization, etc. It?s the fallout of a ?positive stereotype?; although most people would agree that gross anime-chasers are disgusting, they see it as part and parcel of a typical problem that any ?beautiful woman? would face. And Asian men are a total afterthought, because the liberal political culture isn?t even aware that racist stereotypes are constantly affecting Asian men?s gender too. Complaints mostly surface on forums where Asian guys are complaining about how nobody will date them ? and it?s way too easy, in the mainstream discourse, to simply dismiss that as a bunch of dudes whining instead of looking at it as a symptom of racism + sexism.
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Until fairly recently, many Asian Americans are partnered with whites in pop culture depictions. How does this impact the view on ?acceptable? dating? How does it influence the idea of the ?ideal partner???
N?jaila:?When I was younger I very much felt like the ?normal? group of men for a woman to like was White. I felt abnormal because I had a strong preference for Black , Brown and Yellow men. I think for many people that?s always going to be true, White partners are going to be the most accepted because in this country they are considered ?normal?.
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I remember in high school one of my close friends was a Latina who basically told me I was ?too smart? to like Black guys. It was so shocking and deeply offensive that our friendship pretty much ended right there.
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refresh_daemon:?Agreed with N?jaila re: white people as the default partner. But this also brings up a bit of the point that Elton touches upon below. Until recently, the general visibility of Asian men in pop culture has been very limited and rarely in the context of relationships. Most Asian men I?ve seen in pop culture have largely been paired with Asian women as well (John Cho being the only immediate positive counterexample that comes to mind in ?Flash Forward? and ?Harold and Kumar??I would like to forget about the Donger and all the Yellow Peril films of the early 20th century.) Consequently, I do think that it reinforces, to some subtle extent, the idea of Asian men, in particular, staying within Asian populations when it comes relationships.
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Elton:?It?s frustrating that non-white women are rarely portrayed as equally attractive as white women.
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It?s frustrating when I am attracted to a white woman and have to wonder if Eurocentrism is warping my perception.
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It?s frustrating to worry about whether someone I like will return my affections because I am Asian.
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Being an Asian male is like perpetually seeing a ?look but don?t touch? sign.
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Holly:?It?s just generally disgusting, although I feel like I?ve watched this grow during my lifetime. When I was a kid, there were almost no representations of families that looked like mine ? one white parent, one Asian parent. When I saw this start to appear, I felt relieved and less weird ? but then it became the MOST well-represented type of interracial relationship, because it?s so innocuous for a white man to have a woman ?invisible, feminized minority? on his arm. These representations really hastened the rise of ?I want an Asian girlfriend too? throughout my teen years, and it wasn?t really an improvement. I think it?s made it much easier for Asians to date white people, that?s for sure ? and that?s an improvement my mother would have been grateful for in her early years (before she decided she hates my dad and pretty much all other white guys.) One of the most disgusting flip-sides, however, is that ?dating an asian woman? is the #1 low-committment way for a white guy to show that he is Not A Racist according to some really boring, minimal, conservative definition of racism. Look, he loves people that are NOT WHITE! He eats tofu! Isn?t he amazing? And yes, I have to admit that I?m also thinking of my own father here. It?s not WHY he married my mother in the mid-70s, but it was definitely a benefit, and it still is for such guys.
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Eric:?If anyone has read ?Paper Tigers? by Wesley Yang, from New York Magazine, he follows the ?Asian pick-up artist? who holds white women to the ideal. In Romeo Must Die, Jet Li and Aaliyah had a kiss scene that was cut because audiences did not respond well to an Asian man and a black woman being in a relationship. While it is certainly the case that media representations of interracial relationships in general, not just Asian ones, typically feature a white character, I am interested in the disparity between these representations and the visibility of mixed race Asian celebrities, like Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Cassie, Bruno Mars, Nicole Scherzinger, Chanel Iman, and Tiger Woods. It?s strange that there are so many highly successful mixed race black-Asian, Latino-Asian, etc., celebrities out there, and yet we rarely see couples who could be their parents.
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I will say one of my favorite black-Asian interracial couples from television is Manila Luzon (who I wrote about previously) and Sahara Davenport from Rupaul?s Drag Race, though I recognize that they are really an exception to the rule.
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N?jaila:?I think you rarely see discussions of Blasians because to many people they aren?t considered mixed. Not to mention there?s sometimes very negative reactions to non-Asian looking Blasians like Naomi Campbell and Tyson Beckford. Growing up I felt very alienated from Asians, it felt almost silly to embrace a group I was part of that I felt constantly rejected me.
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Also I think most people assume that if someone is Blasian that their mother is Asian and their father is a Black guy in the military. Growing up I NEVER saw a family on TV that looked like mine.
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I actually got to sit in with J.T Tran?s workshop. I actually think is a naturally sweet natured guy, but his workshop made me depressed for a good month or two. #
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refresh_daemon:?The cynic in me wants to say that the reason why interracial couples who would resemble the parents of those multi-racial celebrities don?t really get featured in pop culture is quite simply because a white person isn?t part of the equation and the mainstream doesn?t care if there?s not a white person involved. Also, I think the mainstream tends to ignore the Asian heritage of most (all?) of those celebrities, regardless of how they choose to self-identify.
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Is there anything else you want to add that was not covered above?
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Elton:?The difference between the way Asian men and Asian women are assimilated into Western society manifests itself as the interracial dating disparity. The Asian man is depicted as the foreign other, while the Asian woman is more welcomed and accepted by the West. Patriarchy places a greater onus on men to carry on the family line, so the dating choices of the Asian man are restricted by Asian culture (which wants him to refrain from dating altogether until he has completed his education, then enter an arranged marriage) and by Western culture (which wants him to avoid marrying Western women). Is this why it seems to be more permissible for Asian women to date outside their race or even to date at all?
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N?jaila:?I don?t know if I agree that Asian women are assimilated into Western culture. I think White male privilege allows White men more opportunities to date any race he pleases. You still don?t see Asian women being seen as examples of standard beauty, something exotic maybe but Asian women are over represented as only sexual objects for White men. #
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refresh_daemon:?I do think that, at least earlier on in mainstream media, Asian women were more openly accepted than Asian men in the sense that they were more visible in leading and ensemble roles on television and, to a lesser extent, in film. I think as of late we are closer to reaching parity between the two genders, at least in terms of presence (particularly in commercials), but there does seem to be a lingering disparity in terms of representations of interracial relationships with Asian women and men, with Asian women more frequently interracially partnered (usually with white men), but Asian men more frequently depicted with Asian women than with other groups.
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Holly:?I tend to agree that commercials are leading the way, but I still don?t see anywhere near as much representation of Asian men in fiction film & television. Reality TV is a little closer to parity, for obvious reasons. And I think this goes back to the whole gender + race question, where Asians are the ?feminized minority,? and so Asian women (of a certain class status and adherence to western beauty ideals, obviously) are treated as ?even more feminine than white women,? a package that comes with fetishization, de-humanization, and more representation.
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Elton:?Is it ok if I pose a question? As we know, who we are ?allowed to date? (by parents, culture, society, and just plain who returns or rejects our affections) differs from who we?re actually attracted to. Much ado is made about the Asian man?s unrequited love for white women. Do you find that there is a difference between the kind of person you prefer (whether for friendship, romance, or sex) and the kind of person you are ?allowed to date??
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Holly:?That?s a very interesting question, although I probably have a weird answer as a multi-racial Asian with one white parent. I think my early upbringing and exposure to racism made me think of my Asian parent as the ?weird, mean one that nobody liked, who ate smelly food and couldn?t speak English as well.? But I also identified much more strongly with her in terms of how I felt relative to my peers: that I was the weird outsider. On top of that, I was also unequivocally taught by my family that inter-racial relationships and kids were a good thing, no matter what anyone else said; they wanted to make us resistant to anti-miscegenation messaging even more than they thought about more pervasive racist ideas about non-whites. So I remember thinking when I was younger that I?d be following in my family tradition if I was in a relationship with a white person, because I wasn?t white, and that my kids wouldn?t be either. (This might be have been influenced by the fact that the first person I dated in high school was ? Japanese.) But I?m sure I also unconsciously thought of that as ?dating up.? When I got older, I dated more and more people from other backgrounds ? indigenous, Latina, South Asian, and a lot of them mixed in one way or another. I guess I still thought of that as ?interracial dating? since almost any pairing would be interracial dating for me, and therefore kind of positive. I?ve only dated one person who identified as 100% East Asian, though, and I often wonder why ? is it because of negative messages I received about my mother when I was little? Or because I spent a lot of my youth not feeling ?Asian enough? either? Probably both and more.
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N?jaila:?I?m in a weird position where I feel like my natural feelings are going against nature. I feel like if I say ?I won?t date Asian men anymore? I?d be doing so because so many people have told me that I shouldn?t be dating them. I don?t want to live my life according to other people, but at the same time most people do. So I feel like my entire romantic life I?ve been trying to box with God, I?m doomed to fail.
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Source: http://drhiphop85.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/from-racialious-interracial-dating-report-asians-1-3/
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by ksalim ? Fri Feb 12, 2010 8:25 pm
When you look at the Western world today, it is easy to lose confidence in what you see. The United States government?s credit has been downgraded for the first time in its over two hundred year history. Japan is mired in the aftermath of the Tsunami, nuclear disaster, and attempted recovery.