NY Times advice column answers whether dating women of color can advance 'antiracism'

Fox News

17-02-2025

A reader asked the New York Times Magazine's "The Ethicist" advice column whether a "straight White dude" can date "women of color" to "combat racism."
The anonymous reader explained his "controversial" preference for dating non-White women to columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah on Valentine's Day.
"I want to prioritize dating women of color," the reader wrote. "I'm after a cross-cultural relationship. I believe very strongly that one of the main ways to combat racism is through relationships. Part of me thinks that I will always be somewhat disappointed if what ends up becoming one of the most important relationships in my life is with another white person. If someone is a woman of color, that checks a box for me in a real way. I am seeking to be antiracist in all my relationships."
He added that his motivation is "to combat implicit bias, having grown up in a fairly White, quasi rural place" and has since "dedicated to educating [himself] on issues of racism, sexism and other forms of kyriarchy while also learning from marginalized people."
Kyriarchy is a feminist theory term that refers to a social system revolved around domination, oppression, and submission.
He also compared his dating preference to "eating a food or adopting a habit because it's good" for him until he can "really like it for what it is."
"Both I and my hypothetical partner of color would be choosing more learning and less comfort, to put forth greater effort and practice more listening, than we otherwise would in a culturally homogeneous committed relationship," the reader said. "And one of the main ways that I hope to combat racism individually is by leveraging my own privilege (economic, family connections, education) for people of color, including any biracial children we bring into this world."
"Here's my question: Despite my well-meaning antiracist principles, is this preference (as friends have suggested) wrong, insensitive or somehow itself racist?" he asked.
Although Appiah called his dedication "impressive," he warned the reader about the downsides to "treating a relationship like a seminar."
"Although you're not objectifying your hypothetical partner, you are, just a little, instrumentalizing her," Appiah answered. "That's not to say you aren't entitled to pursue this campaign of strenuous self-optimizing. Just be transparent about your box-checking ambitions. Perhaps some prospects will be grateful for your offer to put your privileges at their disposal while you embark on your journey of uplift. But — how to put this? — I suspect that most would rather be your honey bun than your grain bowl."
Appiah encouraged compromise and peaceful gatherings between Democratic and Republican family members in a column last November ahead of Thanksgiving.
"Today, family gatherings routinely unite Catholics and Protestants, Jews and gentiles, Baptists and Episcopalians, Blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians; not so long ago, they could unite Democrats and Republicans. In perfect harmony? Far from it. But it helps to remember people are more than the sum of their political views — and that intolerance has a habit of breeding intolerance," he wrote.