Welcome back, dorks. We’ve processed the messaging habits of over a million people and are about to basically prove that, despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well. It would be awesome if other big websites would go out on a limb and release their own race data, too. I can’t imagine they will: multi-million dollar enterprises rarely like to admit that the people generating those millions act like turds. But being poor gives us a certain freedom. To alienate all our users. So there.
When I first started looking at first-contact attempts and who was writing who back, it was immediately obvious that the sender’s race was a huge factor. Here are just a handful of the numbers that illustrate that:
The takeaway here is that although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot.
First of all, how do we know that race shouldn’t matter? Are we just making some after-school-special assumption that “true love is colorblind?” more compatibility usually
means more repliesNo, we’re not: we know race shouldn’t matter to replies because the races all match each other more or less evenly, and reply rate correlates to matching. That is, more compatibility generally means more replies.
On OkCupid you create your own unique matching system, and that means your better matches are people you actually want talk to. Below is a graph showing match percentages vs. reply rates for a random sample of 500,000 people.As you can see, in general, the better you match someone, the more likely you are to reply to a first message from them.
We can see this principle in action when we look at our trusty control, the Zodiac. Here are the match and reply rates side-by-side, with similar rates colored yellow. There’s no real need to inspect the numbers; just observe the similar colors.
- Throughout this post, yellowish colors are short-hand for “neutral” and red and green indicate “strong preference.”
People of the various Zodiac signs match each other all at roughly the average rate, and, as we would expect, they reply to messages similarly. In general, the correlation between match percentage and reply rate means that whenever we compare the match/reply charts for a given breakdown of the population, they should look about the same. However, this, like so many other fine assumptions, totally breaks down when race gets involved:
Again, don’t bother squinting, just check out the colors. We’ll soon look very closely at these tables.
So here’s last week’s compatibility by race table (I explained how we can confidently measure “compatibility” in that post). This is a blow-up of the leftmost table above:
As you can see, the races all match each other roughly evenly: good news. It means all other things being equal, two people, of whatever race, should have the same chance to have a successful relationshp. But now let’s look at the table of how individuals actually reply to each other’s messages. First we’ll examine messages sent by men to women (I know our gay readers are interested in same-sex versions of these tables, there’s a link to them here and at the end of this post):
The numbers on the perimeter of the table are the weighted average rates for each column/row. Here’s what we can know:
- Black women write back the most. Whether it’s due to talkativeness, loneliness, or a sense of plain decency, black women are by far the most likely to respond to a first contact attempt. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and, overall, black women reply about a quarter more often that other women.
- White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group. We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness (as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all the race/gender slices. For guys, we did likewise with height.
- White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%. It’s here where things get interesting, for white women in particular. If you look at the match-by-race table before this one, the “should-look-like” one, you see that white women have an above-average compatibility with almost every group. Yet they only reply well to guys who look like them. There’s more data on this towards the end of the post.
Let’s see what happens when it’s the women writing the messages to men.
- Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.
- White guys respond less overall. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they in turn get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed.
Finally, here are a couple tables that shed further light on our discussion. These are site-wide answers to a couple user-written match questions. They barely need any explanation: one comments on the other, really. Together they shed more light on the theory/practice schizophrenia of people’s racial attitudes.
It’s surely not just OkCupid users that are like this. In fact, it’s any dating site (and indeed any collection of people) would likely exhibit messaging biases similar to what I’ve written up. Any dating site probably
has these biasesAccording to our internal metrics, at least, OkCupid’s users are better-educated, younger, and far more progressive than the norm, so I can imagine that many sites would actually have worse race stats. But like I said at the beginning, we’ll probably never know. See you next week.
(Addendum to original post)
Same-Sex Data for Race vs. Reply Rates
As promised, here are the same-sex versions of last week’s charts and tables. In general, they show that straights and gays share many of the same inclinations, but the prejudices of the latter are perhaps a bit less pronounced. I should say at the top that some of the sample sizes for the various race/gender slices presented here are rather small (for instance, OkCupid doesn’t have many lesbians of Indian descent), and that accounts, I think, for some of the scatter-shot nature of the color tables. Race preferences are not nearly as stark here as they are with the heterosexual data.
See for yourself:
Still, there are a few conclusions we can draw:
- Blacks get fewer responses. We saw this with the straight data, too, and here it’s true of both gay and lesbian senders. Black gay men get over 20% fewer responses than non-blacks, which is about how straight black men fared. Black women, on the other hand, do relatively much better with gays than straights. While they’re still the least replied-to group, the discrepancy is much smaller in the lesbian community.
- Whites respond by far the least to anyone.. Both white lesbians and white gay men write the fewest replies. In fact, across the two charts, whites respond about 15% less often than non-whites, and white gay men show a marked preference for other whites. On the other hand, gay white women don’t have the segregationist tendencies of their straight counterparts; they just dis everyone. Whereas last week we saw that straight white women strongly preferred other whites to the exclusion of other groups, lesbian whites respond to all 9 racial groups roughly evenly, and, in general, the lesbian community seems relatively colorblind. Only Indian lesbians receive a response rate far off the average, and as I said above, the sample size there is limited and the results might be skewed by chance.
- Asian lesbians are in demand, and they’re picky about other races. Gay Asian females are replied to the most, and, among the well-represented groups, they have the most defined racial preferences: they respond very well to other Asians, Whites, Native Americans, and Middle Easterners, but very poorly to the other groups. Latin women also express a clear preference, for Whites and Asians.
- Men prefer Middle Easterners. Gay men and straight men both respond best to Middle Easterners, and the preference is quite dramatic. I’d be interested to hear any theories why this is so.
As we did last week, we can see that all groups think, theoretically, that interracial relationships are acceptable, yet again whites are the least willing to have such a relationship themselves. This time it’s the men, not the women, who prefer most to keep to their own: it’s interesting that both in reply patterns and in their answers to these two match questions, the behavior of white straight women and white gay men are so closely parallel.
To our friends in the gay and lesbian communities: thanks for being patient and waiting for this data. We will do gay-centric articles in the future, I promise. Lately, since we’ve been dealing with complex and data-intensive subjects like race and reply rates, we’ve had to restrict ourselves to straight data in the primary post. We felt that adding a discussion of gay and lesbian trends alongside straight ones would triple the length of an already long and dense post and surely more than triple reader confusion. We will keep looking for ways to present the information you rightly expect; for now, it will be in addenda such as this one.
Kudos to your offices on this study.
You have access to an interesting data set that has some interesting implications. You should push this at the university and journal level. The world ought to know something about itself.
I am a firm believer that learning the patterns of our social behaviors can help us immeasurably. This of course being quite timely as with globalization that has happened, much of our world and its participants, both as individuals and groups, has had to face some dirty and hard facts that come as a result of our social behaviors; with race being an important factor in this menagerie of social interactions.
In my opinion, we are a world that is hurting in part because we do not always attempt to understand each other or think of the other human beings around us or that may hear us. I believe this phenomenon is more closely related to societies that at large prize “the individual” over others. Or rather, societies where “sins” of the individuals, which choose to exploit their society. Examples of these individuals I speak are the lazy or non-productive, or somebody that would rather inconvenience 50 other people for one minute than loose 10 seconds of their own time.
I digress, the most important bit is that WE are hurting each other by excluding each other. I suppose that the previous statement is a “no-brainer.” But what is most important is how WE, as a collection of peoples in societies around the wrold can grow and change from this. How can we come together?
Tolerance is not enough, and acceptance is a start. I wholeheartedly believe that for everyone to get along, the responsibility rests upon EACH AND EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL. If we all play nice, we will all get along. Of course, therein lies the problem, for there to be good then there must be the evil and therefore, there will always be a trouble maker. However, we are then left with the subjective question of, “What is right?” Unfortunately, this means that until the world can come together and unanimously agree on what is right, then we will always remain with some distance from each other.
You could start with the basics, love is right war is wrong. But somebody has to punish those that war. If we are a classroom of students with no teacher, then whose responsibility is it to punish the offenders?
Than answer to that question is similar to what was mentioned in a previous paragraph. We have to unite somehow, and of everyone that chooses to unite, it is their individual responsibility to get along with everyone else.
Some friendly advice:
You may want to be careful about your interpretations. Although the non-factual portions of your write-up had a colorful touch of personality/humor to it; as you are now aware, the responses you have received are filled with protest and passion (read as: individuals that were offended and in passion, think they know better than you).
However, don’t let my previous remark suggest that I side with either you or any of your readers. All subjective arguments presented in this blog are fallible and possibly offensive to the reader, myself included.
Okcupid is great. Its very cool that a website would share this data with us. We may not agree with all of it but we can all find something in it to grow from. Use it to make this world a better place for the one race that we all belong to, The Human Race. Thank you Okcupid for giving us an opportunity to examine & correct our behavior so we remember to act like we are all one human race.
P.S.
We may forget again so please Okcupid keep reminding us and hopefully as we change or bahavior the data will change also.
Blacks prefer to date blacks, whites prefer to date whites. I do not understand what the issue is. I would not call this “racism.” That term is used when a member of one race expresses dislike or hatred toward the member of another race. But simply excercising dating preferences is NOT racism. J
It would be great to see similar reports run against same-sex dating.
I don’t know why OKC members are now all of a sudden being so timid when it comes to expressing their racist attitudes. If you head on over to the forums, you will find tons of users who are more than happy to celebrate their bigotry.
Just the other day, in a post discussing why black men liked to date white women, a couple of OKCs white female users responded:
“Because they want to feel like a white guy.”
And…
“I think the general rule is black guys will hit on anything with hair past their ears.”
Oh, and my favorite:
“I bet it’s because its better then fucking monkeys.”
Frankly, I don’t care if you’re a racist, there’s no cure for ignorance and I’m not looking to find one. Just be brave enough to put it in your profile so I’ll know to stay far away.
Seedypoet , can you tell me where you have found these comments? I need to see them for myself. Maybe it will give me some insight into the way some people actually think.
I looked at the stats and Black men having the least reply rates is kind of sad. It appears from the stats that Black men aren’t being considered desirable in the eyes of some people. It angers me and then it doesn’t always surprise me. Whenever some people think of Black men, everything undesirable comes to mind, mainly aggression, violence and other ills of society. That is what many people envision when they envision a Black man. That atitude is in the dating arena. I don’t like it one bit.
It’s at the end of this post:
http://www.okcupid.com/forum?tid=9652641330436179818
Incidentally, this is also the post where I spend a good deal to time defending my girlfriend (who dates a black guy obviously) from a racist and anti-woman tirade.
im a big black guy i never judge people because of race i just dont care about it . but im judged. why? dont know but i know its very depressing at times
“I’m not surprised by the data I wish other sites would release theirs and get proactive about racism in the dating arena. I don’t think racial preferences should be allowed at all.”
Now… this confuses me. This diagram seems to show that even in sites that don’t “allow” them (OKC doesn’t currently have a racial preferences category), they’ll still be exercised. What would getting “proactive about racism in the dating arena” actually entail? Because as annoying as it is, I don’t really think there’s anything that can be done about the present generation of people and how they physically evaluate other groups. Culture can produce something that feels and acts a lot like hard-wiring — even if it totally isn’t. People that don’t have any racial preferences could have a separate site that caters to their needs, but most people do have them, and I don’t think there’s a way to change that. Also, older middle class people are the lifeblood of mainstream pay dating sites, and they’re more likely to have firmly entrenched racial preferences. There’s no way in hell they’re going to fight those customers on this, it’s too potentially damaging to the bottom line.
I agree with you about the fact that racism is alive and well, and I hate it. My hope is that someday every person on the planet will become color blind. The color of your skin has nothing to do with what kind of person you are, or what’s truly in your heart. Whatever happened to “variety is the spice of life?”
/s
50-year old white female
I really don’t think this proves racism. Racism is associated with a HATRED of someone based solely on their skin color. Just because I may not want to respond to you does NOT mean I hate you, or think less of you. I’m currently dating outside of my race, but that’s because when we met he came off as intelligent.
You can’t say that over all they were attractive. Did the people who did NOT respond check out the profiles after receiving an email? Maybe they saw something they didn’t agree with? Or, maybe the email was in some way offensive?
I’m not saying racism is dead because quite frankly I think it still survives in some degrees, but this doesn’t prove one thing or another. And I’m sorry, if someone isn’t attracted to someone, they’re just not. It doesn’t make them racist, and stop saying that just because someone is really attracted to a certain group that they’re racist to the core. Maybe it just doesn’t do it for them!? For the most part, what turns each person on is way deeper than something learned.
Dear lord… what crap people dare making public.
It is assumed that white guys not messaging black women are racist. That in itself is a racist statement.
Why can’t people get it through their media-induced anti-racism comatose minds that black people are *not* some endangered species. They are people, just like you, me, and every other idiot on this planet. They have a common physical trait, namely a dark skin. People are allowed to be attracted to blonde hair, blue eyes, and every other physical trait, but being attracted to a pale skin is racism?
Instead of reading the lines the media has been reading to you use your own brain for a change.
Just want to say how awesome you guys are for blogging this stuff… Very very cool. I am a cheap bastard, but I’d consider becoming a-list just for you guys being so cool. : )
this was interesting. i have dated outside my race, much to my parents’ dismay, and started doing so in high school. i have dated everyone.
regardless, dating all these men from different races has taught me what i like and don’t like. in the end, i have decided that i want an american born man. cultural differences have impeded past relationships with men who were born and raised elsewhere. as far as what i find attractive, it’s white guys, tall, preferably blonde and very fit. i’m not ashamed of what i want and at this point i’m not interested in settling for less. the thing missing from a lot of past relationships has been physical attraction. i have met and dated some amazing men, but if the sex aspect isn’t there, and it won’t be if you’re fat or old or bald or smelly or just not what makes my butter melt, and that includes certain races, then our relationship will only be a friendship.
The points made about religion are pretty reasonable, and there are plenty of other pretty reasonable points to be made about all sorts of lifestyles of which the majority of the practitioners are of one race or another.
I don’t think any of that is necessarily relevant here. This data is based on percentage of *replies*. It doesn’t show whether or not you wanted to date someone, or whether or not you ultimately did–it shows whether or not you were willing to give them the time of day. A polite “no thanks” isn’t something that takes a lot of time to give in response to someone who took the time to write to you and express their interest (though I do realize that even on this site, saying they “took the time” is sometimes a stretch). Ignoring someone entirely is rude. The graphs above show that the rudeness has correlations with race.
This has been my experience as an Asian male as well.
What muscular, masculine black women are everyone talking about? Black women are just as feminine as white women are. I spend my entire day around black girls and women (I’m a black woman, and I’m a public high school teacher), and not one of them has a masculine face or body; they all have very soft and feminine features, soft and curvy (not fat) bodies and beautiful faces. And so do I.
Perhaps the people saying this don’t know very many black people and are only using the Williams sisters as examples. They are kinda masculine, but so are most white female athletes. The ones who aren’t obviously muscular–the hyper feminine ones–are exceptional because they are different from other female athletes, not because they are the norm.
I stumbled across a sociological study from UC-Irvine that uses data from Yahoo Personals. I didn’t read the actual study, but the press release seems to indicate that the study corroborates many of the conclusions presented here.
http://www.uci.edu/features/2009/04/feature_datingandrace_090421.php
this is totally unscientific, nor does draw upon statistical theory in any way. nor is physical attraction subject to a criticism of racism.
Concur that the comments are by and large asinine. Which is more bigoted, to choose what makes you happy, conditioned or biased though it may be, or to slander and berate someone for doing so?
Strikes me as petty.
I think this is absolutely fascinating. The conversation that it’s started is also very interesting to read. I’ve been in my interracial relationship for 5 years, and luckily have never had any problem whatsoever from my family for it, although his family had some issue in the beginning of me not being Chinese. He once explained to me that, where he was raised, Asians were VERY much the minority, and he thinks he generally prefers Caucasian women because that was what he was always exposed to growing up. This is most likely a factor, along with the American media marginalizing other races when it comes to showcasing feminine beauty. It’s an important study you guys have done and I think it’s pretty intriguing.
@ TJ
Black women are the least likely to get a ring period. Not only that but black women are marrying out more often nowadays so if you are saying that black women aren’t open that isn’t true. Alot of black women are indifferent to dating because they aren’t lucky with love due to systemic racism.
@ Mart
Ok.Cupid has already covered that base with the zodiac chart. It is saying that the attraction rates are disproportionate. I suggest you read the previous comments that people have made. This is a from of systemic racism because white is considered right and black undesirable.
@ Jessie Maims
I understand what you are saying but it does not hurt to try.
Okay… so all of you who are calling people who prefer to date their own race racists… when okcupid does the stats for replies versus body type, are you going to decry okcupid users as being shallow, or are you going to side with “I don’t care what the numbers say — no fat chicks/dudes for me!”? Or how about age? At what point to do you accept that looks play a part in attraction, and physique, age, and yes, even race plays a part in those looks? If you want to combat this perceived “racism”, then start by eliminating any pictures on dating sites and demand that people only go on blind dates.
Yup, that’s my experience as an asian male as well… except I’m stuck in a podunk ass-crack part of rural Central NY, where there ain’t no asian american women around… and the local women are all exclusive Italian americans, who only date other Eye-Tal-Ian Catholics.
Part of it is the stereotypes of how un-american I am. I have to constantly talk in front of people to prove I don’t have an accent, prove that I’m knowledgable of hiphop and dance music culture, I can play drums/percussion that aren’t Taiko or Shamisen… and when women find out, they either laugh or are shocked, while my white and black friends are praised and applauded.
Sometimes my white and hispanic friends are more offended (on my behalf) with the apparent racism of ANY women (especially asian women!) against asian men than I am. haha…
Of course the illiterate single mothers that are 500+ pounds with five kids from three husbands always give me the eye because I’m a young professional with a steady job and no debts and no baggage. Sorry. Not my type.
I’m curious if “other” represents everyone who doesn’t put their ethnicity into the system. And that if results would be different if you were able to account for all those who don’t.
I don’t specifically because if someone wants to know my ethnicity, they can look at my pictures or ask. Making my ethnicity searchable will only result in more crazy Asian fetishists who contact me, and you know, that really creeps me out.
Oh yea… and for those that want to force “anti-racism” on the members of OKCupid? Yeah, good luck. My white friends keep telling me, “Dude, it ain’t right that women treat you that way, because in general we see you as a friend, not as an asian male…” and I reply with, “Well what the heck am I supposed to do? I have my preferences too, and I wouldn’t want someone telling me to date a 500 pound illiterate, loud-mouthed, frumpy, drug-addled, crime-prone, single mother of 7 kids fathered by three different coke dealers because I’m seen as “classist.”
If women don’t want to date me, it’s my problem for being in the situation or not friending them enough, not theirs for having their preferences. I’d either have to move to a community that has women that like asian men, or just put forth an effort that is 10x more than what my non-asian friends do. Telling women that they have to legally change their preferences is just too weird of an idea for me.
I’d rather people focus on campaigning to have more women consider dating guys that are under 5’10” in height. That’s the real travesty… a [typical] 5’6″ woman won’t even consider a guy that is even 5’7″ as date-able. Seriously. And this is before she even finds out whether or not he feels insecure of his physical stature.
This is a great post. However many of the responses I have found to be rather closed minded. I am of mixed race, and I do have preferences. I prefer button noses, and girls of petite stature as a general rule, however this does not mean I have never been interested in a girl who did not meet those criteria. Personality counts for a lot.
Having preferences is not necessarily racist. Many people have particular preferences. If you don’t like fat people, that’s ok. If you like button noses that’s ok too. If you prefer straight hair, that is also ok. The fact that many black women do not have straight hair, and button noses are most common in white women, middle eastern and mixed raced women does not make you racist.
It completely depends on when you say “I prefer that” you mean, I will only go for that, or as a general rule I like that better, but that won’t stop me from trying something else if it seems right. None of these preferences are any worse than women preferring taller men. Would that be racist because asian men are generally shorter than other ethnicities?
Regardless, great post. I will use it to predict weather or not I will receive replies in the future.
Who is the category “Other” referring to?
Im guessing mixed race, but i could be wrong
@Mart- being attracted to someone because they share some physical trait (say, short blonde hair) of someone you liked in the past (an ex, a child crush)- not racism. discounting everyone who doesn’t look like that- racism. you’re prejudiced against some races because of stereotypes you’ve chosen to cling on to. just admit it so you can fix it.
This isn’t racism. I’m sure a lot of people would like to blame it on racism, but it isn’t. Sorry people, but you’re wrong. This is preference, just because you are not sexually attracted to someone, doesn’t make you a racist. As a gay man, the same logic would imply that I am sexist because I don’t have relationships with women. And in fact, if women were to send me messages, and I didn’t respond….well damn the data indicates that I’m sexist! But those who can see beyond numbers, or people with even a rudimentary knowledge of statistics above middle-school math know that numbers dont tell the whole story. To say that this one particular exercise in data analysis is in some way PROOF that racism exists in this site is asinine and illogical.
Also, people tend to like others that are similar to them. It’s called reciprocal liking. We like those that are like us because they reinforce things we think about ourselves. Is it bad? Maybe but it’s a well documented psychological phenomenon, deal with it.
And I agree with some of the people who actually think that responded to this. If a person is only attracted to blond’s, why cant a person only be attracted to whites (or blacks or Hispanic, etc)? Preference is preference, it isnt racism. People who call THIS racism should read about the 1960’s and Martin Luther King, or Apartheid, in order to find out what real racism is about.
“It is assumed that white guys not messaging black women are racist. That in itself is a racist statement.”
haha mart you are such a dumbass but thanks for letting people know your understanding of statistics is so poor that we can safely ignore any thoughts you may have on this subject without wasting any time to read what you’ve written
@di
No, sorry, but I do not intend to “fix” myself. I’m not discarding anyone, that would be stupid, I might miss out on someone who’s character perfectly matches my own. But what are these “stereotypes” I’m apparently clinging to? All I’ve mentioned is that black people have black skin, which is true. I find that slightly less physically attractive, just as I find blonde hair slightly less attractive.
Well looks like I should give up seening as though I get no replays or messages no matter how “good” my profile or pics are…….
so basically you’re saying because i have a tendency to not be attracted to non-Caucasians that i’m a racist? what an ignorant remark.
It’s not racism to have physical preferences. If I like women between the height of 5’4 and 5’9, it doesn’t mean I think there’s anything wrong with shorter or taller women, maybe I just find it easier to dance with women in that range. Similarly, being more attracted to indian women isn’t an insult to white women, it’s just a personal preference.
I’m not surprised about the Asian girls not liking their own kind, and only replying to white guys. I live in a city with lots of Asians and the girls seem to worship white men. I’ve dated a few but their bodies were too child-like for me–no t&a. Not liking your own kind is racist too, maybe the worst kind of racist.
The trends revealed by an accumulation of individuals may say something about the society made up of those individuals, but surely, to take those trends and apply them back to a single individual is the very definition of prejudice?
Interesting stuff. The numbers don’t lie, people. Next, OkCupid should show us exactly how much we are ageist bastards.
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2008/04/explain-away.html
A blog written by a WHITE MAN regarding the racists acts of white people.
the responses have been as educational as the post itself.
Why so much prattle about how white men are racist? I see more support to the contrary from the data.
Notice how white men write back to white women as little as pretty much any other race of women (god that sounds awful). The graphs show that white men appear to be the most wanted, so it’s a given that they are in a position to pick. If there’s any racism here, it’s from the women for preferring white men…
Also note how, in the last table (would you strongly prefer to date someone of your own race), “females” have a slightly higher yes/no ratio than “whites”, yet for some reason the conclusion seems to be “bawwww crackers are racist” and not “bawwww chicks are racist”.
The cornucopia of knee-jerk reactions here is fascinating.
But okay. Suppose you can call it racism, what are you going to do about it? Sift through your members’ histories and delete their accounts if you find they aren’t “equal opportunity lovers”? I can’t imagine any way to try and change it that wouldn’t be completely ridiculous. These are more private matters than hiring employees, and cannot be dictated to people by others.
Finally, “just passing” makes a very good point above.
OK, people on all sides in this “debate” need to get a grasp of what we are talking about here. If you haven’t taken an implicit association test already, go and do it:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html
I’ve taken it several times. I try my best not to be confused, and send the “nice” words in the correct direction – but when the speed is up, I sometimes DO send them in the “white” direction instead. And worse, I sometimes send “bad” words in the “black” direction. Before you hate me for that, go take it yourself.
There’s a big difference between _conscious_ attitudes and _unconscious_. One who has conscious negative attitudes to people of a different race is a RACIST. One who has unconscious negative attitudes is a XENOPHOBE. All racists are xenophobes, but not all xenophobes are racists.
The Implicit association test tells me that on some low level, I (and LOTS of other people, not limited to whites!) am biased against blacks in snap judgements. It doesn’t really matter if it’s genetic or from social conditioning. I can’t help it. What I can do is admitting it’s there, and try to compensate as best I can with a CONSCIOUS attitude of anti-racism.
This means realizing that when deciding which measures are appropriate to, say, protecting myself from foreign terrorists, or break-ins in a certain neighbourhood, or passing judgement in court, I would NOT be guaranteed by my “good nature” to only gather the facts and weigh them evenly and fairly. We don’t HAVE a good nature, we have only the nature that nature gave us – which is full of things appropriate for surving in the jungle, and far less so for things appropriate to being a good person.
This is just the sad truth, and mostly, what we see in these numbers is this sad truth in practice. Because people don’t admit that they have prejudices, they don’t try to compensate for them either. There may be SOME conscious attitudes mixed into it – real racism – but it’s not (from this survey) possible to say how much.
Dunno if someone already pointed this out (I’m so not combing through 300+ replies) but for everyone saying this is “preference” not “racism” what would happen to that argument in any other context? No I won’t hire you because I “prefer” whites. Sorry, I won’t let you into my neighborhood, I “prefer” whites.
What makes racism in any other context suddenly become “personal preference” in the context of dating?
Ok my one and only question is… Does this change anyone’s point of view?? I would have to say probably not. People prefer whatever they want and you really cannot call that racist. Some guys and girls prefer not to go outside thier race even thought they could be missing a wonderful opportunity. Its 2009 but thinking is still in the 1950’s.
I am a Black female that is an EOD (equal opportunity dater) who is just waiting for the times to catch up. As my mom always says you never know who you are going to fall in love with. Just make sure he treats you with respect and he can bring to the table that can equal you.
“Why can’t people get it through their media-induced anti-racism comatose minds that black people are *not* some endangered species. They are people, just like you, me, and every other idiot on this planet. They have a common physical trait, namely a dark skin. People are allowed to be attracted to blonde hair, blue eyes, and every other physical trait, but being attracted to a pale skin is racism?”
Really? Just, really?
Here is your embedded bias, your prejudice, your racism. If you identify and agree with this statement, it’s you.
Mr. lake whale, Education is being able to express one’s self without resorting to 4 letter saxon words.
@just passing
You meant “a stereotype”, not “prejudice”.
Prejudice a judgement formed before contact is made.
Stereotyping is seeing two people in a group doing something, and assuming the third, fourth, etc do it too.
A few notes:
1. As a gay man, I find this study homophobic. But I have to thank you for effectively excluding me from your accusations of racism. Looking at the alias the poster chose, I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised?
2. As a white man, I have dated people of mixed race, black, Asian, and Hispanic origin. I feel I should also point out as an American, I’ve dated people from many places outside of my own mother country. (I won’t say how many because it makes me feel rather slutty, thank you.)
3. Throughout all of my dating, I’ve discovered I’m mainly interested in white men who tend to be taller. Does that make me racist? I should hope not. Perhaps a little shallow, but not for lack of trying to be otherwise.
4. Additionally, I should point out I would never exclude a reply to someone based on — *gasp* a DATING site — looks. Literacy and some signal that says you read MY profile (I’m sure it may surprise the number that don’t) has much more to do with it. Does it mean the chances of us dating (again, *gasp*, from a DATING site) if you’re white will go up? Sure. But I never exclude possibility. I also reply to people who aren’t even interested in dating. A lesbian recently messaged me (we’re kind of, you know, exclusively into other genders) and as it turns out, she’s been quite a good person to get to know.
5. Finally, as an online business person myself, I’m annoyed to think a site like OKCupid would stoop so low as to publish something like this, likely just to get a higher hit count. It invalidates any respect I may have had for a value judgment on the part of the poster.
I can guarantee you these people in here saying its just preference could take a psychological test testing their latent racial beliefs and it would come out racist. Not preferring Black features in itself isn’t racist, but its a pretty big notifier for a person who is. I mean, you are categorizing what you find attractive based on race/assumed race-based traits. How could that possibly be viewed as not racially charged? There’s no use in denying it white folks, and to be honest I don’t even care if you all change. What needs to happen, is Black people need to stop being so dependent on the approval of white people. We’ll never get it. So we need to develop the self esteem from within.