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.
@TheVoiceofReason
What the hell are you talking about? How does racism benefit a Black man? On what planet do you live on and where can I get a ticket? If you think there weren’t millions of white folks that were racist in the past and there aren’t millions now, I got a bridge to sell you.
Get that reverse racism chit out of here mang.
At the end of the day, I can keep it real. I don’t want white women and I will lose no sleep over them not liking me. So white women can keep right on ignoring messages from Black men, it most definitely doesn’t effect me (and it shouldn’t effect any self respecting brotha). I want a Black woman, and so you and other white boys can keep right on ignoring Black women’s messages, thats just more for me. The only issue I have is Black people openly pining for the acceptance of others when we should know by now we’re not going to get it no matter what. We are a people that have done nothing to white people historically and yet they continue to treat US with apprehension and hatred when if anything it should be the other way around. I don’t need any more evidence to know it will continue and I think more Black people need to realize this. When they do, dumb ass studies like this won’t bother them as they shouldn’t.
I think that darker guys are extremly attractive it has to be said people don’t answer for a variety of reasons and looks do matter to most even when they say it doesnt .The best thing to do is write to people you like the look of you nver know they may answer back and be different from the rest
Data is fascinating!! (Not talking about the android from ST-TNG.
And nobody complains that the rate of return of first mail is about 30%?
All these conversations about racism and equality, but nobody helps anybody. If I do not get a response, I think that I am better off, because that person has no respect to say “Thanks I am not interested because…”
I am an average guy, not rich, regularly attractive, and do not get many responses. I do not write one liners nor poetry, and talk about what I read on the profile (to some degree…).
I prefer the truth to the oblivion, the lack of feedback, the not knowing… In the end, what does not kill us make us stronger, right?
Racism is a form of skewed perception, with an action. Not answering is the same. Unfortunately, there is no data to evaluate.
Let’s help each other to be better, even if we are not interested, for whatever reason, and soon the results of this analysis will be obsolete.
“All you need is love” (The Beatles)
“That’s How Strong My Love Is” (Otis Redding)
It is clear from a good number of the responses to this article that people are completely brainwashed by the multi-culti propraganda machine of globalization. Quite a few others are using the information to justify their own color complex or their outright racism towards whites.
Prefering to mate with people of ones’ own racial and cultural group is a biological imperative as well as scientifically cogent. White people have a right to maintain their own genetic and cultural identity. Our global population numbers are plummeting at an astonishing rate.
If it was any non-white group of people demonstrating this kind of genetic and pairing imperative, there would be little negative reaction if any.
For those white women who choose to maintain their own genetic and cultural heritage, I salute and commend you…Stay strong! For the white men who love and appreciate white women AND refuse to be paid off by the capitalist overlords with access to “exotic women”….I love and appreciate you. Maintaining our identity will make it more difficult for corporate and government powers to control us.
To Jared – You are not a racist for loving your own women…you are wonderful!
I support everyone who wishes to maintain their own genetic lineage…as long as they respect my right to it as well.
Why are these posts out of order? It makes it difficult to follow. Can someone fix this?
@GucciMang
“At the end of the day, I can keep it real. I don’t want white women and I will lose no sleep over them not liking me.”
Let’s see…. you deem it okay to write the sentences above. If I said the reverse… I’d be considered racist.
In my opinion, people like you hurt the cause you seem so passionate about. Your thoughts are helping to keep hostilities between African-Americans and Caucasians alive and well.
If you really think million of people are knowingly racist… I suggest you move to a different part of the country.
You act as though we should stereotype all white folk as racists and all black folk as victums. Luckily, the majoriety of African–Americans do not share your views on racisim.
@ Gucci Mang
Re-read my comment. The last part was not referring to blacks.
To a blind man, love is colorless. Why should it be any different to one who can see all. Racial disparity should be on a downward spiral but yet I agree that there are numerous instances of tension between the masses. But I have also noticed that race is not the only issue. It also includes height, looks, intelligence and financial stability. Tell me how many intelligent women & men with very stable positions and six figure salaries and a body to die for is going to take up with a homeless person whom hasn’t bathed in a week. Race isn’t the only issue. I’ll be honest myself and tell you that I wouldn’t even think about affiliating myself with a drug abuser so I guess I’m not any better than those who use race as an issue. Meantime keep punching the numbers. You’re going to see a decline someday. Just keep us apprised of what you find.
Interesting data gathering. Are you thinking of getting a publication out of it?
One thing that might skew your data, though. I think that most of the “Black Women” who write men are obviously or turn out to be scammers from Ghana.
I’m a White man, and In my couple of years on OKCupid, I’ve only gotten mail from one genuine African-American woman. (We became lovers, so that’s a pretty good response rate.) All the rest have been scammers from Ghana.
-Eric
I agree wholeheartedly. I am a Jamaican woman and I posted my picture. I have written to several gentleman and only recieved 2 replies out of maybe 5. I wrote to these men because in their essays they claimed to be open minded. apparently they weren’t willing to look past the color of my skin even though there were a lot of mutual likes and dislikes. I have posted my profile on another site without a picture and have had many gentlemen respond. But I will add that once I send them a picture all bets are off. So basically I agree. Men say one thing and don’t follow thru. It’s sad but very true.
Roxanne
This data shows evidence of racial discrimination, not racism. These are related topics but not equivalent.
“Racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”
“Discrimination is a sociological term refering to treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group that is taken in consideration based on class or category.”
Source: Wikipedia
“BTW, white women are replied to less than women of all races except for black women. I guess the menfolk are competing so hard for white women’s attention that they forget to talk to us.”
Odds are that the white women that are receiving all of these messages and the white women that are sending a lot of first messages are different groups of white women, and likewise for the men sending the messages. The pool of white people here is large enough for many things to occur within it simultaneously, with a lot of room for variation, outliers, etc.
Biology my butt! Where was biology during American slavery when White men were tearing up the slave sheets to get to Black women. Hmm, What about native American women the white men slept with to create a WHOLE race of people called Mestizos also known as present day Hispanics. Millions of people. What about the Dominican Republic-ALL “mulatto” people, products of White MEN and Black women. What about Brazil, White men and Black women. What about the Philippines-White Spanish men and Asian women. If you are attracted to women, then you don’t care what color they come in. The races have been mixing since before time!!!!! Don’t give me this neocon post-racial “color blind” Limbaugh mess! Strom Thurmond was sleeping with a Black woman, him and Thomas Jefferson!!!!!! Give me a break-you people are dumb and racist. You like who you like, because you are too afraid to admit you DREAM about women of color. DREAM!!!!!!! All Night and every day. It’s hilarious to think otherwise.
I am attracted to Black women-yes! I am, a white guy from Virginia!I mean of course I am, I like women. I have friends who swear they aren’t but turn their head when one walks by…..get a grip man.
“Black women are sweethearts. Or just talkative. But either way, they are by far the most likely to reply to your first message.”
and
“White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group”
So … it’s all inside out. The white boys should be scamming the nigerian girls.
The big problem I can see with this sort of analysis is that it’s trying to draw qualitative conclusions from quantitative data which does not account for all qualitative factors. That is, there may be intangible things which the quizzes and ratings aren’t picking up on that affect the outcomes.
For instance, I’m a Goth. There is no question for that on OKCupid that I’ve yet seen. You would only pick up that piece of data by looking at my photos and a few lines here and there in my profile. But MAN, does that affect messages and responses! The short form is that I only get messages from other Goths, even if their compatibility rating is lower than someone else’s. I know that those someone elses have seen my profile, but none of them are sending me messages.
I don’t ascribe to some kind of systematic bigotry against Goths though. Sure, that woman with 90% compatibility who loves action movies and the Jonas Brothers isn’t sending me a message. The issue is just that while we may share a great many opinions on a great deal of quantitative questions, we are really nothing alike. There’s a cultural difference there that is not, and cannot, be reflected in the numerical data.
I would not be surprised if the majority of these cases were similar. The analysis automatically assumes that all things are equal, but they aren’t. You’re dealing with people’s tastes, culture, and other qualitative things too numerous and complex to even recount. It’s easy to paint white men as horrible racists as a group because of the numerical data, but we’re talking about actual, individual human beings interacting with other individual human beings. Maybe one guy just doesn’t find a certain person or a certain type of feature attractive. Maybe another finds everyone he’s 86% compatible with to be dreadfully dull. Maybe a third just gets so many messages, being a desirable white guy, that he’s just that much more selective about who he replies to overall. Then there’s the fetishes…
That’s above and beyond the problem of false generalization. White men as a whole group are horribly racist based on numbers, which is a horribly offensive claim to every white guy who has responded with affirmations of their interracial dating history. It makes for great snarky copy but is very imprecise to say the least.
Just because “white” people would rather mate with other “White” people doesn’t mean that they are racist. A “RACIST” hates people of other races. You can’t tell actual feeling towards or against other etnicities based on who people will date. There are many factors that are involved. Being a white male, I only want to mate with a white female, but does that make me a racist? No. I have no problem with people of other ethnicities, I just don’t find most of them sexually attractive. The ones I am attracted to, would be refered to as “out of my leauge”.
When looking at this information using gene traits, lighter colors are almost always recessive. Blue eyes need a blue eye gene from both parents; blonde hair and white skin are the same. If I was to mix my genes with another ethnicity, many of my genetic traits would be over-powered by more dominant traits. If I had a child with an African decendant whose familly has never interbred before, there would be no chance of my child having blue eyes. If the person had African decent, but thier family “mixed” in the past, there is a possibility that my child could have blue eyes.
Science does not prove or disprove racism, but niether does associating with people who are like yourself. It doesn’t mean you are a “RACIST”. It means you prefer to mate with people who look like you.
What I am trying to say is the term “RACIST” is overused.
There is a possible pretty large selection bias for all people from abroad joining the site. If you are joining an English based American date site from a foreign country you will obviously have an above average interest in the majority population of the US. Is people living abroad a part of the study? Even if it is only US users have basically the same problem at a lower scale, because the largest demographics of the site are white Americans other people joining will most likely have an above average interest in meeting white Americans. Standardizing for age would also have been a nice touch. That said I am quite sure the interpretation here is robust, it is some very strong results.
White women place pretty much smack in the middle of the preferences of men of every race in this study, including white men who place them in equal fourth/fifth position out of nine, but people are coming away from reading this article thinking that they enjoy a privileged status in the dating game. White men do, but not white women.
There is also very little in the data that suggests people have a preference for dating within their own race with the exception of white women who are merely agreeing with women of every other race in placing white men at or near the top of their preferences.
Socio-economic status is an important factor in the preferences of women and that varies with race in a way that lines up very well with the preferences observed in the study. Black men have low socio-economic status partly because of a legacy of racism of course, but a woman needn’t be racist to appreciate that fact. This makes sense given that it’s not just white women who respond less to black men, but women of every race in the study, including black women. If you look at the stats that okc has reported here, you’ll see that black women also respond to black men less often than they do to men of every other race.
More about this in my okc journal here:
http://www.okcupid.com/profile/i_found_3_quid/journal/10233272125058155676/Google-search-'okcupid-racism'-gets-18,000-hits!
I have been writing to women who score high (80%+) on match/friend %ages and whom I find reasonably attractive and mostly they have been white women. Are there black women on OKC? I am an East Indian male. I have tried searching on keywords like ‘vegetarian’ and the result is the same. I think because OKC being so fair-minded wants an East Indian male like me to be paired with a white women to correct the imbalance! I am open to all races though.
you know,
technologically speaking, this blog’s talkback system leaves much to be desired:
– One can’t reply to another comment underneath it, not open a discussion thread
– The talkbacks are ordered by some vague sorting criterion
– There are very few comments in each page before having to press the “older comments” link, and seriously, only rarely ppl would be THAT interested in reading talkbacks, that they will keep on clicking
– you could at least number the talkbacks to aid referencing to someones comment
This post says “The takeaway here is that although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot.”
The -premise- is that race shouldn’t matter. The -takeaway- is that it does matter.
How can anyone just say that race shouldn’t matter? Why should race preference matter any less than gender preference? Or hair color? People have their preferences. People are attracted to certain body types and cultural patterns.
Et vive le difference! I think it’s okay. I don’t want to tell anyone here how they should decide about replying.
BTW ethnicity on my profile is ‘undeclared.’ My group was left out of the analysis.
Thanks to this article, this morning i messaged an attractive male who happened to be white and I got reamed out for being a racist, when I am far from it. And all i wanted to do is talk crap about awful japanese horror flicks. OKC, CBing deluxe.
Where is the line? Personal preference and learning from past experiences versus racism? Certain qualities are attractive to me, certain qualities aren’t. This is a dating site for crying out loud. We all have certain socioeconomic and aesthetic standards that we are using to filter out those we seek out and those we respond to. Now we are being crucified for having standards and being accused of being racist. That is not to say that certain prejudices are not present in everyones minds, but to be called a racist is just too much.
Look at it this way. . . Some men simply will not reply back to an overweight girl, or a dumpy looking girl, or a girl with braces or a girl with bad skin. No one is jumping down their throat about it, making them feel like a POS for not messaging back. You are attracted to what you are attracted to. I is just the same as I, personally, am not interested in men who are unemployed with bad haircuts or bad teeth, Perhaps i am just simply not attracted to a certain guy. Maybe he happens to be black, maybe asian, maybe white. I do not appreciate that being misconstrued into racism.
Am i supposed to respond back with a disclaimer now to every unemployed, balding male with bad acne or an unattractive nose that “sorry, im not being racist, i just simply am unattracted to you”? To those hispanic or asian men that sometimes are my height, must i feel compelled to write back that i am not attracted to their height and explain that it truly isnt a race thing? No, most people do not endorse those types of responses, because that is just opening it up to whining and unnecessary fighting.
I just wanted to say thank you for this article, and thank you for effectively cockblocking me this morning.
As a half Indian half Caucasian gay male, I would like to see a similar study done on gay men and lesbian women.
I would not be surprised if results were even more skewed towards white males and skewed away from non-whites. As for the results for lesbians, I cannot make a prediction.
But frankly, I am not surprised by these results in the slightest, and I doubt that other factors aside from racial aesthetics are dominating the results.
yeah this chart shows things as a minority i already knew. White men are considered to be the most desirable and black women are the least. The funny thing is, how many- mostly white people- feel the need to defend racism as a social construct, a part of their culture, that wont go away or should generally be accepted. This of course is due to the fact they are on top(Whites)- and not being the ones who are rejected.(or at least, being rejected by a group they wanted to a part of or care about) Here are some points of harsh reality for you:
1) Yes! This shows racism, as people are choosing mates on the premise of so called race. That in some way, one race is better then the other. This is not a mere preference, its racism. Its not biological, its a behavior your taught and its wrong. So called “Race preference” Is a form of racism. You may not be burning crosses, but you are stating that one race is better then the other and its racist.
2) The only reason why anyone would bring up races as a form of comparison is to state one is above the other. That is why the construct of “race” exists. We are all human beings, there is no “race” other then the human race. We have cultures perhaps- but there have been many occasions where people marry outside their cultures for different reasons,
3) People believe stereotypes associated with “race” and in many cases go out of their way to prove them to be true. Stereotypes are a funny thing- they are based off of a loose observation of a group of people- and do not explain the nature of behavior nor do they explain actions of a whole. So they are inherently wrong! Get that- they are wrong! When people say or think race- they bring up stereotypes and use them as a guide to explain the behavior of an entire group of people. Most important note of stereotypes is how they do not stick to white people. They may have a few cultural stereotypes dealing with being Italian or Irish, but as a whole they dont have any that are as negative as a racial stereo type. No one goes crying to the hills cus white people moved in next to them, No one believes that white people eat a type of food and then go out of their way to market it to them. No one believes that white “race” is stupid, prone to irrational violence. You’ll never hear anyone say a white person is a credit to their race.
4)As far as the United States is concerned, race is used as a form of cast system. Minorities tend to feel if they are dating, or marring a white person, they are either going up on the economic latter or they dating someone who is better then a minority. And in other cases they dont want to date out side of their race to prove that they have some form of racial pride. When white people go out of their race they believe that they are dating or marrying someone who is bellow their class and or dating into some stereotype “Asians are smart- Asian women are so obedient.”
5) Racism is wrong, stereotypes are wrong and believing in them makes you stupid and weak. People are people no matter what. Falling into a belief system biased on either hate, or imaginary expectations of a group of people becasue of the color of their skin makes your understanding of the world weak and leaves you as a person open to manipulation of other people.
Lastly, you cannot speak of racism with out understanding where it comes from, or the history surrounding it. The “N” word carries with it a negative stigma becasue of the history of “black” oppression. The word Cracker does not because black people did not own a huge plantations filled with white slaves. Dont tolerate racist bias anywhere. Its immoral and wrong.
“- The talkbacks are ordered by some vague sorting criterion”
Ah, that. It seems like new messages appear hither and thither, in the order that they’re submitted by commenters, but not the order in which they’re approved by the mods, which makes for a lot of going back and forth to find the newest comments.
@Chris
Uhh if you have been following the conversation you’d know I would have zero problem with you saying that. The truth is, I expect most white people to feel the same way. I just want Black people to do the same FOR THEIR OWN.
And there’s nothing about my post that hurts the cause that I ride for. If anything, the people such as yourself that deny the necessity for this type of thinking do. A Black man and woman should be so engulfed in their own culture and their own love for self that white people not liking them should be inconsequential. The only time it should be any issue is when that ‘not liking’ spills over into employment, education, and other financial and social things that might interfere with their daily and future livelihood. This is pretty much the exact thing white people do and have been doing for years, but you have a problem when I say others should do the same? Point proven.
So… why did y’all say you would strongly prefer your own race? Don’t you have any really hot friends that belong to another race? Don’t you want to make out with those people? Please explain.
This is NOT racism!!! Ugg, I’m so tired of that word being thrown around so loosely. I think in general, most people by nature like being around like minded and like appearanced people. Not all people are like that, but I would say most are. Especially when it comes to dating, I personally tend to like women who look similar to me. Has nothing whatsoever to do with racism! One of my best friends is black. I’m white. I couldn’t care less about the color of his skin. He’s just a great friend! But would I date a black woman? Probably not. I just don’t prefer dark skin tones. That’s just me. Has nothing to do with racism. It’s just aesthetically not what I prefer. Could I fall in love with a dark skinned woman? Maybe? But the chance is very low. Doesn’t make me a racist though, not in the slightest. I also don’t prefer asian women, although I have occasionally been attracted to mixed white/asian women. My point is, that everyone has their own preferences, but I think most fall somewhere close to their own appearance/race.
This is not racism though. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to date one type of person over another. It’s just the way we are. Men and women have been choosing partners based on a wide variety of variables since the dawn of time, and race is just one of those many variables. Let’s assume, that if everyone was “equal” why wouldn’t we just marry the first person we could get our hands on? Why not? Because EVERYONE is different, and we all have preferences. Your preference may be completely different from mine. I’m 6’2″ and white, but I looooove short petite white brunettes, but I also like latin women, so if I ONLY dated latin women, would I be a racist? Would I be a racist if I chose to only date white women?
White men make up a larger percentage of the population, so it doesn’t surprise me that they would get a larger number of responses. By claiming that people are “racist” based on their dating preferences (and they’re just preferences), you’re making a rather LARGE assumption. You might want to rethink your whole perspective on life/biology and the world at large
One thing that keeps disturbing me is that black men receive the least amount of replies from any race. Where does that leave me, a black man who is working on his college degree? I don’t find this to be fair.
Bwahaha! So true!
The bad part is when so called ‘preferences’ spill over into clannishness. Good old boys are well and alive it seems, just more up to date; leaner and meaner.
@ gucciMang
What exactly is black culture? Are you referring to African culture? Caribbean culture, African American? For African Americans is that Northern, southern, western, midwestern? Are you talking about upper, middle class or lower class? Are you talking about religious blacks, agnostic or atheist. Jewish, Muslim or Christian? What about those born in England, Germany, France, Spain or Italy? please define “black culture”
News flash, there is no such thing as black culture. I grew up in Europe, among British whites and Italian whites. I moved here and have dated blacks and whites of multiple nationalities and religions. Luckily I found some great guys with a little backbone that looked at me as a person rather than a race.
For educated successful black women that work in predominantly white environments, this issue makes it more difficult to find a mate and settle down, this means that many successful black women don’t marry, never have kids, or are not in good relationships because they may end up ‘settling’ rather than waiting for the right man. And even the most myopic racist should recognize
successful black women should be procreating so they can bring up another generation of successful black people ;P
I don’t date races, I date people. If you only want to date within your race, that is fine with me but at least be honest about what that really says about you
This whole “I am going to act like a racist, but don’t you dare call me one” is getting old!
As I said I am glad you silly people don’t want to date me, I am just frustrated the dishonesty. At least recognize that for black women in America the relationship arena sucks and give us a little more support and understanding when we are unable to find someone, I have found that not only will some whites not date me, but they (usually white women and this really pisses me off) will sometimes try to sabotage other potential relationships because ‘people should date within their race” give me a break!!!!!!!!.
You can argue all you want that racism has nothing to do with this, but when I have lived in other countries, I had very little trouble finding men of all races that wanted to date me (yes European countries too), so I am not buying that this is all about ‘preference’.
It’s funny how all these people try to clean it up and offer reasons for what they’re calling their ‘preferences’. But no matter how you slice it, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Own it.
Dominic – Good news. The results are linked at the top of the page, and the preference for whites is nowhere near as strong among gays and lesbians.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/same-sex-data-race-reply/
Whoa, there are a lot of assumptions and issues here. People are attracted to others for many reasons. Some arbitrariness is normal. I’m an older white guy and not likely to raise a new family, so my feelings are less important than those of a nubile female, but here goes. I am inclined to like black women. They have nice voices and maybe interesting life experiences. How much am I allowed to think that black ladies are charming before I am guilty of narrow-mindedness? I have my own life experiences, and that’s how my feelings sort out at this time.
Many people seem to like others very similar to themselves. One day I woke up and realized that it is even more fun for others to be others–to be different. For me, that makes sense. But in a way I admire people who grew up with such a loving family and neighborhood that they can be comfortable with sameness.
I’d be curious what it looks like for men vs men and women vs women. Not everyone on OkCupid messages the opposite sex.
@ Mark
I feel your pain my friend… I feel your pain!
@ Dee
I agree. I’m tired of hearing this preference BS. Let’s face it, if you make decisions base on race, that’s racism. Let’s call it what it is. When old people get discriminated against in the job market, no one denies it’s racism. So let’s stop playing this silly game. You’re racist, accept it. And that stands true for the white women/hispanic/etc… who prefer black men too. (However, I at least have the opportunity to convince these people when they come in contact with me.)
Racism is silly. The notion of race is silly. what ever your religious affiliation, this should be apparent to you. If God didn’t want us to mix, he wouldn’t make us able to “mix-procreate.”
If science is a more appealing source for you, than you should know that the differences are manifestations in reaction to environment.
That being said, I would love to compare “racial preference” of religious people vs atheists/agnostics.
I wanted to add a few concepts for those who claim “Preference”
I prefer to wear brown shoes, but also wear black. that’s a preference.
I wear pants, not skirts. that’s a bias. I have negative thoughts about wearing skirts.
there’s a clear deference between preference and bias. one denotes favor, the latter promotes exclusion.
Now, whether that exclusion is wrong or not is debatable, however the fact of the matter are clear. So maybe you don’t enjoy leaching blacks. However, the fact of the matter is, you are racist if you believe race is a legitimate reason to exclude a whole group of people.
As Dee said, you prefer blondes, but you would not exclude brunets as a possibility. That is just a silly notion; that’s a preference. If, You exclude, asians, whites, etc… that makes you a racist. Deal with it. Maybe you’re not a bad person per se. However you’re probably an idiot if you don’t understand the concept by now.
Furthermore, I’m not losing sleep over this stuff, yeah it makes my dating landscape a little tougher than it should be. However, I’m not looking to date everyone, I’m ultimately looking to find one woman.
On another note, I do think if people just admitted they are racist, it would help them analyze the validity of that prejudice. Obviously I’m not talking about KKK members and the alike. I’m referring to the people that discriminate due to ambiguous reasons. Much like my favorite person today Dee, and me, who grew up with anti-white programing you too could break free from it.
I think it’s silly that I’m so anti skirts. However, I admire people who don’t bind themselves with silly social standards like “a straight male can’t wear skirts.” (I think I might wear one for Halloween)
Is it really necessary to call someone a racist if they don’t date a particular race or outside of their own? The simple fact is we all discriminate when it comes to dating, whether that be racial preference, height/weight preference, attractiveness/chemistry or similar interests.
Have you ever considered that perhaps a person doesn’t date outside of thier race because they are attracted to specific traits of their own race? Why should it matter?
I don’t have any negative feelings at all about people dating outside of their race, love is love and as long as two people are in love and happy together who am I to judge?
I would be quick to ask, do you date people of the same gender? If not, are you being biased by gender the way you are pointing the finger at the race card?
I personally have more friends of other races than I do friends of my own, but I haven’t dated outside of my race. How that can be construed as racist is beyond me.
I guess people will always find something to complain about.
Romeo… if you’re askiing about the gay/lesbian results, they’re right at “Same-Sex Data for Race vs. Reply Rates” I linked to it earlier.
So now I guess I’m a ‘racist’ for understanding my own desires and being the product of thousands of years of selective personal choice? LOL
Wow.
I should start eating things I’m allergic to I suppose. I wouldn’t want any food to feel left out either…
@dee
That long post and all I saw was you pining for white people to accept you. They won’t, they’re telling you in every way they can all over the media and even right here in front of you. What more do you need? You can always wise up and come home sista.
By the way if you don’t even know that there is more than one Black culture then wow I don’t know what to tell you.
I think the real takeaway here is that 50% of messages or less get responded to by ANYONE in here.
That tells me that the contemporary American methodology of locating a mate has degenerated into something like shopping for a used car online. based on looks and a few simple lines written.
The majority of power for picking a mate lies with the females. They browse, as if shopping for a car, and are generally basing their choices on pretty superficial things like looks and will he be “Fun.”
We have a divorce rate pushing 60%. Add to that the unrecorded but substantial rate of long term relationships that end in failure and I’d say the Total Relationship Failure (TRF) rate in the the US is something like 80% to 90%.
So, before you go diving in and calling people racists, how about you try figuring out why Americans can’t even make relationships within their own cultural sets work?
Relationships are hard on any day. I can tell you from experience that cross-cultural and inter-racial ones are even harder. They require intensely sophisticated, adult relationship skills and that is apparently lacking in our culture or we wouldn’t have the failure rates we’re seeing.
It has nothing to do with “racism.” Maybe people just understand on some level how hard it is and just choose to simply concentrate their efforts where they might be more easily rewarded?
.
@ Nerthus
A biological imperative to mate with your own racial group? Bah! It is a biological imperative to spread the similar genes out, away from each other. Our global population numbers are plummeting at an astonishing rate? Um, no, they aren’t. It is that simple. Kittens are smarter than you. I suggest gathering some peer reviewed scientific literature on population growth and biology before ever putting your fingers to your keyboard again.
A+ for passion. F- for facts.
As a white male who gets plenty of mail from African Amercian (AA) women on match.com, I can only say that you just get tired of women that are so incredibly non-compatible, such a poor fit, that you think they are joking when they respond. I don’t want to meet a woman who is a smoker, or a woman with only an assoicates degree (or less) or a woman with children and/or who are overweight. So it’s not about the reply, but the frustration of me indicating I am not interested in that sort of woman and that they are responding to me anyway. Overall it’s become such a hassle that i expect that 90 precent of AA women are a problem, so I don’t even look. That has nothing to do with if I meet an AA outside of the internet as I have and will date AA women. My lack of response is in itself a message, but not a message of racism. Just a protest to the way the website works. So I thnk the figures have to be considered with the way the sites are being used in the first place. Some AA women just don’t play by the rules….. and I thnk other white men experience the same thing
I’m assuming, the recent post from Bill and Saxter are directed at me.
Yes, I do have a gender bias. I rule out men. I find men disgusting as far as Romance and Sex anyway.
You probably think people you exclude are disgusting too. That’s why you rule them out.
Does that make you necessarily evil? That’s up for debate. But whether you are a racist, is not debatable.
I get it, we’re attracted to what we’re attracted to. But considering the range of features each and every race offer, if race is it thing for you, I’m not sure why you think you can be left out of the racist label.
Saxter, if you don’t understand what I’m saying, I don’t think you understand your desire. You’re in denial about it. I don’t really blame you. I wouldn’t suggest you go around telling people you are a racist; It’s a loaded word. However, you probably would become a more complete human being if you open your mind and seriously consider what I’m saying.
I’m not sure how I could be clearer. I’ve said enough to give you something to think about. But don’t sweat it too much. It’s not like I dislike you. I’m just stating a matter of fact.
(excuse the grammar, I really have better things to do than respond here. So I’m forgoing on the proof reading)
There is nothing racist about dating preferences. Racism is about how one negatively treats others. Dating is a preference and is no different than preferring butter pecan vs. pistachio ice cream.
I am a white male who has gone out with women of many different races and cultures. There are some cultures I simply want to have nothing to do with, even if I find the person acceptable. This is not limited to race, and extends to New Yorkers, for example. It has nothing to do with how I treat someone.
It would be fair to say there is a racial bias in dating, but it is WRONG to say that equates to racism.
Boston Guy, at least you understand. I asked the question because I have never had a girlfriend and I figured some women can’t accept my unique composition of me. Some women can accept one part of me, but never the whole of me. I think racism sometimes plays a part.