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March 5th, 2007

Interracial Dating (Part 2)

Hey everyone! So, over the past week I passed out 100 surveys to random people (girls, guys, different ethnicities, social backgrounds, ages, etc.). I’m hoping since I took such a random sample from all over CSU that the results of my interracial dating survey are representative of everyone on campus.

The results were as follows:

1. Would you ever consider dating a person of another race?
70% Sure, that doesn’t even cross my mind.
22% Maybe, but I’ve never dated someone of another race.
0% No, I don’t find people of other races attractive.
8% Yeah if he/she was really hot.
0% NO WAY!

2. Have you ever dated someone of another race?
39% Yes
61% No
Out of the 39% that said yes…
86% claimed it wasn’t any different from dating someone of their own race.
14% claimed it was different from dating someone of their own race.

3. Is there any race you would definitely not date?
0% African-American
0% White
6% Middle Eastern
8% Asian
3% Spanish/Latina
83% None- I don’t base who I date on ethnicity at all.

4. Would your parents be against you dating someone from another race?
6% Yes
67% No
27% Not sure/Maybe
One participant wrote that his parents wouldn’t care if he dated someone of another race but would care if he married someone of another race.

I also asked people what stereotypes they had heard (regarding dating/sex). I got some interesting answers…
“Asians have small dicks”. “Blacks have big dicks.” “Mexican men only like blondes.” “Black guys want to date white girls.” “Spanish, Latinos and Europeans are sexy!”

Here are some conclusions I got from reading the results of this survey.

Most people are not against interracial dating.
On the contrary, most people have not dated someone from another race.
Also, people who have dated someone from another race usually find that it is not different from dating someone of their own race.
Most people don’t base who they date on race.
Most people don’t have a specific race that they will not date.
But, there are still people who are adamantly against dating someone just because of their race.
The majority of people’s parents wouldn’t care if they dated someone from another race.
But a small amount of people’s parents would care if they married someone from another race.

I am not saying these are all true for all people. But from talking to all different types of people and reading the results from the survey, I feel my conclusions have pretty solid evidence to support them.

So I’ve always pondered why it is that many people haven’t dated outside their race. Is it because of stereotypes? Just who people feel more comfortable with? Or is it simply personal preference? So I had this conversation with some friends, and we came to the conclusion(s) that we believe most people date within their own race for personal preference. For example, personally I am not attracted to the vast majority of Asian men. It’s not that I write them off immediately it’s just the fact that I don’t find them attractive. A lot of my girlfriends agreed with that (regarding Asian men) I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m pretty sure it just has to do with the basic “look” most Asian men have. Weirdly enough though, most of my guy and girl friends thought Asian women were gorgeous and exotic looking.

My whole life I have dated white men because where I grew up I was one of the two or three black people in my high school and my mom is white. Everyone I have been around my whole life, all my friends, relatives and family (my dad and his family are estranged) are white. I find I am just more comfortable with white guys. And as much as people will try to say dating different races isn’t different, I disagree for the most part. Different cultures breed different people period. And that’s not a bad thing, but I think it’s kind of scary and intimidating to be around a lot of people from different cultures when you have grown up in very sheltered small town (which I know a lot of us have). So all in all, I think we’ve come a long way when it comes to interracial dating, but let’s take the next step. Let’s go out of our comfort zone, try to ignore the stereotypes imbedded in us and take a chance on something/someone new and interesting. Who knows maybe the stereotype, “Once you go black you never go back.” is true…I dare you to find out.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Fort Chick Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.