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This is a portion of something I wrote for my Women's Studies class, and it's something I've been thinking about for about a week or so now. What does it mean to be "Race-blind" and is it even feasible? I mean, how do we turn off all of our sunconscous nonsense and evaluate one another for who we actually are when all of society is around us, informing our judgements in a racialized way?
It’s funny. These vestiges of colonialism pop up everywhere if one is a person of Color, but they are especially insidious in the ways they inform our intimate relations with others. Some of us actively search for a White partner, for the protection it will afford us in the face of a power structure that is skewed towards the pale end of the scale. Others seek other people of color, feeling that there is unity in minority status (think of the South Asian guy in Mean Girls). Still others look for members of the same racial/ethnic group, hoping for the preservation of traditions and values. And then there are those of us who try to be race-blind in our dating, and find how difficult that can be.
If I date an Asian man (particularly a Korean), I cannot help but wonder if he is only dating me because I am Korean and, if that is the case, if I (a biracial American, for there is really nowhere else I can call my “homeland”) am Korean enough—is he interested in me because I am the closest he can come to dating a White woman? Likewise, if my partner is White, am I merely the exotic Asian fantasy come to life? After all, I have some Asian features but not enough to give more than a hint of the Orient; I don’t eat dog or speak in a lilting sing-song accent. I am, in a sense, the real live version of the Orientalized White of the silver screen, a White siren dressed in the trappings of the East. And how do I honestly characterize myself as a Woman of Color when my Welsh-French-Canadian blood is as prevalent as my Korean, and when my Korean “heritage” adds up to little more than genetics through the happenstance of an interracial, intercontinental adoption?
Anyway, awesome. eloquent.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting stuff, because it affects all of us. You might think you're the most white bread person out there and that you only have privilege, but everyon'es oppressed in some way or another if you think about it long enough. I guess it just means we allhave to be really conscious about oppression and privilege and what we can individually do to try to limit the affects of our privileges on others, you know?