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bliss_eternal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 04:23 AM
Original message
Sex, intimacy and oppression...
Edited on Sat Jul-07-07 04:44 AM by bliss_eternal
...(cross post from interracial relationship forum)

I can’t be racist, I have interracial sex!

CVK

One of the big myths out there is the idea that interracial relationships are inherently good for ending racism. We’ve all heard the utopian notions that “we should keep mixing and soon we’ll all be mixed and there will be no more racism!”

The problem with this idea is that it assumes interracial couples and mixed race people themselves cannot be racist. And of course, we all know that’s not true. Check out former Nebraska Senator John DeCamp’s description of his Vietnamese wife as a “war trophy” for just one example.

As I wrote in a post last year, just because you sleep with/live with/marry/date someone of another race doesn’t make you automatically not racist. After all, slave masters had no problem maintaining their racist beliefs against blacks while raping their slaves and fathering mixed children with them. Neither did Strom Thurmond. And all you have to do is read Susan Crain Bakos’s article to see that sex doesn’t cancel out racism. If anything, sex and intimacy have always been intricately intertwined with oppression.
-----------------------------snip------------------------------------

taken from:

http://www.mixedmediawatch.com/2006/07/21/i-cant-be-racist-i-have-interracial-sex

As if...having sex with someone was enough to assume respect for said person. ((sigh))

Crossposted in interracial relationship forum.
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VelmaD Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 09:12 AM
Response to Original message
1. it's hard to believe some people...
Edited on Sat Jul-07-07 09:13 AM by VelmaD
don't get this. Why would having sex with someone of a different race equal not being a racist? Men have sex with women and that hasn't stopped any of them from being sexist that I've noticed.
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mrreowwr_kittty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 12:28 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yeah, gay men tend to treat me with more respect than straight ones
Generally speaking, anyway. With almost every hetero guy I encounter, I can tell I'm being sized up as fuckable/not fuckable at the offset. Definitely not as a person first.

As for interracial relationships, they seem to come in two flavors. One is where it's just 2 people who fell for each other who happen to be of different melanin levels or nationalities. The other is where there is a deliberate preference of one, or both, for a partner of a particular ethnicity. It's almost a fetish with some, I've noticed. When I lived in Japan I knew a lot of gaijin men who pursued the native women, based on stereotypes about their submissiveness and sexuality. It also seemed to be about striking back at the "uppity" Western women who they felt rejected by back home.

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bliss_eternal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 06:12 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Yellow fever....
Edited on Sat Jul-07-07 06:33 PM by bliss_eternal
...from an article I linked in the irr forum on this topic:


Quote from article:
Yellow FeverThey got it bad, and that ain’t good
By VICKIE CHANG
Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 3:00 pm

Whatcha drinking? Photo by Jennie Warren. Makeup by Bill Child Born and raised in La Habra, Dan* didn’t see many Asian Americans before college. Now 22, he attributes his Asiaphilia to UC Irvine, where he’s a studio art major and an astounding 58 percent of students claim Asian descent.

But his Asian fetish actually originated in high school, in trig class, where he met a Vietnamese American girl named Ann. Although born in the United States, Ann was raised in Indonesia until about a year before Dan met her. She spoke English well, but not perfectly. They shared the standard high school dating experience: dinner-and-movie dates, study dates, boba dates, kung fu lessons, meditation with the girlfriend’s Buddhist monk uncle. The relationship ended in a pretty standard way, too: Dan suggested sex, Ann resisted, things spiraled. There was an ultimatum and then a breakup, and then—classic—threats of suicide.
------------------------------snip----------------------------------

taken from:
http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/yellow-fever/26126/


We were discussing the issue of being "fetishized." To wake up and realize someone is with you because of some superficial, weird, idealized fantasy of who (and what) they think you are is eye opening and not at all fun. Been there, done that, got the shitty t-shirt from the trip. :eyes:

A very well stated post from irr forum, regarding "fantasy casting." Says it so much better than I could.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=289&topic_id=20#559


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Morgana LaFey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 10:22 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. Plus --
well, this goes with the submissiveness, but let me be explicit about this part of it: they want maids and servants in their mates!!
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bliss_eternal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-08-07 06:34 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. John Wayne was a prime example of that...
...I got the impression he married women of color, because he expected her to be subservient to him. To be a wife and mother--care for his children and his every need. :puke: It's like he wanted to live out the fantasies of his films in reality. Taming the wild native woman and making her his devoted slave.

I got into a discussion here (on DU)once about him and whether or not he was racist. Do you know some on DU actually used to defense of "...he was married to a latina, he couldn't have been a racist"? I was still new here at the time, so t kind of took me by surprise that a progressive would utilize such an argument.

Someone in GD was able to provide quotes from his Barbara Walters and Playboy interviews that confirmed he was a right wing bigot. He didn't mince words about it. He seemed rather proud to be intolerant.
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mrreowwr_kittty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 12:31 PM
Response to Original message
3. You are right
Mixing races is great but it will not lead to a more equal society without sustained progress in changing behaviors and institutions. Without that, all we'll get is different versions of prejudice and tribalism.
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ismnotwasm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
4. Oh for pity's sake.
Tell to all the half Vietnamese half American kids left behind after the Vietnam war. Tell it to the Phillipina's or other women of Pan Asian race and culture who are expected to be compliant little love slaves.

I'll tell a quick story (sometimes the anecdotal ones are very telling) Back in my wild youth, one of my closest friends was a mixed race woman, predominantly black. She was also to this day, the most physically beautiful women I've ever seen, including models, movies stars, what not. (We'd party a lot, one of the lines she'd get quite often was "Are you a celebrity?")We used to call her the black Marilyn Monroe. Kids, huh?
She used to say she never experienced rejection because of her race. Used to say that. What became apparent as we grew up and older, and I'm talking early to late twenties here, was that white men were attracted to her, as were many men, but there was a difference. They seemed to want--need actually-- to buy her in one way or the other. They couldn't get past race, not really, they had to put her in some kind of whore category. I don't need, in this forum to go into the history of black women, black feminism, the "oversexed, hot female" that was promoted through so much of the 20th century (still is in my view) But that's what happened. It was sad and it was ugly and she ended up staying far away from white men.

My daughter is married to a black man, and what I admire about both of them is race is on the table when it needs to be. They experience racism as a interracial couple, but they also discuss race as an intimate issue between them. I have my 8 years old grandson with me right now. (In fact, he thinks I need to get off the computer here) He's white. He calls his step father Dad, by choice. He was given a clear choice. All well and good, but I'm not going to think he won't ever have a racist thought because of this. In fact, I'm going to make sure it's a topic open for discussion because sometimes the most damaging racism is the hidden racism.
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bliss_eternal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-07-07 09:38 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. I'm sorry your friend experienced that...
Edited on Sat Jul-07-07 09:41 PM by bliss_eternal
...it's not fun to be fetishized, by anyone. I have similar experiences but with men of a different racial background (sadly). No racial background is immune from this sort of behavior it seems, the "fantasy casting of women." :eyes:

I recall an interview with Rita Moreno where she spoke of Hollywood frequently casting her as "the exotic spitfire" in films, early in her career. She was either the native, the slave girl, the wild woman that had to be tamed or a combination of all. :(

Thank you for sharing about your daughter and son in-law. They sound like a great couple! Hope you are enjoying your time with the little one.

I'll share the words of Shonda Rimes, the writer, creator and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy from the April issue of Marie Claire.

When asked if it is a conscious decision that race is never discussed on the show, (considering that there are a few interracial relationships featured on the show). She responded:

I think that issues of race are a larger conversation that people project on a relationship, but for the two people in it, that's not the primary thing on their minds.



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