As a White Man, Can I Date Women of Color to Advance My Antiracism?

I’m a straight white dude and recent college grad who has very progressive beliefs and is looking for a committed partner who, in time, can equitably raise a family with me. I have almost zero honest-to-goodness physical preferences. I’ve dated women of various shapes and sizes, various skin, hair and eye colors, etc., and have been attracted to all of them.

Here’s what’s controversial among my friends: I want to prioritize dating women of color. I’m after a cross-cultural relationship. I believe very strongly that one of the main ways to combat racism is through relationships. Part of me thinks that I will always be somewhat disappointed if what ends up becoming one of the most important relationships in my life is with another white person. If someone is a woman of color, that checks a box for me in a real way. I am seeking to be antiracist in all my relationships.

Part of the reason that I prioritize it is to combat implicit bias, having grown up in a fairly white, quasi rural place. I am dedicated to educating myself on issues of racism, sexism and other forms of kyriarchy while also learning from marginalized people. For me, principles lead the way to attractions. I start by eating a food or adopting a habit because it’s good for me, and after trying it enough times, I find I really like it for what it is. The same applies to people I’m considering dating.

Both I and my hypothetical partner of color would be choosing more learning and less comfort, to put forth greater effort and practice more listening, than we otherwise would in a culturally homogeneous committed relationship. And one of the main ways that I hope to combat racism individually is by leveraging my own privilege (economic, family connections, education) for people of color, including any biracial children we bring into this world. Here’s my question: Despite my well-meaning antiracist principles, is this preference (as friends have suggested) wrong, insensitive or somehow itself racist? — Name Withheld

From the Ethicist:

Your devotion to self-improvement is impressive. Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage. You’d be using your erotic ecumenism to level up. Where your shallower classmates have hookups, your dates would be teach-ins. ‘‘Do the work,’’ the slogan urges, and you’re rolling up your sleeves.

A few cautions. You may be a little hasty in conflating ‘‘interracial’’ with ‘‘cross- cultural’’; it sounds as if you’d prefer to make a life with someone who basically shares your values and doesn’t have to Google words like ‘‘kyriarchy.’’ {snip}

{snip} Although you’re not objectifying your hypothetical partner, you are, just a little, instrumentalizing her. That’s not to say you aren’t entitled to pursue this campaign of strenuous self-optimizing. Just be transparent about your box-checking ambitions. Perhaps some prospects will be grateful for your offer to put your privileges at their disposal while you embark on your journey of uplift. But — how to put this? — I suspect that most would rather be your honey bun than your grain bowl.

{snip}