Bejeezus I get what you're saying, I really do - and I am the first to consider racism as the motive when it comes to these things. But along with a whole bunch of other things my husband has taught me about the subtleties of racism, he's also taught me when it's not there...that it doesn't have to be everywhere.
Is there not room for when it is as simply as innocuous as an unconscious preference, much like my preference for black/mixed race men?
I'll always remember, moving down to London from a small Northern town at the age of 18, working in a shop, and getting into a conversation with the much older ladies there about relationships. One of them said - black men only go out with white women to get back at the white male slave patriarchy. I remember being completely shocked to my very core about the concept of this - couldn't relationships just be - two people fancying each other?
About six months later, my first boyfriend was black, and I asked him about this. He shrugged, said maybe but it was kind of weird and he couldn't imagine it and it freaked him out. He said he fancied me because I had a big bum. Very shallow, very much based in physical attraction, but the normality of it against the shock of those ladies made everything wonderful.
My husband - mixed race, also covets my big bum, and when I asked him why he seemed to have a preference for white women (the majority of his girlfriends had been white), he said he never really thought about it, he was attracted to the person. No sinister reason. Now - he doesn't have some deep rooted self-loathing induced hatred of black women. He is immensely proud of his black heritage, is immensely opinionated, very intelligent, very self-aware and very proud of his roots. Is he racist for having a physical preference for short white women with big bums?
I can't figure any of this out - I just have, over the years, leaned towards black men. It's not a conscious thing - it's not that I set out to only date black men. There's a billion other things to take into consideration like a really massive one like personality! It's not a blanket attraction...I don't go weak at the knees with every black man I encounter. But like everyone, I've met people who caught my eye, they had that certain je ne sais quoi, they've made me laugh, and on the whole, they've happened to be black.