To think I am NOT being racist if I say I am not attracted to a Pakistani person?

[funkypigeon]

I am newly-ish single after a long marriage to a man from the Middle East.
I had a conversation with a few friends today, over coffee we got talking about types of men that we are attracted to. I said Mediterranean, Middle Eastern. Then I said I am not usually attracted to Asian men, and my friend said that was being racist.

I am shocked tbh. Am I? I've got loads of Asian friends, and colleagues. Just because I don't fancy them doesn't mean I would ever be rude or treat them differently.

Opinions please!

I didn't say that world, I was agreeing with someone upthread who said it.

I still stand by it being true though.

Re:framing of language...always baffles me when I hear and read about most people from the UK referring to the European continent as Europe

And this is NOT about hair-splitting, How often have I wondered about this. Have asked so many friends in the UK, so if I'm European and over there in Europe, so what are you? Not in Europe, not part of the European continent?

Sometimes I joke and say, no you're from the continent called Empire and the UK (actually only England) being the capitol/headquarters [Disclaimer:light-hearted]

Stunt you might actually have a point there. My personal example might have been too specific

I'm attracted to everyone, me.

LittleSpork interesting post but a bit innacurate in places. I think if you take a trip to the northernmost reaches of Europe or even the Northern Isles in Britain, you might be surprised by how much Asian heritage there is around. The Saami didn't only marry other Saami. And the Saami aren't the only Northerly people in the west who have Asian heritage.

White people are one race because White elites invented race by skin colour as a social concept and social divider

You are wrong if you think white skinned people are all one race and European. Just as wrong in fact as you would be to state that all Asian people are dark skinned.

LittleSporks, can I just say it's been a positive and reassuring experience to read your posts. I have studied the legacy of colonialism at length during my doctorate and get progressively more unhappy at how casual 'Othering' slips unnoticed into discourse. IMO, to say you find a whole race unattractive (and specifying a particular racial group) IS racist. Whatever your 'type' may be. Because we should have learned now that, given everything that has happened in the past, it is wrong to continue speaking about race in this way, as a marker of difference. I might seem overly PC, but it's our duty to think about what the actual fuck we are saying, and how it might be read in all circumstances.

And not being attracted to women is not the same issue. At all. We're talking preferences built (if subconsciously) on social norms surrounding race and hierarchy. Not gender.

I've seen a couple of (not intended to be generalising, I know) descriptions of Somali men as lean and tall on this thread. You should meet my pal - born in Somalia, now lives in Glasgow, tall, yes, but chunky and broad. So there are no generalisations which always ring completely true.

I'm generally attracted to people from a similar cultural background, relationship-wise. So this means more than likely they will be British. Though I find furriners attractive I've never had a relationship with one.

LittleSpork I am sorry, they do not have to do any pushing as being White.
Look up U.S. racial/ethnic categories and also which other groups during the British Empire have been categorized as White...
Also, Biologists also categorize them as the Caucasian race...

Caucasian/White race has indeed several etnic groups and also phenotypes.

The white race is NOT in itself an ethnic group with the phenotype white/Light skin only.

And again, I do not operate myself with these race terms. But going to uni in the U.S. left me with no choice.

I tend to look for a big brother figure I think. Not in the George Orwell sense.

EstelleGetty And not being attracted to women is not the same issue. At all. We're talking preferences built (if subconsciously) on social norms surrounding race and hierarchy. Not gender

I think we are far more discussing preferences built on physical attractiveness.

Suggesting that women are racist because they wish to select a potential partner on the basis of physical attraction is horrifically sexist.

Estelle which is why I think it is okay what OP has stated and for it not being racist.
I myself only know very lean Somali men, not that I have seen so many, and if I would say to my friend while chatting about me, oh I've never found myself attracted to Somali men, cause they are usually too lean for me...why should that be an issue.

I like Scottish men a lot, doesn't mean I like whole of Scotland...and yes they are unique, and I like the twang they have in their voice, and their charme, and find them incredebliy sexy, just like that.

Can you imagine how many other women told me how unattractive they find the stocky type I like a lot. And not all are too crazy about the accent and the mannerism and attitudes either.

But maybe I'm missing something here. As maybe not liking Pakistani in the UK in particular could have a different underlying meaning. Not sure?

I actually find it quite disturbing that some people think I should be able to find certain physical attributes sexually attractive when I don't.

littlemog
Erm, I lived in Pakistan for many years and have a number of friends and family members from there. They call themselves, their food and their community 'Pakistani'. I will be sure to let them know that they and I are horribly racist.

Boris Becker appears to be attracted to a very narrow "type". Wouldnt say his apparent lack of interest in any other ethnicity makes him racist though.

Nobody is saying you should find certain anything attractive. They're disputing the illogical and ridiculous stance that out of the MILLIONS of, say, Pakistani men there is not ONE SINGLE MAN from the entire race that you would find in any way attractive.

And to declare otherwise is racist and silly.

Hahaha Boris Becker, do you know what this poor guy had to go through from the German press and germans in general cause he is generally not regarded as being attractive.
And the women he was with were seen as very hot...

And I still remember when he was with his first wife, Barbara, the first darker type.
Awful comments, as to why he couldn't be with a typical german girl, and why it had to be her etc.
She is half U.S. American and has a German mother.

Awful. But those attitudes have thankfully changed a lot. Not completely gone though.

I am well aware of the backgrounds of the Saami, as I do a lot of work in indigenous rights, being Metis myself as I have already said. The Asian heritage among many Northern indigenous groups across continents has very little to do with what I said. I simply said that the Saami are not considered racially White, but rather indigenous. They are the indigenous population of an area and have suffered the sterilization and stealing of lands and racist attacks on their lifestyle as many other indigenous nations have done.

I didn't say "White skinned" people are all one race or European. I said elite White European people invented race by skin colour as a social concept and divider - they used skin colour a marker, not a complete divider (hence why they invented the concept of Pure White Caucasians and others who even with White skin were considered impure, obviously from people with little knowledge of geography as most people from the Caucasus mountains do not have White skin, but they wanted to create a story of a separate creation outside of Africa which were superior). It's a basic part of history if one that is well ignored. Irish people, even those with White skin, were not considered White until a few decades ago. White skinned Arabs are not considered White nor are White skinned Latin@s. In many places, White skinned Jewish people are not considered White.

White people are made up of a wide range of ethnic groups - Celts, Nords, etc. But White people as a race is an invention only a few hundreds years old to gain and maintain power. They used a range of systems to make it seem normal and natural and enforced it through law. White people does not equal those with White skin, amazingly enough the system was created to be able to control who did and did not count - White people equals a power group that while only a minority of the world's population holds the vast majority of world's resources and representation and power.

I don't think its racist.
you can't help your preferences.

I wouldn't make a statement that I'm not attracted to a particular race of people because, quite frankly, you never know!
Conversely, I've only dated men who are white. I wouldn't then say Im only attracted to white men, because again you never know.

LittelSpork you are completely operating here with a very narrow certain U.S. American view of the world. Sorry.

sparechange what are you talking about? Your post makes no sense whatsoever. Did I at any point say that using the term Pakistani was wrong? I have no ideas at a what your point is.

I was repeating an excellent point up thread where it was pointed out that to use the term Pakistani to mean all Asian people (as the OP seems to have done) is racist. To me that is only a hop, skip and a jump to the term Paki. Is that not racist either?

I appreciate that I appear to be in the minority here but to me, categorising people in this way and speaking about people along the lines of racial divides is meaningless and ignorant especially if you are talking about attraction. Why say something so stupid? I am saddened by this thread.

OP, you are not racist. As a black woman with one white grandparent, I was never considered NOT black until this fetishisation of "mixed race" that has been happening over the last ten years in the U.K. Then the most racist thing that has happened to me, happened a few years ago. A white woman around my way ( who I know has mixed race children with a black father) touched my just washed, oiled and scraped back in a ponytail head and asked "what are you?". If i was not in so much shock, I know that I would have turned her over physically. Worser, still, this woman knows me through my darker hued cousins, knows my upbringing, knows the score. Obviously she thought that I must have been operating under some kind of duress (poor, not so dark black girl with all those darkies having to call herself "black"). I told her her fortune and told her that she needs to reel in her presumed negritude. I also warned her not to presume that I am some" tragic mulatto".

Now this is a white woman who has never been known to be with a white man. In terms of basic "multiculturalism" she would not be seen as a racist. She is. She put me in some "other" box that she felt entitled to do and she justified that assumption using her own caramel toned mixed race children ( whose to say one of them doesn't consider themselves "black"?) and her knowledge of "black culture" through the lovely black men who abandoned her and their offspring.
The best thing that you can do is assure yourself that you think before you speak (everybody is looking to catch out everybody. It's a post millennium past time, even I'm not immune to). You have no obligation to have a worldwide fanny that jumps for every race in creation. Those races will not die out without your "help". Just as you are not racist, sexing somebody of a race other than your own does not make you less racist or non racist. The most racist people that I know are black men who hold a fetish for white women because "black women are too hard. White women allow us to get away with more and are more feminine." If you ever find the pickings to be slim within the type of men that you like, avoid a man who apparently doesn't like women of his race. He won't "like" you either.

Suggesting that women are racist because they wish to select a potential partner on the basis of physical attraction is horrifically sexist.

LesMissAbs, that's not my point. My point was that we can't throw around questions of racial difference like they don't matter anymore because they do. What I mean is, if you say to a South Asian person "I don't find South Asians attractive," there is a very real (and justified) chance they will find that offensive. Because, in the simplest terms, you haven't met the whole population, have you? You're lumping all South Asian men into one category which is 'other' and 'different.'

And I'm not being sexist, because I would apply the same principle to heterosexual men, bisexual, homosexual or otherly-oriented persons. It's not about your preferences, it's about how you communicate, how you engage with the rest of the world. You have to be aware of how you come across and how much baggage is attached to such a statement.

Could anyone please tell me, if the Pakistani part in this, causes some people to feel uncomfortable???

I am so sure, and please correct me if I am wrong (I hope I'm wrong), if someone would chat with a friend or sits in a group and would say, well, I don't know why, but I usually am never attracted to Germans...

I cannot imagine that many people in the UK would think of this as being daft, racist, or anything along those lines.

Or am I wrong?