Interracial Dating & Track

2/3/2009

This weekend, I was reading Beverly Tatum's book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the cafeteria?" I was at a track meet, and a topic that she touched on was interracial dating. She gives an example of a Black girl who lived in a predominantly White neighborhood who complained about not being able to date (and also never had dates to any dances) because there were no other Black boys available to date. This got me thinking about interracial dating and how "taboo" it seems to be in our society. I asked a couple of my teammates if they had ever dated (or hooked up with) someone who wasn't in their racial group. Everyone I talked to said, "no, I haven't." One of the girls even told me a story about a different (White) girl who dated a (Black) guy on the track team last year. This relationship wasn't something that was publicized, but the people that she knew were very skeptical about the situation, telling her that she could do better, or just wondering why she would even consider dating a Black guy.

This was interesting to me, because out of everyone I had talked to I was the only one who had dated or "hooked up with" someone outside of my race. But, then as I was disclosing this information, I said, "Well one guy is half-Asian, and the other guy is Middle Eastern, but he acts like he's White." I stopped, and realized what I had just done. I had just justified these two guys by explaining that they were more "White" than someone else in their racial category.

I wanted to create a survey to give out - to find out what the percentage of my peers have dated someone outside of their race. I also wanted to find out how they were treated, or even how their friends / family / peers reacted to that situation. I don't know if this is valid or not, but just an idea.

Which reminded me. I have a friend at home who was "kind of seeing" this guy at school who was half-Asian. But, her friends at school and at home "jokingly" harassed her about it, and so now this relationship has completely fallen apart. I'm not sure if it was due to the reactions she was getting from this, or if it just wasn't meant to be. But I'm sure how her peers and friends reacted to the relationship had some effect on how it turned out. She actually told me not to date someone who wasn't White because I would probably regret it, like she did. Interesting, because I don't regret dating anyone who I have ever dated.

Anyway. I was also thinking about what we talked about at the end of class today. The Eberhardt & Fiske book talked about Aversive Racism and how to strike back against it. A solution that was offered was to increase a common ingroup affiliation that unites people of different colors. A common cause of Aversive Racism is an in-group bias, where people think that their group is better than the other group, not that the other group is worse. I think that this could actually work. The difficulty in this would be actually creating the group that is appealing to both students of color and White students. So many organizations that are aimed at integrating people of all cultures fail miserably because often White students don't feel that they belong, or have no desire to belong due to their already privileged position in society. I have found this to be true in my own personal experiences. It wasn't until college that I became friends with people outside of my race, and I think it was because we were part of a common in-group. For example, Freshman year, I had friends of different races that were people on my dorm floor. When I came to Wesleyan, I became friends with people outside of my race because they were on my cross country or track team.

A side note about track:

Although the track team is one big, giant team, it's really segregated between events. There's the distance people (those that do cross country in the fall), the sprinters (separated between short sprinters and the long sprinters), the jumpers, the pole-vaulters, and the throwers.

Of course, these team divisions don't go without racial divisions. It's hard to find a Black person on the distance squad (although, we have one, which I'll talk about shortly), and we joke around that Black people supposedly have the "X Factor": they're fast sprinters.

Now, this Black guy on the distance squad is a Freshman. Last spring, and this summer, before school started, people were contemplating whether he would be friends with "us" or the "Black track kids." It was a legitimate question. It was something we all wondered. There were only two people of color (both of Middle Eastern descent) on the distance squad, and this new Freshmen class would "greatly increase our racial diversity" (there were two other Freshmen people of color - both of Asian descent).

Anyway, what ended up happening, is he IS in fact friends with "us," and he's one of the most popular kids on the team. I remember one of the readings from last week talking about how Black kids in predominantly White schools can either be rejected or very popular due to the "Athlete Factor." (This actually happened in my high school - there was a new Black student our Junior year and he was REALLY good at football, and he immediately rose in popularity because of the "Athlete Factor.") Anyway, I don't think the "Athlete Factor" is really what's going on in this situation because we're all athletes. I think part of it is that he's a really funny guy, and the other part: it's not all that common to see a Black guy running distance.

Back to what I was saying... Anyway, I think my involvement with IWU track has changed the way that I perceive people of other races. Despite team segregation, I see my sprinter, jumper, and thrower teammates as just that - my teammates. I think my coach does a very good job of trying to keep everyone connected and feeling like a team despite our different events. This includes people of other races. When I participated in track and field in high school, the team was VERY, VERY segregated and I hardly saw anyone who wasn't "distance" as a teammate. I can now honestly say that I believe I have more of a "track in-group bias" (which includes people of color as well as White people) than a "white in-group bias." So, I guess what I'm saying is this particular experience is what makes me believe that if a multiracial group is developed that all people will consider the "in-group," then we will have a means to stop racism and social segregation.

Very long post. Thanks for bearing with me.