On Queer Men of Color and Racial Preferences: PoC + White Couples Aren’t Inherently Progressive

This has been something that’s been on my mind for a few years now. And while this tweet is talking about all interracial relationships-regardless of whether it’s PoC + PoC or white + PoC couples-I’d like to focus on the idea that white + PoC interracial relationships are inherently, and sometimes seen as more, progressive.

In most shows and movies where there is an interracial relationship, it’s usually a white + PoC couple (some examples of shows and movies are: How to Get Away With Murder, House of Lies, Shameless, Quantico, Glee, Pose, Preacher, Andi Mac, A Wrinkle in Time (2018), Made In America, 2 Days in New York, and Save the Last Dance). And, for the most part, it’s usually black and white couples.

In a sense, it’s understandable why that’s where the chips fell. The history of race and racism has a lot of ties to the tensions between white and black people. Obviously, we know that race is much more complicated than that. And we know that that’s not the only form of interracial relationships around; however, white + PoC couples still dominate media representation.

Why?

Partly because white people and PoC — sometimes specifically black people — dating is purported to be what’ll bridge the divide because “love is love,” and “love wins.”

And partly, and probably mostly, because it doesn’t de-center whiteness at all. Whiteness can still be desireable. Whiteness doesn’t have to give up any power. And PoC will be seen as gaining something by having close proximity to whiteness.

All of this, unfortunately, ignores the very real ways PoC have to deal with racism by being in a relationship with white people. And this isn’t to say that white people aren’t antagonized by dating PoC-there are countless stories and videos of white people being called race traitors by white people, and have their PoC partners taunted for dating a white person. Taking that all into account, however, doesn’t amount to the ways PoC have to deal with and endure racism-especially, “somehow,” from well-meaning white people who “just don’t know any better” because of white flight and white privilege (better known as white people insulating themselves with whiteness to the point where they don’t have to interact with PoC unless they absolutely must (see also: most communities of white people), and how it grants them the ignorance and innocence of “not knowing” about racism).

There’s also the fact that PoC are repeatedly doused with the idea that whiteness and Eurocentric features are inherently better than theirs, which pushes a lot of PoC to only seek out white partners, or light-skinned partners, especially in hopes of making their children lighter skinned. It’s an unfortunate result of racism and white supremacy and, in a twisted way, a defense mechanism for their children to never have to believe they’re ugly because they’re a PoC and/or dark-skinned.

There’s also PoC who, because of their need to attach themselves so heavily to whiteness in any form, will sabotage their relationship with other PoC. It’s an unfortunate, and oft overlooked, aspect of how insidious white supremacy is within PoC.

And none of this is to suggest that interracial PoC couples don’t have to deal with racism from their own friends and family. I know so many people who’ve said racist shit about Latinx and Asian people and why they wouldn’t date them, and I know far too many people who’ve said their families would go so far as to disown them if they dated a black person. These, however, are things that don’t have the same kind of social capital that PoC + white couples are given because how society purports the idea that if a white person learns to love a person of color, life as we know it will change for the better.

We’d all like to believe, willingly or not, that interracial couples, specifically white + PoC couples, are this panacea for racism, and that’s wilfully ignorant optimism at best. Love isn’t an eradicating aerosol for racism, unfortunately. And we have to stop treating it as such. And this isn’t to say that love can’t break down barriers- Loving, anyone? — but treating love as the breaker of racist barriers is misguided and harmful.

Originally published at https://medium.com on May 12, 2020.