Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes.
Speaker 1: This is the podcast that goes deeper into segments and
Speaker 1: topics that already aired on the Daily Show. This is
Speaker 1: what you think need to think of this podcasts all right,
Speaker 1: So Beyond the Scenes is like when you were a
Speaker 1: kid and you went to the movie theaters, right, you know,
Speaker 1: we all snuck in the movie, and then you sneak
Speaker 1: in one movie, and then after your first movie, you
Speaker 1: sneak into another movie for a bonus double feature. So
Speaker 1: now you get to watch and Sino Man and Sister
Speaker 1: act all in one day while eating snacks you brought
Speaker 1: from home because you only had enough money for one
Speaker 1: movie ticket. So yeah, that's what this podcast is like.
Speaker 1: I'm Roy Wood Junior. Today we are talking about a
Speaker 1: piece that aired originally in twenty sixteen about online dating
Speaker 1: and sexual racism and when dating preferences became a form
Speaker 1: of discrimination.
Speaker 2: Roll the clip, People of color, A law of our
Speaker 2: problems stem from racism, and.
Speaker 3: Now minorities that are having trouble getting laid are blaming
Speaker 3: their lack of game on something called sexual racism.
Speaker 2: Sexism.
Speaker 3: We sat down with very sexy cry baby Zach Stafford,
Speaker 3: who says that most people trying to smash on online
Speaker 3: dating platforms are sexually racist.
Speaker 4: When someone says something like, you know, I don't date
Speaker 4: black people. I'm talking about all black people, that would
Speaker 4: be referred to as sexual racism.
Speaker 2: How is not dating someone because of a skin color
Speaker 2: any different to not want to date someone because they're
Speaker 2: not attracted to them.
Speaker 4: Not wanting to date someone because of skin color. That's
Speaker 4: kind of the definition of racism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but all dating is discrimination, That's what it is.
Speaker 3: Like this guy's too douchey, this dude's too sure.
Speaker 2: This woman won't pee on me. I mean what I mean,
Speaker 2: she wouldn't pee by in the you.
Speaker 1: Said p on me.
Speaker 5: It's called water sports.
Speaker 2: So sure looking for.
Speaker 3: A term, Yeah, you know that, Yeah, I know, you
Speaker 3: know that.
Speaker 4: All we're talking about is the fact that but we
Speaker 4: do think about race when we're thinking about desire, and
Speaker 4: sometimes it can be detrimental to people.
Speaker 1: Today, I'm joined by Daily Show correspondent and huge NBA
Speaker 1: basketball fan and star of music and movies and films,
Speaker 1: Ronnie Chang. How you doing. I miss you friend.
Speaker 2: Hey, good to see you.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: You can come back to the office.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe I don't know to come back.
Speaker 2: In, and if you actually miss me, you would come
Speaker 2: back in.
Speaker 1: But then, you know what, it's just good to see
Speaker 1: your virtually friend. We're also joined by the author of
Speaker 1: the book The Dating Divide, Race and Desire in the
Speaker 1: Era of Online Romance, Jennifer Lumquis. How are you doing today?
Speaker 6: Hi there, I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, and I apologize in advance of
Speaker 1: running and I get to arguing. Just know that that's
Speaker 1: what we do with each other. It's all in love.
Speaker 1: And lastly, we're joined by certified dating coach Domana Hoffman. Demana,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Royn.
Speaker 1: Now Ronnie as I called, this was a piece that
Speaker 1: you did with Jessica Williams, and you know, we started
Speaker 1: talking about the preferences with regards to black women and
Speaker 1: Asian people on the dating apps. Walk us through this
Speaker 1: segment and where the idea to talk about sexual racism
Speaker 1: came from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember where the pitch came from, but I
Speaker 2: think it was sparked by this article talking about the
Speaker 2: two least desired racist on a dating app. So the
Speaker 2: stats were what sparked the conversation because it wasn't a feeling,
Speaker 2: it was like some hot data. And as you know, Roy,
Speaker 2: it's very rare to actually do a doubleheader with two
Speaker 2: correspondents and one piece, so very rare, right, And we had, luckily,
Speaker 2: thanks to diverse hiring policies, we had an African American
Speaker 2: woman correspondent and we had an Asian man correspondent, which
Speaker 2: were the two least desired demographics on the dating app.
Speaker 2: So we were like, this is perfect, let's go talk
Speaker 2: about it. It fit like legos, so we just went
Speaker 2: to go do to peace. We needed to talk to
Speaker 2: someone with inside of information about how online datos behave.
Speaker 3: Like Christian Rudder, he co founded okay Cupid and wrote
Speaker 3: a whole book about dating statistics.
Speaker 7: We looked at who people messaged, who they matched with,
Speaker 7: who they responded to.
Speaker 3: So you're like Edward Snowden, but for trying to put
Speaker 3: pens in the genes sort of.
Speaker 7: Yes, there is kind of a systemic racial bias pretty
Speaker 7: much on every dating site I've ever looked at. Really Yeah,
Speaker 7: For instance, we found that that eighty two percent of
Speaker 7: non black men have some bias against black women, and
Speaker 7: Asian men get the fewest messages and the worst ratings
Speaker 7: of any group of guys.
Speaker 1: When you came to America. What did it feel like
Speaker 1: to find out that you were amongst the least desired
Speaker 1: groups when it comes to dating. Now you're a married man,
Speaker 1: let's add that for context. How did it feel running?
Speaker 1: How did it feel? No, least desired?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, relax on a First of all, that was
Speaker 2: news to me. Obviously in Asia, Asian men on the
Speaker 2: least designed demographic. I think, although I have no I
Speaker 2: have no stats to back that up, so maybe someone
Speaker 2: should do a data study in Asia on that. But
Speaker 2: I guess I can be vulnerable and admit it was like,
Speaker 2: oh what it felt bad? And I was curious why.
Speaker 2: I also something instinctively. Also, I wasn't that surprised just
Speaker 2: the way Asian men I kind of portrayed in media.
Speaker 2: I kind of uh suspected as much. But uh. But again,
Speaker 2: it was nice to have like hot data instead of
Speaker 2: just going off, you know, being a sensitive vibe and
Speaker 2: having the hot data and being like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the data kind of proves it. So what was it
Speaker 2: To answer your question? It didn't feel good?
Speaker 1: What was more shocking finding out about Asian men or
Speaker 1: Black women in terms of I mean, I'm even more surprised.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm we're having an honest conversation here, So if
Speaker 2: I get in trouble for this, sure, But honestly, I
Speaker 2: was surprised that black women were on the list with
Speaker 2: us because because yes, yeah, again for me, as a
Speaker 2: complete ignorant person, I'm not a sociologist or anything. I
Speaker 2: tie a lot of this what we're talking about right now,
Speaker 2: the dating preferences to pop culture and storytelling, because that's
Speaker 2: my industry, is telling stories and movies and TV shows
Speaker 2: and so on. So for me, like black women always portrayed,
Speaker 2: I mean, better than Asian men in my opinion. There's
Speaker 2: certain heroes in American pop culture like Beyonce.
Speaker 1: Even going back to Pam Greer and the Foxy Brown era.
Speaker 2: Right, So so because of that, I'm not saying I'm right,
Speaker 2: but I'm just saying because of that, I was surprised
Speaker 2: to learn that black women were on the on the
Speaker 2: same tier as I.
Speaker 1: Have you have you ever used a dating app?
Speaker 8: I have.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I'll speak freely. I've lived a life.
Speaker 2: Have you No? I got I got attached before the
Speaker 2: dating app boom, So I skipped that whole thing, that
Speaker 2: whole era school. So I had to join dating apps
Speaker 2: for this segment, you know. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. You've met your wife the old fashioned way
Speaker 1: through the personal ads in the newspaper. I respect that bro.
Speaker 2: I met her old school, the old school a meeting
Speaker 2: her in at university. You get more school than that.
Speaker 1: College costs too much to meet a wife.
Speaker 2: Now you can't.
Speaker 1: So Ronnie, did you download all the dating apps?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I joined the dating apps for the first time
Speaker 2: in my life with my then fiance's permission. I also
Speaker 2: went to join the Rayah, which was like the super
Speaker 2: exclusive one for.
Speaker 1: Hot such a celebrity, and I couldn't get in.
Speaker 2: I couldn't get in. I got all, I got all
Speaker 2: the famous people I knew to like recommend me, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't get in there. So I mean, that's some
Speaker 2: bias right there. If there was ever a proof of
Speaker 2: racial bias, the fact that I couldn't get in this
Speaker 2: even though I had I think I.
Speaker 1: Got social capital.
Speaker 2: I don't want to blow up anyone spot by saying
Speaker 2: who recommended me? But I got some heavy hitters to
Speaker 2: recommend me for Riyah. I couldn't get in, but every
Speaker 2: I joined Grinder, Tinder, Bumble, everything, and just to see
Speaker 2: what would happened.
Speaker 5: Wait, what Grinder?
Speaker 1: What was going on with gay Man too?
Speaker 2: Let's see what thorough reporter over there? That's good. I
Speaker 2: put my Daily Show headshot in it. So I think
Speaker 2: that biased a lot of things, because then we started
Speaker 2: getting a lot of you know, are you the guy
Speaker 2: from the Daily Show. At the end of this segment,
Speaker 2: we actually had a phone number. It's one of the
Speaker 2: one times when we were experimenting with expanded field pizzas
Speaker 2: that exist beyond just a piece, and so we had
Speaker 2: a phone number for people call in to tell us
Speaker 2: their stories about racial bias. And we got a ton
Speaker 2: of phone calls, which was really interesting, and I think
Speaker 2: we recorded it. I don't know where that ever went.
Speaker 2: We never did anything with it, but we had a
Speaker 2: bunch of people call in, and some people called in
Speaker 2: from jail, some people called in from I mean, it
Speaker 2: was if that was all TV show on its own, Yeah,
Speaker 2: tell us about racial bias. But yeah, dating apps are crazy.
Speaker 1: I think the only dat nap I ever did seriously
Speaker 1: was e Harmony back when that was the one back
Speaker 1: in the day getting your forty point personality profile, and
Speaker 1: basically it was like fifty essay questions you have to answer, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then if you like someone's picture, you could see
Speaker 1: three of their questions, and then if they liked three
Speaker 1: of your questions, you could see five more of their questions.
Speaker 2: And like basically even the Internet was old school back then,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: But what it actually it created a different environment, I
Speaker 5: would say on dating apps because the barrier for entry
Speaker 5: was so high, like you had to have serious intent
Speaker 5: if you were going to fill out the fifty point questions,
Speaker 5: and it really took hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, college application.
Speaker 5: We've seen a huge change in the number people using
Speaker 5: dating apps just really since I mean, okaycub it has
Speaker 5: been has been around since two thousand and four, but
Speaker 5: ever since Tinder launched in twenty twelve. That really changed
Speaker 5: the game because it made the barrier for entry so low.
Speaker 5: It was free to join. You could just upload a
Speaker 5: couple of pictures from your Facebook profile or whatever, and
Speaker 5: you were on. And so the variance in the variety
Speaker 5: in the kind of messages you would get and who
Speaker 5: you would meet expanded, the speed of dating expanded, and
Speaker 5: so that's that's when it got crazy.
Speaker 2: And the stigma stigma.
Speaker 5: Stigma decreased, certainly.
Speaker 1: Jennifer, Let's start with the base level, define sexual racism
Speaker 1: for everyone, and how do dating apps exacerbate this issue?
Speaker 8: In our book we talk about digital sexual racism. There
Speaker 8: is this normalized racial preference that people think of as
Speaker 8: very individual level preferences. Dating apps and the online digital
Speaker 8: dating market are one of the only spheres left in
Speaker 8: modern day US society where it is perfectly acceptable to
Speaker 8: articulate you know what your preference is, how you might
Speaker 8: want to how you might you want to limit your
Speaker 8: searches based on race. So in education, employment, housing, many
Speaker 8: other spheres, we know that these are this is legally
Speaker 8: wrong and morally wrong, but in dating markets it's become acceptable.
Speaker 1: Where does race fit into the pre assumed cultural compatibilities
Speaker 1: because I would assume a lot of us gravitate towards
Speaker 1: the particular race, because we believe particular cultural software is
Speaker 1: already pre installed if you will, with certain people. Where
Speaker 1: does that line stop and discrimination begin?
Speaker 2: Or is it all?
Speaker 1: Or is it all because we may have always stopped
Speaker 1: Oh no, yes, I'm just sitting to black people. I'm
Speaker 1: only into that. But has that always been a form
Speaker 1: of discriminatory behavior When you think.
Speaker 8: About always the history in the United States, we had
Speaker 8: very rigidly enforced anti missogonation laws which kept people from
Speaker 8: different races from intermixing with one another. So it's very
Speaker 8: difficult to tell what sort of the natural inclinations it
Speaker 8: would be because so much of our history was about
Speaker 8: keeping the races, as particularly whites.
Speaker 6: From mixing with other races.
Speaker 8: So that was really one of the questions that animated
Speaker 8: our research, which was we know that, for example, interracial
Speaker 8: dating interracial marriage rates are much lower than if you
Speaker 8: were to randomly, you know, assort the population and with
Speaker 8: one another. And so the question has always been among
Speaker 8: social scientists, is this because we live in such a
Speaker 8: segregated society still today, that we just don't come into
Speaker 8: interaction with one another to you know, become friends and
Speaker 8: eventually start dating one another.
Speaker 6: And how much of this is about preference?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 8: And so that's why digital dating markets are so such
Speaker 8: a fascinating space because you know, in theory, there is
Speaker 8: no racial segregation in digital dating markets. And you know,
Speaker 8: in our case, we had millions and millions of online
Speaker 8: dating interactions that we analyzed, and we also interviewed seventy
Speaker 8: eight daters, and we're able to see not just what
Speaker 8: they said, but what they do in the online space.
Speaker 8: And there are a lot of preferences that define how
Speaker 8: people interact with one another, so you know, they essentially
Speaker 8: bring segregation with them.
Speaker 1: Do the apps? How do the apps have to perpetuate it?
Speaker 1: Because I guess I'm if I'm clicking. Well, let me
Speaker 1: use Instagram as an example. Not necessarily a dating app,
Speaker 1: but it can be if you're courageous enough to jump
Speaker 1: in those dms. It's an app where you can accidentally
Speaker 1: click on a picture of a particular thing, and then
Speaker 1: for the next four weeks, Instagram just shows you more
Speaker 1: pictures of that particular thing. Even if it was an
Speaker 1: accident that you clicked on a woman in a bikinian,
Speaker 1: you really love your girl and you wanted to note
Speaker 1: that in its natural fault. All of this, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: How did the apps help to perpetuate the issue?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: So, in addition to particularly the larger dating companies that
Speaker 8: allow people to search by race, et cetera, there's also
Speaker 8: the algorithms, like what you're talking about, and algorithms are
Speaker 8: really black boxes in terms of we don't know what's
Speaker 8: inside of them. It's information that dating companies hold close
Speaker 8: to their chest. Algorithms can both be actually have race
Speaker 8: in the algorithm, or it can be machine learning, which
Speaker 8: is what are what is the average user interested in?
Speaker 8: Or who have you looked at specifically, and then that's
Speaker 8: all you see.
Speaker 6: From there on out.
Speaker 8: And then what I'll say another aspect of digital sexual
Speaker 8: racism is that you have a setting where what's known
Speaker 8: as online disinhibition effect, where you have people who interact
Speaker 8: with each other online tend to be much more, say,
Speaker 8: rude or honest than they would be in a face
Speaker 8: to face environment. And so you have these desegregated spaces.
Speaker 8: But then you also have situations where people are being
Speaker 8: exposed to misogyny and definitely racial misogyny in many cases.
Speaker 8: And so it's not that it didn't exist before, but
Speaker 8: it's so visible, right that I think that that can
Speaker 8: be just really shocking for especially women in general, but
Speaker 8: especially you know, Asian and black and Latino women on
Speaker 8: these sites, and you know the fact that it's like
Speaker 8: such an assembly line, right, dating can really feel once
Speaker 8: you've seen you start to lose your facial recognition ability
Speaker 8: as you're swiping and swiping, and so I think it's
Speaker 8: very easy to dehumanize others. So you have all of
Speaker 8: these factors that interact with each other with fast moving
Speaker 8: technologies that have not only reiffy and make more visible
Speaker 8: sexual racism, but also I think are manifesting in new ways.
Speaker 1: So Demona, you're OKQP It's official dating Coach. Now, this
Speaker 1: segment is about six years old. What can you update
Speaker 1: USNG with regardless to the stats and trends that you're
Speaker 1: seeing amongst online datas is it still Asian and Black
Speaker 1: women at the back of the pack or have the
Speaker 1: numbers increased? Is there a little more equality? Did the
Speaker 1: Black Instagram squares work? Demona?
Speaker 5: I'm not going to comment on the Black Instagram squares,
Speaker 5: but what I could say.
Speaker 1: It came together, Demonia.
Speaker 5: It's time, Kumaya, we're all on this together. And you know,
Speaker 5: especially within the pandemic, we've seen that there's been an
Speaker 5: increase in online dating overall, and that actually was a
Speaker 5: tool that helped people stay connected at a time when
Speaker 5: you weren't even going to class in college in person,
Speaker 5: so your options for meeting someone were really limited. But
Speaker 5: as someone who met my own person, I met my
Speaker 5: husband online way before it was cool roy back in
Speaker 5: probably Ronnie was meeting his wife in college. I was
Speaker 5: an early adopter of online dating, and as a black woman,
Speaker 5: I can say I was not surprised by the stats
Speaker 5: that came out in Christian Rutter's book and Dataclysm. But
Speaker 5: what I will say is that those stats you reported
Speaker 5: on it in twenty sixteen, but the data is now
Speaker 5: over ten years old. So there has been a huge
Speaker 5: cultural shift overall. And I've always seen dating apps not
Speaker 5: as the problem. We want to put all of our
Speaker 5: frustration with dating culture, with the pandemic with race, with
Speaker 5: everything on the dating app. But the dating app is
Speaker 5: really just the tool. And as someone who is in
Speaker 5: an interracial marriage with someone that I met on a
Speaker 5: dating app, I know that it is a tool that
Speaker 5: actually can bridge worlds when used in that way. But
Speaker 5: it is an amplifier, and so whatever beliefs that you
Speaker 5: come into dating apps with, those are going to be
Speaker 5: amplified because it's have it your way. You can manipulate
Speaker 5: the app, you can't impact the algorithms. I can't give
Speaker 5: you all the secret sauce, but I can tell you.
Speaker 5: Just like you said, clicking on certain people will populate
Speaker 5: the app with more people who look like that. But
Speaker 5: this is a place where people show up with their biases,
Speaker 5: with their preferences, And this is something that in my
Speaker 5: own practice as a dating coach, I've been unpacking. I
Speaker 5: wrote an article for the Washington Post on racism and
Speaker 5: dating because I feel that for too long we have
Speaker 5: allowed people to hide behind their dating preference and we
Speaker 5: have not encouraged them to examine where those preferences come from.
Speaker 5: This is a problem in America and it's really time
Speaker 5: that we pulled back the curtain and examine that.
Speaker 1: Let's go to a break. We'll be right back. We're
Speaker 1: more beyond the scenes. For why do you think people
Speaker 1: are so hesitant to have a conversation around this? Because
Speaker 1: does this sex and dating and romance aspect of this
Speaker 1: make it a factor, Because if you go off a
Speaker 1: cliff into pornography, it's no. No. But I'm serious, Ronnie.
Speaker 1: See Ronnie, so you're trying to make me look bad.
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm doing it because I remember your piece
Speaker 2: you did on the racism.
Speaker 1: Racism and porn Yes, where people didn't even want to
Speaker 1: like No, no, I not want to date black. So
Speaker 1: you knew where we were going. See, that's why we're friends.
Speaker 1: You're and my friend again running that's nice, safe, But
Speaker 1: this idea that it's so taboo because even in pornography,
Speaker 1: there is racism when it comes to the preference of
Speaker 1: the type of porn that some people want to see,
Speaker 1: so much so that porn stars won't do scenes, won't
Speaker 1: do interracial scenes for fear that it hurts their money.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is obviously happening. But why are
Speaker 1: people hesitant to have the conversation around the racism factor
Speaker 1: when it comes to dating.
Speaker 8: People are very very defensive about being called out for
Speaker 8: their sexual preferences, have anything having anything to do with
Speaker 8: racial preference. I think a lot of this has to
Speaker 8: do with the fact that we as Americans were very
Speaker 8: individually oriented, and we think of our personal preferences as
Speaker 8: somehow separate from the public sphere, and that the personal
Speaker 8: is not political, and yet the personal is political. Is
Speaker 8: essentially what Demana was arguing in that and what we
Speaker 8: argue in our book. Racial preferences continue to maintain the
Speaker 8: status quo and discrimination. For example, you know, when our
Speaker 8: book came out. I remember, I don't know if you're
Speaker 8: familiar with Campus Reform, it's a kind of a right
Speaker 8: wing student newspaper that's funded by a lot of it's
Speaker 8: funded by a lot of right wing organizations. And when
Speaker 8: they had a little piece on our book which was
Speaker 8: came out on Valentine's Day and said Happy Valentine's you're
Speaker 8: a racist. You know, that's how they summarize what our
Speaker 8: book said. But essentially, we're not arguing that individuals are
Speaker 8: racist for having a sexual preference. What we are arguing
Speaker 8: is that we live in a racist society. We live
Speaker 8: in a white supremacy, and so we are fooling ourselves
Speaker 8: to think that just as race as a social construction,
Speaker 8: that our racial preferences are not also socially constructed and
Speaker 8: are essentially imprints from centuries of racial marginalization. We live
Speaker 8: in a racial hierarchy, and we still do. Daters, I
Speaker 8: think it's just very aware for them to have awareness
Speaker 8: about this, to think about it, to ask themselves, why
Speaker 8: why do I have a racial preference? Often the white
Speaker 8: daters we interviewed were hesitant to admit racial preferences, although
Speaker 8: it would often come out later. These are two hour interviews,
Speaker 8: So there are lots of ways of getting at different.
Speaker 6: Kinds of questions.
Speaker 8: But we would hear things like I did date a
Speaker 8: Latino once, but you know, I found that he was
Speaker 8: really a machismo, and so now I don't date Latinos
Speaker 8: at all.
Speaker 6: Right, so.
Speaker 8: The one individual suddenly defines the entire race, right, And
Speaker 8: so that was kind of something common that we would hear.
Speaker 8: Or someone would say, oh, you know, I a white person,
Speaker 8: I've never dated, you know, a black woman before, but
Speaker 8: you know I would totally date with Beyonce, or a
Speaker 8: woman might say I would totally.
Speaker 6: Date that like K pop dude. So there's an exceptionalism
Speaker 6: that play there for sure.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's also about we get we learn relationally,
Speaker 5: I believe, and so through these relationships that we have
Speaker 5: and through interactions that we have with people of different backgrounds,
Speaker 5: we start to form different opinions. So you know, someone
Speaker 5: might say, well, you know, I don't deal with black people,
Speaker 5: or like, you know, they have certain beliefs about black people,
Speaker 5: but they're like, oh, but my neighbor Gary across the street,
Speaker 5: Well he's cool, Well he's fine, Well Beyonce, because you know,
Speaker 5: I listen to our music, and I see, you know,
Speaker 5: I've watch Lemonade album. You know whatever. Now I have
Speaker 5: a different association with her. And so, you know what
Speaker 5: I was arguing in the Washington Post piece, which was
Speaker 5: very controversial, I did get I got a lot of
Speaker 5: hate mail, but I got a few people who said,
Speaker 5: thank you for just opening my eyes to the fact
Speaker 5: that I have power in how in what happens with
Speaker 5: culture as a whole, and I can personally choose to
Speaker 5: look at this differently and to look at the opportunity
Speaker 5: in forming a relationship with someone of a different background
Speaker 5: or even just exploring. Just having the conversation is what
Speaker 5: gets us there. But I think what the dissonance that's
Speaker 5: coming up is that people overall want to believe, well,
Speaker 5: I'm not racist. There was a Gallup poll that looked
Speaker 5: at approval of interracial marriages, and the most recent poll
Speaker 5: said ninety four percent approve of interracial marriage between black
Speaker 5: and white. This is a huge difference from like, prior
Speaker 5: to nineteen fifty eight when they first did this, did
Speaker 5: the study only four percent? Yeah, but you know, it
Speaker 5: really wasn't that long ago. Just four percent of people
Speaker 5: said that they approved of black and white marriage. So
Speaker 5: we approve of it, but not necessarily for me. And
Speaker 5: so as communities open up and tools like online dating
Speaker 5: and social media allow us to have access to other cultures,
Speaker 5: other people who are different than us, we are learning,
Speaker 5: and we're learning actually pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: The other thing about this piece that was interesting was
Speaker 2: that it was like me and Jessica formed, like this
Speaker 2: union between two demographics that don't speak out for each
Speaker 2: other enough, which is Asian men and black women. Like,
Speaker 2: we didn't really have a chance to have each other's backs,
Speaker 2: so to speak, in many issues, but this is one
Speaker 2: thing where we're like, now, screw this, and then we
Speaker 2: went to go we went to go fight people about it.
Speaker 2: I always think of Royd did another piece on Surprise
Speaker 2: Surprise racism. You did this early piece of Jordan Klepper
Speaker 2: about I remember what the least bias pleaset bias. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And one of the things I goll away from that
Speaker 2: that always stuck with me was this idea that when
Speaker 2: you accuse people of being racist, it really shuts down
Speaker 2: the conversation because people get defensive about it. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: there are right, but if you just say, hey, you
Speaker 2: might be racially biased, it kind of gives people a
Speaker 2: chance to talk about it, which ultimately is what we're
Speaker 2: doing right here, because you can't force people to date
Speaker 2: people they don't want to date. It's not at end
Speaker 2: of the day. It's something they have to decide inside.
Speaker 2: So if you're trying to change people's minds, if you're
Speaker 2: trying to extend an olive branch, you know, the only
Speaker 2: way to do it is to meet them in a
Speaker 2: place where they're not being accused of, you know, being
Speaker 2: awful people. The other aspect of this is that as
Speaker 2: an Asian man, for me to come out, you know,
Speaker 2: I love doing a daily show in these segments because
Speaker 2: we get to make fun of it and talk about
Speaker 2: serious issues. But for me to come out and be like,
Speaker 2: no one, no one's dating me. This is disgusting. You
Speaker 2: guys are because you guys aren't dating me, you guys
Speaker 2: should date me. Like. Not only is that weird, it's
Speaker 2: also off putting and counterproductive in my opinion, to the
Speaker 2: ultimate goal of trying to get people date you. So
Speaker 2: that's all you're in this weird cnstory too. Wait complaining
Speaker 2: about it as I can't speak to black women, but
Speaker 2: I expect to have the same experience as an Asian guy,
Speaker 2: Complaining about it is counterproductive, so you can't even have
Speaker 2: a conversation. You just have to like deal with it.
Speaker 2: And you know, and you know, the numbers kind of
Speaker 2: confirm what I see in Western society a lot, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of Asian A lot of Asian people in
Speaker 2: America are immigrants, not all of them, obviously, we've got
Speaker 2: eight generations the third generation Asian people. But the immigrant
Speaker 2: people who come you can see, like, you know, the
Speaker 2: Asian daughters in the family all have like white husbands,
Speaker 2: and the Asian men will have like Asian wives, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's totally fine. You see a trend coming. And
Speaker 2: some of that I think has to do with the
Speaker 2: social capital that you possess in the country, your ability
Speaker 2: to navigate the systems and be successful in institutions, you know,
Speaker 2: based on your language, based on your institutional knowledge of
Speaker 2: the place, and a lot of immigrants don't have that,
Speaker 2: and so therefore, you know, that kind of worth in
Speaker 2: society is kind of decreased in a way, which which
Speaker 2: is I think there's a correlation between that and the
Speaker 2: dating status that we see.
Speaker 8: That's such a great point and one of the things
Speaker 8: that I always found really interesting about the data is
Speaker 8: that Asian American men on average have higher average incomes
Speaker 8: than any other racial group, including white men.
Speaker 6: Which is often.
Speaker 8: Is often, you know, a parameter that women are looking
Speaker 8: for in a mate, And indeed, we interviewed plenty of
Speaker 8: women who actually are fully aware of this and had
Speaker 8: preferences around Asian men, And so when we talk about
Speaker 8: the statistics, that's a wholly different situation than the individual
Speaker 8: And I will say that it was so fascinating to
Speaker 8: do the huge statistical overview and see some pretty sobering findings,
Speaker 8: and then to talk to individuals who, you know, maybe
Speaker 8: one of these groups who statistically are ignored, but themselves
Speaker 8: have you know, are pretty resilient and have have had
Speaker 8: success stories.
Speaker 6: They've it's just been a little harder, but.
Speaker 2: They kept with it. They kept with it.
Speaker 6: Well, that's right, they hung in there.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, Jennifer and Damona d'mona especially. You
Speaker 1: tell me whether or not I'm a racist. You tell
Speaker 1: me whether or not I'm guilty of sexual racism. I
Speaker 1: am forty three years old. Every open committed relationship I've
Speaker 1: ever been in has been with a black woman. I've
Speaker 1: had sex with other racist But if we're talking just
Speaker 1: straight up legit. Yes, you were my girlfriend. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: this is my girlfriend. Hey, mama, meet my girlfriend. It's
Speaker 1: always been a black woman. I went out with a
Speaker 1: white woman one time and we had some good ass
Speaker 1: VI went out a couple of times, good ass vibes,
Speaker 1: but I remember being out to eat and as a
Speaker 1: black man, this was my first time being out with
Speaker 1: a white woman like this, and just I could not
Speaker 1: keep my eyes off of whether or not people were
Speaker 1: watching us. That was thing one, the public perception of
Speaker 1: it that made it uncomfortable. The other thing was as
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to have children, and this thought of, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I'm raising what is essentially a black child, but
Speaker 1: he only has half of the pre installed blackness at
Speaker 1: the house, can this woman help me usher this black
Speaker 1: child through circumstances that I'm not sure that she has
Speaker 1: experienced or can see from a perspective that would be
Speaker 1: beneficial to the upbringing it Because I could be Kumbaya,
Speaker 1: but the world is not. So you know what, I
Speaker 1: like you, but I don't think we can date because
Speaker 1: people are looking at us weird and Applebee's and maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just being paranoid about that. But that was the
Speaker 1: only time that I've ever come close to dating inter racially,
Speaker 1: and I could not get past the kid aspect of that.
Speaker 1: Is that a factor in some people running I see
Speaker 1: you looking at Roy.
Speaker 2: You suck.
Speaker 1: I'm just being terrible.
Speaker 2: You're being terrible. Also, man, well, I can't have your
Speaker 2: good boyfriend or bad boyfriend because one you care so
Speaker 2: much about what other people think instead of person you're dating.
Speaker 2: Then too, kid, then too, You're like, it's extrapolating so
Speaker 2: far ahead about your kid in like when he's ten
Speaker 2: years he or she's ten years old? What am I
Speaker 2: gonna do? So you're both like you're thinking, there's.
Speaker 1: No dating algorithm that can tell me what her racial
Speaker 1: blind spots are.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 5: I mean that's the whole point though, Isn't that the
Speaker 5: point of dating. It's it's to be able to have
Speaker 5: those conversations and have those explorations and look, it's not
Speaker 5: in your head, Roy, Like I have had that same
Speaker 5: experience being somewhere with my white husband and being very
Speaker 5: aware people are looking at us or I'm feeling uncomfortable
Speaker 5: of being a person of color in that space. But
Speaker 5: it's something that I've chosen to walk through because the
Speaker 5: benefit is so much greater than all of those other
Speaker 5: challenges that I've had to go through. Having the relationship
Speaker 5: to me is worth worth more than that. But there
Speaker 5: was something and you said that was really interesting to
Speaker 5: me when you said you've never introduced anyone other than
Speaker 5: a black woman to your mom. To me, that might
Speaker 5: be the foundation of it, is that these expectations are
Speaker 5: so deeply ingrained from family, from community.
Speaker 1: Why don't you know why?
Speaker 2: Girl?
Speaker 1: Is it not my mom? But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: do you think being a byproduct of a black home,
Speaker 1: like how much of what we were raised in influences
Speaker 1: what we seek out in love? Because you talk about
Speaker 1: say a lot.
Speaker 5: I want to know what Jennifer has to say from
Speaker 5: her research.
Speaker 2: Though I thought Damona's basically saying there's a lot of trouble,
Speaker 2: but though the white privilege is worth it.
Speaker 5: About it, we're joking about it. But I feel like
Speaker 5: that in a way, that is something also to examine,
Speaker 5: Like anything plus white equals privilege in a lot and
Speaker 5: so that is not in any way a factor in
Speaker 5: why I decided to partner, but it is something. It
Speaker 5: is something to examine, and it is something I will admit,
Speaker 5: Roy that comes up in our relationship where there are
Speaker 5: blind spots that my husband has because he hasn't walked
Speaker 5: in my shoes, he hasn't had the experiences of being
Speaker 5: a black woman in America, and he is being he's
Speaker 5: being educated by being in a relationship with me and
Speaker 5: being encouraged to look at things through a different lens.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I've heard Roy, all the things you just said.
Speaker 6: I've heard that a lot.
Speaker 8: And in fact, I remember when Grinder, after George Floyd's
Speaker 8: murder removed their racial filtering categories because they realize that
Speaker 8: this is a problem. Most other dating websites have not,
Speaker 8: But there are a lot of folks in the black
Speaker 8: community who really resisted that and spoke out to that
Speaker 8: and said, you know, I want to be able to
Speaker 8: find people within my own community. I don't want to
Speaker 8: lose that opportunity to be able to filter out, you know,
Speaker 8: people who objectify me or fetishize me.
Speaker 6: Who are you know, different races.
Speaker 8: I want to look for black men because we share,
Speaker 8: we know what it's like to be a black person
Speaker 8: of a very white society.
Speaker 6: Is that racist? I would argue that it's not. It's
Speaker 6: about familiarity and survival.
Speaker 8: And you know, one thing that I always found really
Speaker 8: interesting too, and some of our research is there's a
Speaker 8: very strong black love emphasis within the Black community.
Speaker 6: You don't find that as much in the Asian community.
Speaker 8: And I think some of that has to do with
Speaker 8: the fact that, you know, the Asian American community is
Speaker 8: really really heterogeneous. You have people from many many generations
Speaker 8: in different countries, et cetera. So there's not the same
Speaker 8: level of solidarity in a white world, although I think
Speaker 8: that that's changing. But that I think that the way
Speaker 8: you feel, the way you felt about that is completely legitimate,
Speaker 8: and I hear it from a lot of people, all.
Speaker 1: Right, not racist close, not quite all the way, but
Speaker 1: still a little bit of bias sees a little bit
Speaker 1: of a blind spot. After the break, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about what are the other things that contribute to
Speaker 1: our biases when it comes to dating. Ronnie, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. I know you've got to bounce and
Speaker 1: go do important rich Asian man stuff, so.
Speaker 2: I gotta go do some daily show stuff right now. Okay,
Speaker 2: the opposite of rich Asian man stuff. But thanks, but thanks, yeah,
Speaker 2: thanks much for having me. It's great to speak to
Speaker 2: you experts who actually can back up what me and
Speaker 2: Jessica experienced or were researching from just a layperson's point
Speaker 2: of view. But I think the ultimate goal of all
Speaker 2: this is, as as Jennifer and Daemona was saying, is
Speaker 2: that you know, you can't force people to who they
Speaker 2: don't want to date. But I think the idea behind
Speaker 2: this conversation is to hopefully have people kind of expand
Speaker 2: their horizons a little bit and open themselves up to
Speaker 2: dating other people in the hopes of increasing their chances
Speaker 2: of finding someone who they ultimately want to be with.
Speaker 2: That's the ultimate goal here in my opinion. It's not
Speaker 2: trying to force people at gunpoint to date the date other,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever race they say they hate. The ultimate
Speaker 2: goal is I think personal happiness is the reason why
Speaker 2: we're even having this conversation in my opinion. But very
Speaker 2: nice to speak to all of you.
Speaker 6: Thank you beautifully, Sam.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, Welcome back to Beyond the scenes.
Speaker 1: We are talking sexual racism and whether or not you
Speaker 1: just have a preference and that's what you're attracted to
Speaker 1: and it's not your fault or if you are a
Speaker 1: terrible person. How much does the media play a role
Speaker 1: in what we desire? When you look at commercials and
Speaker 1: when you look at tell Vision shows, they've given us
Speaker 1: the mold of what they believe a desirable partner is,
Speaker 1: and more often than not, it's not an Asian man.
Speaker 1: And in a lot of instances, black women are in
Speaker 1: subservient roles in television, like you know, like I don't
Speaker 1: even think there's been an Asian Bachelor if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: But how much does the media play in informing our
Speaker 1: unconscious biases?
Speaker 5: Plays a huge role, and everything that we consume really
Speaker 5: influences the way that we move through society. You mentioned
Speaker 5: Asian men in media not being sexualized, and that was
Speaker 5: something that was very deliberate with crazy rich Asians, where
Speaker 5: they were positioning the cast to become sex symbols, and
Speaker 5: we actually saw it well. Not only was the movie
Speaker 5: a huge success and there was there was a desire
Speaker 5: for that, but it really did seem to change some
Speaker 5: perceptions of Asian men. And there's a long way to
Speaker 5: go in sort of leveling the playing field, but we've
Speaker 5: had a lot of these images for so long, and
Speaker 5: like for black women, you were either like the Jezebel
Speaker 5: or the Mamming. I know you've talked about, you know,
Speaker 5: the strong black women on episodes before, and so this
Speaker 5: is something that a lot of black women carry as
Speaker 5: a fear when they go into online dating that I'm
Speaker 5: either going to be seen as a caretaker or I'm
Speaker 5: being sexualized and fetishized. And I even I hosted a
Speaker 5: show called Hashtag Black Love for FYI. It was a
Speaker 5: spin off of Married at First Site because there was
Speaker 5: so much passion around wanting to see black relationships and
Speaker 5: on Married at First Site in the first season, the
Speaker 5: only couple that didn't make it was the black couple,
Speaker 5: So everybody was like, we want black love. And I've
Speaker 5: seen that in media, a lot of black networks or
Speaker 5: black outlets have given the space for that because the
Speaker 5: more mainstream outlets are not doing that. And that may
Speaker 5: also factor into a preference for black women wanting to
Speaker 5: continue to find black relationships and promote black love because
Speaker 5: it's not being reflected for them in mainstream content.
Speaker 8: I would agree, and I think the media is a
Speaker 8: huge part of perpetuating pre existing stereotypical images but also
Speaker 8: producing them in many cases as well. I remember I
Speaker 8: used to always show this image to students. It's a
Speaker 8: little old at this point, but there's lots of examples
Speaker 8: since with Hurricane Katrina, there was a bunch of apen
Speaker 8: images of people who were basically waiting in chest deep water.
Speaker 8: And one showed a couple of African American folks and
Speaker 8: it was people looting whatever store.
Speaker 6: And another one showed, you know.
Speaker 8: White people with food that they'd gotten from store, saying
Speaker 8: white people looking for food, et.
Speaker 6: Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 8: And so you see just a very different thing, yes, right, survival.
Speaker 8: So you see this very different framing by race. And
Speaker 8: there's so much sort of gendered racialization around masculinity, hyper
Speaker 8: masculinity or emasculation in the case of Asian men, or
Speaker 8: passive lotus flower kinds of imagery around Asian women. And
Speaker 8: there's roots of this that go way back in history
Speaker 8: that we talk a lot about in our book.
Speaker 1: What have been some of the victories? Give me some
Speaker 1: good news. Are you seeing a shift because people approve
Speaker 1: of veneracial dating, but is it actually happening? Have you
Speaker 1: seen any type of shift in the dating trends, especially
Speaker 1: since COVID when everybody was stuck at home, and you
Speaker 1: know a lot of relationships did not survive COVID, so
Speaker 1: you probably had to be opened to a couple of
Speaker 1: more options. Back in those days, Yes.
Speaker 5: People definitely were more experiential and more explorational in their experiences.
Speaker 5: I mean we saw also people were more open on gender.
Speaker 5: We saw people changing their preferences, their sexuality preferences. Okaycupid,
Speaker 5: we released sixty different gender and identity options so that
Speaker 5: people could find whatever they were looking for. So we
Speaker 5: did see a lot more flexibility, and we do see
Speaker 5: looking at census data now, about twenty percent, about one
Speaker 5: in six newlywed couples are with someone of a different
Speaker 5: race or ethnicity. So when you look at just nineteen
Speaker 5: fifty eight, only four people were approving of this is
Speaker 5: specifically black white intermarriage. Now we're at a place where
Speaker 5: there is actually a ton of intermarriage, and I think
Speaker 5: it's interestingly correlated actually with the rise in dating apps,
Speaker 5: because now we have access to different communities and there
Speaker 5: is good news and Okaycupid, black women are finding more
Speaker 5: success and women identifying as black have been getting more
Speaker 5: matches in the past year, and it's higher than any
Speaker 5: time in the past three years.
Speaker 1: Is I always like to do on this podcast. In
Speaker 1: this part of the show, ladies, I like to try
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit about solutions and things that
Speaker 1: we can do to help change the problems that we've
Speaker 1: laid out so dutifully up until this point. Demona, I'll
Speaker 1: start with you. You know, as a dating coach, how
Speaker 1: do you encourage your clients to be race open? I
Speaker 1: guess that's the word. How do you encourage them to
Speaker 1: be race open while dating? How do you get them
Speaker 1: to put more check more boxes of race?
Speaker 5: Well, Michael is not to make everyone date race open,
Speaker 5: though I see that as the best chance at them
Speaker 5: finding what they're looking for if they don't put a
Speaker 5: restriction on race. But what I want them to do
Speaker 5: is to date from a place of authenticity and clarity.
Speaker 5: At the beginning of my dating coaching program, I always
Speaker 5: ask people about race, and I've always done this. It
Speaker 5: was surprising to me when I wrote the Washington Post
Speaker 5: piece to find the other dating coaches weren't necessarily doing this,
Speaker 5: or we're making assumptions that people just wanted to date
Speaker 5: someone who came from a similar background. And I think
Speaker 5: as a whole, we make a lot of assumptions that
Speaker 5: someone with our skin color must have similar experiences, or
Speaker 5: must have similar values or views on the world, or
Speaker 5: would raise children in the same way. And I want
Speaker 5: to get underneath all of that and really have people
Speaker 5: examine what their own beliefs are. So if they tell
Speaker 5: me that they only date someone of their race, I'll
Speaker 5: ask them why. It's actually a business technique. I do
Speaker 5: the five whys technique that was founded by Toyota to
Speaker 5: figure out why systems were not working. I'll apply that
Speaker 5: to dating and I'll say, Okay, well, why haven't you
Speaker 5: dated anyone of another race? Well, I just never I
Speaker 5: never met anyone of another race. Well why, well, I
Speaker 5: never went outside of dating in my social circle. Why
Speaker 5: And when we start to unpack that, you know, basically
Speaker 5: the answer to all questions is because racism. But that
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to get my clients to do is
Speaker 5: to get them to understand these these factors that are
Speaker 5: impacting their preferences the way that they date, and examine
Speaker 5: them and see what fits. Which part of this may
Speaker 5: be an expectation that maybe your parents had for you,
Speaker 5: or that was ingrained by society and culture, and which
Speaker 5: part of it really comes from a place of honesty
Speaker 5: and clarity for yourself and building the life that you
Speaker 5: want and the relationship that you ultimately want to have.
Speaker 1: I'd know that for me, if I'm just speaking about
Speaker 1: dating in my twenties, a lot of it was just
Speaker 1: rooted in the presumed uncultural unrelatability. You're white girl, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to assume you don't like It's not like
Speaker 1: rap wasn't as pervasive into what like white people always
Speaker 1: listen a rap, but in the sense of, oh, if
Speaker 1: I said this rapper, this rapper, this rapper, she's going
Speaker 1: to know all of them. There was It's just this
Speaker 1: preconceived notion that there is a cultural divide too big
Speaker 1: for us to close for us today, And that was
Speaker 1: always the assumption, and so I just never would you know,
Speaker 1: just would you know if there was five white girls
Speaker 1: at the table and they had one black friend? In
Speaker 1: my brain, I have to talk to her.
Speaker 5: I also wonder, Roy, how much of that actually comes
Speaker 5: from a place of fear of rejection, Like I know
Speaker 5: this is something as a black woman and someone who's
Speaker 5: worked with a lot of black women, there's this fear
Speaker 5: that if I open myself up to this person who's
Speaker 5: different than me, and they reject me. It's because I'm black.
Speaker 5: Was that ever a part of your thought process?
Speaker 1: No, but it never really got into by the way, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: welcome to my free dating counseling session. I hope that
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this. It was never I don't think it
Speaker 1: was ever rooted in that, but I do know that
Speaker 1: a part of it for me. If we're talking to
Speaker 1: your point about cultural upbringing, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabam.
Speaker 1: I'm a Birmingham proper to Birmingham within the city limits
Speaker 1: is about an eighty percent black city. I did not
Speaker 1: have a white classmate until the sixth grade, and that
Speaker 1: was for a couple of months before I got transferred
Speaker 1: back to another predominantly black middle school. So my world
Speaker 1: was black, the Black boys Club, I went to black church.
Speaker 1: I hung out and played with black kids. My mama
Speaker 1: had black sorority sisters. I played with her for so
Speaker 1: whiteness was never culturally. That just wasn't a thing growing up.
Speaker 1: So when you get older and you become a man,
Speaker 1: you're kind of keying into a lot of that data
Speaker 1: that was that software was already kind of that behavioral software.
Speaker 1: I feel, to a degree was probably already pre installed.
Speaker 1: So you do have to overcome a lot of what
Speaker 1: your upbringing was to break out of that to be
Speaker 1: race open. I've never been race like. I've never seen
Speaker 1: no white girl, but it was always just a black woman,
Speaker 1: and it just always felt like a quick and easier
Speaker 1: and simple fix. I'm not saying that that was the
Speaker 1: right choice, and I'm not saying that was always the
Speaker 1: right thing to do, and that I couldn't have had
Speaker 1: a great relationship with the white girl from Applebee's, But
Speaker 1: that was more daunting than the fear of rejection. The
Speaker 1: fear of rejection, I do think that's real because it's
Speaker 1: also like, what, I'm black, I gave you a white
Speaker 1: ass a chance. But it was definitely rooted in how
Speaker 1: will we relate to each other? And I don't know
Speaker 1: if we can, But you know that idea is definitely
Speaker 1: something that is twenty years ago, because you know, the
Speaker 1: culture divide isn't as big as it was. I've seen
Speaker 1: white people tworking. I think we've we've come together, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: how much is on the dating companies, these these dating
Speaker 1: app companies to be more transparent about what they're doing,
Speaker 1: like with the algorithm, do they owe us the right
Speaker 1: of transparency? And if they changed it, how would that
Speaker 1: impact the user experience.
Speaker 8: I think our first instinct is to always go to
Speaker 8: the for the platforms and say the platforms need to change,
Speaker 8: I need to do this and that. Given the fact
Speaker 8: that since twenty thirteen, the primary way that relationships start
Speaker 8: in the United States is through digital market places, the
Speaker 8: dating market.
Speaker 6: That is a primary way.
Speaker 8: Now that relationships start, why do we want corporations to
Speaker 8: be running this space? So that's one thing that we
Speaker 8: really unpack in this book, which is our corporations for
Speaker 8: profit corporations going to have an interest in bettering society
Speaker 8: in you know, helping to eradicate racism. It's not necessarily
Speaker 8: profitable to do so. Surveillance capitalism is a big part
Speaker 8: of many platforms. You know, our data is sold to
Speaker 8: third parties, and some of the data that we put
Speaker 8: in our profiles and the kinds of very intimate interactions
Speaker 8: we have online that's incredibly lucrative to companies. It's also
Speaker 8: incredible data to have on someone. I do have ideas,
Speaker 8: Lots of people have ideas and how platforms could improve
Speaker 8: and i'd happy. I'm happy to go over what some
Speaker 8: of those are. I think they're small changes, but I
Speaker 8: think that they could make a difference as well. Good well,
Speaker 8: you know, like I love Demana's perspective on you know,
Speaker 8: this very human perspective, but we need to look inward
Speaker 8: that race has so little to do with finding a mate,
Speaker 8: and to really think about why we say we have
Speaker 8: racial preferences.
Speaker 6: I would love to see more of that kind.
Speaker 8: Of instruction or advice as part of the setup when
Speaker 8: people are creating their profiles.
Speaker 6: I think there's a lot of contextual data.
Speaker 8: Of you know, pro tips from the platform that could
Speaker 8: help daters as they put together their information. I also think,
Speaker 8: you know, we'll we talked about algorithms before, right, it
Speaker 8: would be great if a we at least knew what
Speaker 8: went into the algorithms, you know, so daters could say, oh,
Speaker 8: I want to go to a you know, a platform
Speaker 8: that doesn't use race and algorithm or doesn't use past
Speaker 8: racial behaviors as a way to then create what I
Speaker 8: see some people have experimented in you know, small apps
Speaker 8: with a reset button for algorithms so that your past
Speaker 8: history doesn't influence how the algorithm continues. I also think
Speaker 8: it would be really useful for platforms to collect information
Speaker 8: on you know, how many people flag others for you know,
Speaker 8: racist commentary to them as a dator and even you
Speaker 8: know this is probably going too far by many people's perspectives,
Speaker 8: but being able to not just say someone's attractiveness and
Speaker 8: you know, overall your experience with them, but also to
Speaker 8: be able to say, this person, you know, asked me
Speaker 8: if I like black chocolate and sent me a dick pic,
Speaker 8: you know, to be able to like have some kind
Speaker 8: of more like user mediated sanctioning, I think would be
Speaker 8: a step.
Speaker 5: As someone who works with okayqu but I think those
Speaker 5: are those are all great ideas. And I also want
Speaker 5: to remind people of about you know, personal I don't
Speaker 5: want to say responsibility, but just how much personal power
Speaker 5: they have to shift the way that the apps are
Speaker 5: in service to the user. Also, a lot of people
Speaker 5: don't use the tools that are already there to be
Speaker 5: able to block and report. And this is something that
Speaker 5: I'm always telling my Dates and Mats podcast listeners. If
Speaker 5: somebody calls you a racial slur, don't just get disgusted
Speaker 5: and turn off the dating app and say I don't
Speaker 5: want to be here because someone said this thing, you
Speaker 5: need to report it, and we take okay, keep it.
Speaker 5: We take those reports very seriously. And as you said,
Speaker 5: as reports like that line up then and we see
Speaker 5: a trend, that's when an algorithm or a feature, a
Speaker 5: feature gets released or an algorithm gets changed. And just
Speaker 5: one last thing I'll say, what I also do with
Speaker 5: my clients is if they've experienced sexual racism, I encourage
Speaker 5: them to not internalize that or assume that means everyone
Speaker 5: on the app, or everyone in dating or everyone of
Speaker 5: that culture. To really focus on the place that you're
Speaker 5: getting the love. So, even as a black woman, I
Speaker 5: was able to find love on a dating app, and
Speaker 5: I'm not worried about the nine people that didn't write
Speaker 5: me back. I'm worried about the one that had the
Speaker 5: right kind of intention, shared my values and my goals
Speaker 5: for the future, and those predictors of long term compatibility.
Speaker 1: I've always wished that dating apps would, at some point,
Speaker 1: based on the phone numbers that are tied to the account,
Speaker 1: form some sort of no fly list, if you will,
Speaker 1: of racism and jerks and abusers and like anything of
Speaker 1: that nature, Like if you're no good on OkCupid, then
Speaker 1: you should be no good on every other side. Bumbleeharmonymatch
Speaker 1: dot com, all of them should bang you for acting
Speaker 1: a fool. You should be banished to Craigslist personals.
Speaker 5: You know what's happening. People are just like putting you
Speaker 5: on blast Onto talk like that West Palost. You can't
Speaker 5: get a day ever again, tender Swimdler.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all so so much for the wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful conversation on this. I'm going to now log into
Speaker 1: a dating app like Ronnie and join all of it
Speaker 1: and see what happens. But again, can I help you, Roy?
Speaker 7: I want to help you.
Speaker 1: White male. I'm signing episode Rich white Man. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what, Yeah, bring me on that day to Mate's podcast.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you. We'll figure out what is going
Speaker 1: on come through.
Speaker 5: I think give me.
Speaker 1: Give me just like minutes two as we find that
Speaker 1: white girl from Applebee's from twenty years ago and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Listen? All right, thank you all so
Speaker 1: so much for going beyond the scenes with you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you.
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