Colorblind, Christian Courtship (pt. 2 of 2)
So, I’ll just pick up where I left off in part 1. I’m not ignorant to the fact that this topic is an ambitious undertaking. You can, literally, write books on interracial dating, and indeed, many have. The slant of looking at this phenomenon in the church is a bit more unique, perhaps distinguishing it from other conversations on the topic. As I mentioned before, the church is considered by many to be this utopian environment that’s insulated from many of the vices of the world (you can see my series on “Un-ideal church ideals” for more on that: part 1, part 2, or part 3). On the other hand, we don’t have to go back very far in American, or global, history to see many such instances where the church has noticeably missed the mark on race relations.
Consequentially, in light of this paradox, people may have really different ideas concerning the social processes that may be at work as courting and dating takes place in church.
I always, always try my best to be thoughtful. My personal opinion? Even though we have the Holy Spirit, and we’re trying to live like Jesus, on our very, very best day, Christians are still just… human. And as a behavioral scientist, and an emerging expert on human behavior, I suspect our behavior at church isn’t as insulated from the world’s vices as we’d like to think… in fact, I’ll even share a few experiences here where interactions in the church can actually look worse than those in the world.
Colorblindness as a diversity ideology is already pretty complex on its own. In essence, it makes the following point: because of all the other things people tend to have in common, racial or ethnic differences between people are so trivial that they’re not worth thinking or talking about. In truth, this can be done with benign or malicious intentions, but let’s just assume the former, because we’re talking about dating other people of faith. Let’s assume people want to be helpful, supportive, and are trying to love us in a righteous way.
Here’s a question for you: If something is really important to someone, how do you think they feel when you tell them it isn’t important?
Let’s even step out of the context of race for a second… you have a friend that’s an artist. And from their conversations with you, you can gather that they enjoy celebrating art, and connecting with other artists, and they see that as an important aspect of who they are. To them, it’s part of their identity… it’s one of the many things that God included as He made this person who they are. It’s obviously not the most important thing… but it’s one of many things about themselves that they love and celebrate.
And you walk up to that person, and you tell them to their face, “Personally, I don’t think being an artist is important in any way.” Or maybe you say something along the lines of, “Whether you’re an artist or not, we all basically have the same experiences.” Or maybe you say, “Instead of talking about art, let’s just focus on what we have in common.”
I like this example because, I think most of us would agree these are all kind of cringe-worthy moments. It’s like something off of a television show, right? I think most of us understand, forget whether or not art is important to you… you know it’s important to your friend. For them, they see that as a huge part of who they are. And in a relationship (romantic or otherwise), you try and show you value the person by acknowledging things that they value. I mean, you could keep having conversations like this with your friend, but after awhile, they’ll probably start to feel like you’re rejecting a pretty big aspect of who they are as a person. Aside from being a bit painful, that can also feel disrespectful.
I imagine they would feel like, “This is a really big aspect of who I am, and not only are you resistant to accepting that, but you’re also actively trying to convince me that this IS NOT a big aspect of who I am.”
Yup. It’s cringe-worthy indeed.
As you’ve probably gathered, I’m using this as a metaphor for why colorblindness doesn’t effectively promote inclusivity in congregations (or in general, really). If you’re under the impression that you’ll make people feel welcome by telling them that benign things that they love about themselves are completely unimportant to you, and you don’t think they’re worthy of acknowledging, I think you’re a bit naïve and misguided as to how relationships work, romantic or otherwise. Yet and still, I see people talk about being colorblind, even in the context of dating, and talking about it as if it’ll help promote better loving people of different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.
At best, it’s a very, very risky strategy to communicate that you want them to feel safe with you, in spite of cultural differences. At worst, you’ll tell someone that you take a colorblind approach to dating, and they’ll interpret that as, “I won’t be able to deeply share about my identity with this person, or their friends, because there are many aspects of who I am that they don’t believe to be important.”
Like I said… it’s a risky strategy… especially if you’re actually trying to communicate that you’re open minded and you’re not racist. For a lot of people, you actually ended up doing the opposite.
Speaking of racism, I’ll share something here that I’ve said elsewhere… and I’ll admit, it’s something I should probably try and do a little bit of a better job at.
I don’t really talk about racism with White people I don’t have a close relationship with. And going to church with someone doesn’t necessarily constitute a “close” relationship.
True story. If you know me, you know that I don’t really like inconveniencing people. And my personal experience is that White people don’t really want to talk about racism… it’s an inconvenience to you, and honestly, I don’t like to be an inconvenience. And you would think it would be different sometimes with White people that you attend church with, but that’s not always true. So, yeah, I generally don’t talk about racism with White people I’m not close with. The exception is if they bring it up, because if you bring it up, it means you’re showing some interest in talking about it. But if you don’t bring it up, I don’t want to assume you’re interested in talking about racism, because you may not even believe racism exist. And if I don’t have a close relationship with you, I don’t really know.
To be sure, THE PATTERN I DESCRIBED ISN’T SPECIFIC TO THE TOPIC OF RACE RELATIONS.
Gay people are a lot more likely to talk about homophobia when they’re with gay friends, probably because they feel safer to do so. Homophobia, or heteronormative ideals, are waaaaay easier to see when you’re negatively affected by them. You don’t really have concerns about people telling you you’re crazy, or you’re imagining things, or being angry with you for sharing your lived experiences with homophobia. Talking about it with other gay people, without a doubt, probably makes gay people feel much safer.
Women are a lot more likely to talk about sexism with other women, probably because they feel safer to do so. Sexism is waaaaaay easier to see when you’re negatively affected by it. You don’t really have concerns about people telling you you’re crazy, or you’re imagining things, or being angry with you for sharing your lived experiences with sexism. Talking about it with other women, without a doubt, probably makes women people feel much safer.
This is true, too, for race relations. It’s a topic that comes up quite often with my non-White friends, but when I’m with White people I don’t know, I won’t bring it up. I mean, I’ll make a remark if they bring it up, but I’m not bringing it up, because I don’t want to inconvenience you by talking about a topic that you don’t even believe exists. In fact, if I’m being honest with you, there are lots of situations where I felt more comfortable talking about racism with White people that I don’t go to church with, because a lot of White people I do go to church with believe that racism doesn’t exist and doesn’t affect Christian ministry. So, yeah, it’s kind of like talking about aliens with people who don’t believe in UFO’s.
Why would I put myself in that situation?
In order for people to feel like they can talk about unique or distinctive experiences they’ve had, or even highly personal stories that resulted in them feeling sad, angry, hurt, scared, etc., they have to feel psychological safety. They have to feel safe with YOU.
I think a lot of times Christians talk about being colorblind in the context of dating to try and create that safe space.
In practice though, that’s usually not how things are interpreted. Most racial minorities hear that in the context of dating and think, “Oh, I can’t share my unique, or distinctive, racial or ethnic experiences with this person, because they believe that most people in America all have similar experiences.”
I won’t beat a dead horse. Suffice to say that promoting colorblindness as a perspective on dating is unflattering and doesn’t necessarily make people feel safe, particularly if they strongly identify with their racial or ethnic background.
It’s interesting though, because I can’t help but feel that, particularly for Black people, celebrating your history and culture is perceived as a disinterest in interracial dating.
Let me be unequivocally clear: I desire to be with the woman that God desires for me to be with. Period. God knows me better than ANYBODY, so I feel comfortable entrusting Him with that, because God’s not going to set me up with a woman that I’ll have a miserable life with. Seriously. I’m completely open to God’s plan: Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, American, Nigerian, whatever. After lots and LOTS of different dates, I can earnestly say who you are on the inside is WAAAAY more important to me than your race or ethnicity. In spite of that though, I can’t help but feel that lots of people probably would have assumed otherwise.
So, let’s talk about that.
I think for much of American History, to be pro-Black was viewed as synonymous with being anti-White. A lot of that has to do with the fact that historically, and even presently, lots of White Americans view racism as a zero-sum game (i.e. White people can only win if Black people lose). To be sure, this isn’t just a thought or opinion, there’s a lot of research in psychology and sociology on intergroup relations that provides strong evidence for this pattern of thinking.
Admittedly, there were aspects of American history where race relations was, indeed, a zero-sum game.
Black people could only be freed as slaves if White people gave up their slaves.
Black people gaining voting power meant White people were losing voting power.
Admittedly though, much of that was specific to an era in history where Black people didn’t even have the basic rights entitled to American citizens. There are many aspects of modern-day race relations that do NOT represent a zero-sum game, although research suggests that White Americans tend to view it in that way (i.e. natural hair discrimination is a great example of something that is NOT zero sum).
So, I think with being pro-Black in the US today, lots of White Americans might assume that I only want to date Black women, and they may also assume I’m especially opposed to dating a White woman.
Principally, neither of those things are true.
What I will say though that could be helpful here is this: I’m very open-minded about who I date, but I do want to date someone who is racially conscious (see Money, Marriage, Misogyny and Melanin for more on that). By racially conscious, I don’t think that means we have to share all the same views on all the same things. Quite the contrary: I actually want and expect my wife to have her own opinions about things (i.e. marriage is a partnership, and there are many occasions where diversity of perspective is helpful). When I say racially conscious, I simply mean she’s aware of how racial and ethnic differences may shape our lived experiences as people in important ways.
If I’m being completely honest with you, I know [way] more non-White women that are racially conscious than I do White women. This is understandable, although still a little bit strange. If you asked about sexism, many White women could give you story after story and name friends, family, and others who’ve been affected. For whatever reason though, it’s difficult for White women to imagine exclusion, rejection, mistreatment, and prejudice taking place in America on the basis of race/ethnicity, rather than gender.
But those are 2 sides of the same coin. Inequality manifests in MANY different ways.
Sexism.
Racism.
Colorism.
Ableism.
Classism.
Ageism.
The list goes on. So, if you can imagine inequality manifesting on 1 identity dimension… certainly it’s not a stretch to think that it may manifests on other identity dimensions, too, right?
But in general, when we’re afforded the benefits of inequality, we don’t always recognize it. That’s true for me as a man with sexism just like it’s true for White women and racism. A lot of times, we don’t notice inequality until in starts to INCONVENIENCE our lives. When we benefit from it, we may not even notice.
Barring an act of God, I don’t really have interest in dating ANY woman that isn’t racially conscious. However, since I’ve found this set of attitudes and beliefs to be most common among White women (and research generally supports that idea, too; White Americans are less likely than racial minorities to believe racism exists), it means I don’t see those romantic relationships as particularly likely for me. But that has everything to do with being racially conscious and nothing to do with being White… I wouldn’t connect well with a Black woman who isn’t racially conscious, either. Being Black won’t make me more interested in someone, and being not Black won’t make me less interested in someone. I can’t say that for being racially conscious though. It absolutely makes me less interested. We can still connect…I just don’t want to date you.
To me, an unwillingness, or disinterest, in being racially conscious is really unflattering… it comes off as a very naïve ignorance that can have really destructive consequences, in interpersonal relationships and otherwise.
Maybe an example would help.
I’m Nigerian. And most of my family lives in Nigeria.
I was born in the US.
I grew up in a household where my dad was a doctor and my mom was a nurse.
We had 4 different cars growing up, and my parents bought each of us a car in high school.
I went to a 4-year university, on an academic scholarship, and my dad paid the remainder of my school fees so I could graduate debt free.
I graduated and subsequently worked a job where I was making close to 6 figures and I was only 24.
And now, I’m currently enrolled in a PhD program, fully funded, at one of the most prestigious universities in the country.
So, think about what I shared for a bit…
Can you imagine what it would be like if I just assumed all of my family in Nigeria, or everybody in the entire world, just got through life with access to all the same resources and opportunities that I did?
Wouldn’t that be unflattering?
Wouldn’t that be offputting?
Wouldn’t that be unattractive?
Can you imagine being in a relationship with someone that was that naïve about how the world works? “We’re all basically the same!”
To me, it’s an enormous turn off. It doesn’t even matter what your racial group is, that level of ignorance is an enormous turn off, not to mention really harmful and destructive.
There’s one other thing that I’ll touch on, because this is starting to run a bit long.
We know that America is segregated… I’ve spoken about this on many, many occasions. But this segregation also influences interracial dating in ways that most people generally don’t give a lot of thought to.
I’ve taken a ton of interest in residential segregation, urban housing, the sociology of finance, and other topics in sociology that influence where people live and who’s in their neighborhood (see Race and Place: part 1, part 2, and part 3 for more on that). One thing that sociologists that are versed in American history regularly mention is the extent of residential segregation, specifically for Black Americans. Now we all know that White neighborhoods are mostly White. Asian neighborhoods are mostly Asian. And Hispanic neighborhoods are mostly Hispanic. But Black neighborhoods are filled to the brim with almost EXCLUSIVELY Black people. In other words, Black people represent 13% of the US population, but in the handful of communities that DO have Black people, almost ALL of those Black people live in the exact same neighborhood.
Black neighborhoods are OVERWHELMINGLY… just… Black (see Convicts, Capital, Collusion, and Cashflow for more on that).
That means 2 big things.
NUMBER 1: If you’re not Black, if you avoid those neighborhoods, you’ll never really live or interact with Black people, and certainly not with mostly Black people.
NUMBER 2: If you ARE Black, if you never leave or get out of those neighborhoods, you will interact ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY with other Black people.
If you’re wondering how this came to be, this old post may be helpful. But to summarize, this isn’t a coincidence… America has DECADES of discriminatory lending that took place in the 20th century, and even today, and those things largely shape and influence the demographic composition of Black neighborhoods… also, during the Jim Crow era, it made discrimination against Black people a lot easier when all the Black people lived in the same part of the city. From fire bombs to underfunded schools, oppressing Black people was easier when they were all in one place.
But as you would imagine, this, too, has important implications for interracial dating. Everybody wants to connect well with the person they date. Black, White, straight, gay, men, women, whatever. We all want to connect well with our partner.
But because of racism and discrimination, Black people have been soooooo isolated throughout American history, past and present, that a lot of Americans feel like they can’t connect or relate to Black people.
This has been supported by research.
I’ll talk briefly about 4 different kinds of isolation: psychological, political, structural, and geospatial.
Psychological is exactly what it sounds like. In psychology, we use the term psychological distance. Psychological distance is another way of measuring how similar we feel to someone… it represents the cognitive distance, in our brain, between ourselves and someone else.
When psychologists ask Americans to rate similarities to different groups in the US, findings show that compared to other groups, most nonblack Americans feel a great deal of psychological distance with Black people…
Part of that is understandable. Because of the isolation, Black Americans have fairly distinct experiences in America (i.e. The OTHER America), unique ways of communicating and interacting, etc. But if we’re talking about interracial dating, this does have the potential to pose as a challenge.
There’s also political isolation. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Political scientists note that forming alliances and coalitions is very important for American politics. You have to find groups that you have common ground with and work together to get things done. But researchers have also keenly noted that Black neighborhoods are SOOOOO isolated that their political views are really different than other groups in America.
Ordinarily, when people advocate for something for a neighborhood, or town, or city, or suburb, that thing tends to impact everyone in the community… the White people, the Black people, the Asian people, the Hispanic people, the Native American people, etc. But Black neighborhoods are so isolated, things they want from the government usually only effect Black people, because there aren’t many people of other racial groups in those neighborhoods. Practically, this makes it very difficult to find people of other racial groups that share political interests. Honestly, lots of people just don’t understand because they’re not from those communities and have never been to those communities.
Again, political leanings are important for dating, too. If you feel like your partner has unusual political views, that usually isn’t a green light. But the political leanings of a lot of Black Americans may be hard to understand for people who aren’t Black.
There’s also structural isolation. Institutional racism is definitely a thing for racial minorities in the US, but the way America has weaponized the government to oppress Black people throughout American history is somewhat of a distinctive experience from other racial minorities.
Education.
Healthcare.
Housing.
Science.
The list goes on. Our experience with institutions of influence in this country is a bit unique, and mostly bad (190 years of a 244 year history). If that hasn’t been your experience, again, you may find that very, very hard to connect or relate to.
Finally, there’s geospatial isolation. It’s exactly what it sounds like. You can’t fall in love with a person that you’ve never met (I guess you can, with technology), and you can’t meet them if you’re never in their neighborhood and they’re never in yours.
Based on sociohistorical context concerning race relations in America, there are lots of Americans that avoid Black neighborhoods, and lots of Black Americans avoid non-Black neighborhoods. It really is that simple.
I can go on, but I think I’ve made my point. There are complex psychological and sociological processes that influence interracial dating. Yes, at church, too. So, we’ll need to be a lot more thoughtful about that. Cookie cutter interpretations generally don’t work well for complex things (so, no, interracial relationships aren’t necessarily a good measure of diversity climate). Race relations, including interracial dating, is a pretty layered and complex phenomenon. So, let’s just try and be thoughtful.
There are lots of things I didn’t have time to highlight, but feel free to weigh in.
Nnamdi