I think two conversations happen when it comes to racial preferences being considered racist. Everyone has racial preferences, it's a pretty standard thing. The problem is that there are people who use the concept of racial preferences to either cover for their racism, or who are misguided enough to think that what they have going on is a simple racial preference instead of racism. Or even people that assume that they have a racial preference but that preference based on a lack of exposure. There is also the fact that our beauty standards can be so centered around one type of person that it puts groups of people at a disadvantage. If one is raised in a society that praises brown eyes or course they are gonna think brown eyes are more beautiful than blue eyes.
To use myself as an example. I'm a Black woman. It is very disconcerting the number of fellow Black women I know that have a "Ive never been attracted to a Black girls before I met you" story. Every damn time it comes from some White man who latter admits that he doesn't talk to Black people often. And when pressed the dude admits that he assumed that my personalty would be different just because I was Black.
The definition of preference is thus : a greater liking for one alternative over another or others.
A greater, not an absolute. There are people out there who either can't or don't see the beauty in others because of their "preferences". But there is a big difference between someone being unattractive and someone not being your type. I.E. Beyonce may not be your type but she ain't ugly. With the range of people out there one is probably better saying that they prefer women with darker skin instead of saying that they prefer Black women because some Black women have light skin and vice versa. Most of the time its really characteristics that people are attracted to not a race.
Story Time!
On another message board I used to frequent there were threads for posting hot people. One for women, one for men, and one for Asian women. I found the fact that there was a separate thread for Asian women weird and assumed that the creators of that thread just had a fetish until I started participating in the threads. I am a heterosexual women but I had fun posting in all threads. It was actually harder to post in the thread for men than it was for women. My attraction to men would cause *coughs* distractions while searching for new candidates for the thread.
Anywho, I found that most of the women posted in the thread for women were White. I brushed it off as a racial preference based on the fact that most of the posters were White. I posted people of all races when I would post. And at first the responses were positive. The first red flag was that other posters would speak of how they didn't know that they could, or were allowed to, post women who weren't White in the thread. And then a small but vocal percentage of the posters would start talking about their "preferences". As time wore on other posters started to feel more comfortable posting women of color. And the posters with "preferences" wouldn't stop grumbling about it.
It seemed that I was supposed to be the exception. It
helped that I was a women of color myself, and that I apparently have good taste in women for a straight gal. But it seemed that it was okay so long as only one person posted women of color but now it was too much and a boner kill. Thankfully other posters argued back that if these posters wanted to see women that matched their preferences all they had to do was post what they liked. And that the thread wasn't made only to cater to their tastes. Everyone went back to posting what they wanted until a new member decided to create a post with only Black women. And that's when one of the posters with "preferences" suggested that there should be a separate thread for women of color. This idea was backed up by other posters, some of which dropped the "preferences" rhetoric and flat out stated that they were exclusively attracted to White women. As the arguments wore on I found out that the only reason why there was a separate thread for Asian woman was because this had happened before. There were some posters with a preference(some did have a fetish though) for Asian women. So they would post Asian women in the tread. The culture of the message board was a little different back then so by popular vote a thread just for Asian women was made. Once again, thankfully other posters spoke up. The thread was for hot women. The title of the thread only spoke of hot women. It did not specify that those women had to only be White. So the posters with "preferences" were told to make their own hot White women thread if they wanted. They never did, so the topic was dropped.
