There's a clear difference between sex and race when it comes to, um, sex. Conflating the two doesn't make much sense in this instance.
In this post and your next one you present an argument for why discriminating on the basis of sex is more rational than discriminating on the basis of race in terms of who you are attracted to. You seem to think that I was arguing that discrimination on the basis of sex is exactly like discrimination on the basis of race when it comes to picking romantic and/or sexual partners. Perhaps I was unclear due to brevity but that's not what I intended to say at all.
My point was that we should refrain from judging people for having racial preferences in who they want to date for the same reason that we should refrain from judging people for having sexual/gender preferences in who they want to date: because nobody really controls who they are attracted to, because attraction is a very personal thing that is based on a whole host of factors, some less rational than others, because there is no basis for saying that any particular set of sexual preferences is "right", and because saying that people ought to be attracted to people who they aren't just leads to alienation and unnecessary grief.
All of these preferences probably meet the technical definition of various forms of discrimination, but the words we have for those types of discriminations (rightfully) imply a certain moral judgment about the person being described which I think is inappropriate in this instance.
What I do object to is conflating sex and race when it comes to questions of sex. The previous claim, which I objected to, was that there's no difference between a sex preference in dating and a race preference in dating. That's definitely not true, for the reasons I've outlined twice now.
Personally, I agree with you - a race preference in sexual attraction is not something you really have control over, any more than most other sexual preferences.
Hint: one of these attributes has a practical purpose in the perpetuation of human society, and the other does not.
It seems to me that the same principle of equality that says it's not ok to have a preference in partners based on race should say that it's not ok to have a preference based on gender, assuming that discrimination based on gender in general is not ok.
This is the logical consequence of the position that discrimination is not acceptable. Your first attempt to show the difference, based on procreation, was a failure, so you're reduced to calling the next logical step "ridiculous," which is not really an argument. I don't think there is a good argument for your position. 20 years ago, people would have said that the idea that not dating people of a particular race makes you racist was ridiculous, but here we are.
Applying the "principle of equality" with a total disregard for the facts is fallacious.
Why stop at race and gender? Why do we discriminate against corpses (necrophiliacs) or even different species (zoophilia)? This is the ridiculous argument you are presenting.
A line has to be drawn somewhere and the tone of your skin should be a far less compelling characteristic than gender.
It looks like you've arbitrarily decided where the cutoff should be between acceptable discrimination and unacceptable discrimination. There are others who still think (as almost everybody did from about the 60s-90s) that the line should be drawn entirely outside of dating preferences. I don't see what makes your opinion any more binding than theirs.
The problem with your argument is that the high percentage of females refusing to associate with different races (even their own race) is essentially dictating who other people have sex with.
What happens if this trend continues? A large portion of the male population will likely either die out as virgins or be forced to relegate themselves to a dwindling number of minority females.
I'm not trying to pull the race card, but you as a white male are likely not very concerned about this as it will not affect you in the slightest while minorities are worrying daily about how their dating prospects and why so many people simply ignore them.
Sorry, but your posts come off as really creepy and strange. I hope you realize that no one has a right to sex with anyone else, whether a particular person or a member of any arbitrary group? How do you propose solving this "problem" of women apparently being relatively less interested in non-white men?
So you are going to vote me down for citing a statistic?
I never talked about forcing anyone to date a race they don't like.
The first part of solving a problem is admitting there's a problem. Ignoring racism is part of the problem.
As a better example, I'm not interested in dating women who are old, ugly, fat, or have children, and that's perfectly okay. If I were not interested in hiring women who were old, ugly, fat or have children then I'd have a serious lawsuit on my hands.
Now personally, I think that refusing to date someone based on their race is both regrettable and closed-minded, but it's not detestable the way that actual racism is.
If you looked at the other OkCupid chart, it shows that race has little impact on interracial match %. It's fairly certain that "old, ugly, fat, have children" are all characteristics that would lower the match %, therefore you argument of equating these different traits is debunked.
Your bit about hiring is also suspect. Think about 50+ years ago when minorities such as blacks really weren't up to standard due to years of slavery and persecution. Back then it was also seen as "legitimate" (using your argument) to not hire black people in the same way that people aren't dating minorities today.
>"Now personally, I think that refusing to date someone based on their race is both regrettable and closed-minded, but it's not detestable the way that actual racism is."
What is this "actual" racism? Since when is there "actual" racism and "fake" racism? I'm amazed at how many upvotes you have received with what is basically a No true Scotsman fallacy comment.
I think you need to look up how their "match %" is computed. It was described in an earlier post on that blog.
"All OkCupid users create their own matching algorithms, so when we determine who matches who, we’re just crunching the numbers people give us."
Aspects like age/location can be included as part of the user matching algorithms if it is important to them. Overweight/has kids/ugly should be equally spread out between races and should not be dependent on race, especially only after the first message.
Therefore match % is basically everything except race that is important to the user.
Were there to be some activity where your melanin levels were critical (hard to think of a realistic one, but say you were going to be sent on a space journey where extra melanin would be a grave disadvantage nutritionally) then race (or really, skin color - I can't even think of a ridiculous example for race) would be extremely relevant. In that instance, discrimination based on skin color would make perfect sense whereas discrimination based on sex would not have any such obvious connection.
Does it make sense now?