I think there's been this interesting dialogue on Dudesnude about the importance of race in attraction. It's a thread that's been around for a good amount of time and even I have chimed in on the topic. Of course, it's been rather ambivalent responses, frankly because all the details about a Dudesnude member is layed out in the profile. In most cases, you get so much details and specificity about an individual that questioning their tastes or preferences seem moot. At the same time, I give credit that the site always has fewer individuals who put out "NO ASIANS" messages when compared to some of the other more mainstream profile sites.

Of course, a ripple creates waves and I would like to acknowledge that David's been the wonderful beneficiary of a very vibrant dialogue on his own Xanga. Amazingly, there are other white people involving themselves in the conversation! The fear and anxiety faced by many white people when it comes to the topic of racism is the perception that they're standing alone or outside of the mainstream beliefs. In other words, there's this (reasonable) phobia that they'll be demonized and ostracized, not to mention possessing a lack of validity or legitimacy on the topic. Now, that's the faulty belief that I have always wanted to dispel, because our continued dialogue about racism cannot proceed without involving and incorporating white people into our understanding about race and ethnicity as elements to prejudice and discrimination (be it positive or negative).

Perhaps the difficulty in discussing racism is due to simple fact that this is not a science. We personally deal with racism in our own subjective ways...our perspectives influence how we react to others, not to mention how society operates as a whole. The clamoring about the unfairness of rice queens, potato queens, sticky rice queens, or whomever is the misperception that those stereotypes are widespread, immutable, and unquestionable. However, you know from my perspective that we live in a generation where racial preferences are not as commonplace as folks would think (or want); we are beginning to diversify our approach to dating and relationships; we don't accept gay male relationships as this de facto structure to life...a gay Asian or Pacific Islander male does not need to choose between only white or Asian person.

If we extinguish the conversation, then we doom ourselves to perpetually remain in a Column A or Column B mentality. We no longer have that binary mindset about being either straight or gay...so we should not keep our attractions in such an antiquated format either.