Dating and the Race Question
Early on in Vooji’s development I decided to eliminate ‘race’ as a piece of metadata.
The first and most obvious reason for doing so is that it doesn’t mean anything. Ask a scientist and most, accepting a few dressed like ghosts, will tell you that the concepts of nationality and race were deliberately backed with dubious ’science’ in the 1900’s and promoted for political reasons. The British wanted to be biologically different from the people they colonized so badly they made it a “fact”.
Over time the fine-grained races beloved of phrenologists and YouTube commenters have faded into black, white, yellow, brown and red, which are still silly when you begin to examine them. Vague tendencies in groups don’t define race. I.e. if you say “Africans are more prone to Sickle Cell Anemia” are African’s without that gene not Black? Of course not, but what is “blackness?” If it’s a skintone and a manner of being then Colin Powell’s not black. If it’s a birthplace there are no blacks in America. If it’s a way of thinking what’s up with Condoleeza Rice? If it’s about curly hair – c’mon. Seriously? Let’s talk about Jerry Seinfeld. As soon as you start trying to write rules for racial classification you discover we all inhabit races of one.
Then there’s the social issue. If racism is defined as making decisions about individual based on assumptions about groups, just mentioning race is harmful. We all have inbuilt acquired stereotypes and fighting them is what keeps us decent. People who say “I’m no racist, I’m just not attracted to…” are racists by definition, while guys who don’t consider themselves as “down with the brown”, but would have no problem dating Halle Berry or the female lead in Slumdog Millionaire are confused. Am I doing anyone a favor by making it easy for their assumptions to ruin their chances of meeting someone great? Am I doing anyone a favor by putting them in a ghetto based on other people’s assumptions?
Finally there’s practicality. Even if you think race is real, as it’s a label people give themselves you’re a victim of their whims. You, and I, can choose to be any race I desire. Asking one person to define it as you see it is wishful thinking.
So there won’t be any racial categories on Vooji. Let me know if you’re somehow offended…
I’m all for a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction.
I mean you’re using video from the outset so it’s still going to be fairly easy for me to find the hot indian girl of my dreams. So if you want to take the label off, sure, why not?
@Dan – Kudos
@Riley Ray – You’ll be able to search for Indian, if someone chooses to label themselves that way, you just won’t be able to pull up a list of racial categories (or eye colors, or star signs) and filter that way. People can choose to label themselves or not and I suspect most won’t.