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ABSTRACT
This study examines the construction of racial ideology in the discourses on romantic interracial relationships. Through a critical discourse analysis of online comments, I show how neoliberalism is adopted in ordinary sense-making about racialized dating practices, and how it motivates boundary work at the public-private divide. Boundary work defines the acceptable values and practices within dating life and correspondingly gives rise to colorboundness, an explicit defense of race as an acceptable category for exclusion. Colorboundness prompts a deeper understanding of how colorblind ideology accommodates tensions and contradictions and yet remains the dominant form of racial ideology.
Notes
1 Erica Childs, "Listening to the Interracial Canary: Contemporary Views on Interracial Relationships Among Blacks and Whites," Fordham Law Review 76, no. 6 (2008): 2771-2786; Roland G. Fryer Jr., "Guess Who's Been Coming To Dinner? Trends in Interracial Marriage Over the 20th Century," Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, no. 2 (2007): 71-90; Luca Paulo Merlino, Max Friedrich Steinhardt, and Liam Wren-Lewis, "More Than Just Friends? School Peers and Adult Interracial Relationships," Journal of Labor Economics 37, no. 3 (2019): 663-713; George Yancey, "Who Interracially Dates: An Examination of the Characteristics of Those who have Interracially Dated," Journal of Comparative Family Studies 33, no. 2 (2002): 179-190.
2 Gretchen Livingston and Anna Brown, Intermarriage in the U.S. 50 Years After Loving v. Virginia, (Pew Research Center, May 18, 2017), https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/2-public-views-on-intermarriage/; Frank Newport, “In U.S., 87% Approve of Black-White Marriage, vs. 4% in 1958,” Gallup, July 25, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx.
3 Ken-Hou Lin and Jennifer Lundquist, "Mate Selection in Cyberspace: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Education," American Journal of Sociology 119, no. 1 (2013): 183-215; Miri Song, "Is Intermarriage a Good Indicator of Integration?" Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35, no. 2 (2009): 331-348.
4 Matthew H. Rafalow, Cynthia Feliciano, and Belinda Robnett, "Racialized Femininity and Masculinity in the Preferences of Online Same-sex Daters," Social Currents 4, no. 4 (2017): 306-321; James A. Bany, Belinda Robnett, and Cynthia Feliciano, “Gendered Black Exclusion: The Persistence of Racial Stereotypes Among Daters," Race and Social Problems 6, no. 3 (2014): 201-213; Cynthia Feliciano, Belinda Robnett, and Golnaz Komaie, "Gendered Racial Exclusion Among White Internet Daters," Social Science Research 38, no. 1 (2009): 39-54; Chong-suk Han, "Being an Oriental, I could Never be Completely a Man: Gay Asian Men and the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class," Race, Gender & Class 13, no. 3-4 (2006): 82-97; Melissa R. Herman and Mary E. Campbell, "I Wouldn’t, But You Can: Attitudes Toward Interracial Relationships," Social Science Research 41, no. 2 (2012): 343-358; Shana Levin, Pamela Taylor, and Elena Caudle, "Interethnic and Interracial Dating in College: A Longitudinal study," Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 24, no. 3 (2007): 323-341; Karen Pyke, "An Intersectional Approach to Resistance and Complicity: The Case of Racialised Desire Among Asian American Women," Journal of Intercultural Studies 31, no. 1 (2010): 81-94; Glenn Tsunokai, Allison McGrath, and Jillian Kavanagh. "Online Dating Preferences of Asian Americans," Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 31, no. 6 (2014): 796-814.
5 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 11; Ivar Krumpal, "Determinants of Social Desirability Bias in Sensitive Surveys: A Literature Review," Quality & Quantity 47, no. 4 (2013): 2027-2028.
6 Yanyi K. Djamba and Sitawa R. Kimuna, "Are Americans Really in Favor of Interracial Marriage? A Closer Look at When They Are Asked About Black-White Marriage for Their Relatives," Journal of Black Studies 45, no. 6 (2014): 540-542.
7 Christian Rudder, “How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get,” OkTrends: The Official Blog of OkCupid.com, October 5, 2009, https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html.
8 Randall Kennedy, Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 32.
9 The term “colorblind,” replete in CRT and critiques of racial ideology, would be better served with language that does not rely on dis/ability metaphors. Subini et al., suggest “color-evasiveness” as a more expansive term that scholars might adopt to acknowledge the intersections of racism and ableism and, ultimately, engage in stronger critiques of dominant ideologies. See Subini Ancy Annamma, Darrell D. Jackson, and Deb Morrison, "Conceptualizing Color-evasiveness: Using Dis/Ability Critical Race Theory to Expand a Color-blind Racial Ideology in Education and Society,” Race Ethnicity and Education 20, no. 2 (2017): 147-162.
10 Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists,2-8.
11 Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists, 3.
12 Philomena Essed and David Goldberg, Race Critical Theories: Text and Context, (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 4.
13 Patricia J. Williams, Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race, (New York: The Noonday Press, 1997), 5.
14 Ruth Gavison, "Feminism and the Public/Private Distinction," Standford Law Review 45, no. 1(1992): 19-20.
15 Gavison, "Feminism and the Public/Private Distinction," 19-20.
16 See, for example, Denton Callander, Martin Holt, and Christy E. Newman, "Just a Preference: Racialised Language in the Sex-Seeking Profiles of Gay and Bisexual Men," Culture, Health & Sexuality 14, no. 9 (2012): 1050; Brandon Andrew Robinson, “‘Personal Preference’ as the New Racism: Gay Desire and Racial Cleansing in Cyberspace,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1, no. 2 (2015): 317-330; Emerich Daroya, "‘Not Into Chopsticks or Curries’: Erotic Capital and the Psychic Life of Racism on Grindr," in The Psychic Life of Racism in Gay Men's Communities, ed. Damien W. Riggs (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017): 67; Chong-suk Han, "Being an Oriental.”
17 Denton Callander, Martin Holt and Christy E. Newman, "Just a Preference,” 1050.
18 Robinson, “‘Personal Preference’ as the New Racism,” 319.
19 Sharon P. Holland, The Erotic Life of Racism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), 42.
20 Ibid. 9.
21 Ibid. 9.
22 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “‘Racists,’ ‘Class Anxieties,’ Hegemonic Racism, and Democracy in Trump’s America,” Social Currents 6, no. 1 (2019): 21. See also Ashley Doane, "Beyond Color-blindness:(Re) Theorizing Racial Ideology," Sociological Perspectives 60, no. 5 (2017): 975-991; Alex Manning, Douglas Hartmann, and Joseph Gerteis, "Colorblindness in Black and White: An Analysis of Core Tenets, Configurations, and Complexities," Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1, no. 4 (2015): 542-546.
23 James Paul Gee, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 12-29; Teun Van Dijk, Ideology and Discourse: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, (Barcelona: Pompeu Fabra University, 2000), http://www.discourses.org/UnpublishedArticles/Ideology%20and%20discourse.pdf.
24 Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London: SAGE, 2001), 2.
25 Van Dijk, Ideology and Discourse.
26 Ibid.
27 See examples: Danielle Every and Martha Augoustinos, "Constructions of Racism in the Australian Parliamentary Debates on Asylum Seekers," Discourse & Society 18, no. 4 (2007): 411-436; Peter Teo, "Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers," Discourse & Society 11, no. 1 (2000): 7-49; Teun Van Dijk, "Denying Racism: Elite Discourse and Racism," Discourse and Society 3, no. 1 (1992): 87-118.
28 See examples: Marthat Augoustinos, Keith Tuffin, and Danielle Every, "New Racism, Meritocracy and Individualism: Constraining Affirmative Action in Education," Discourse & Society 16, no. 3 (2005): 315-340; Ruth Wodak and Bernd Matouschek, “‘We Are Dealing With People Whose Origins One Can Clearly Tell Just By Looking’: Critical Discourse Analysis and the Study of Neo-racism in Contemporary Austria," Discourse & Society 4, no. 2 (1993): 225-248.
29 Ruth Wodak, "Critical Discourse Analysis at the End of the 20th Century," Research on Language & Social Interaction 32, no. 1-2 (1999): 186; Markus Rheindorf, Revisiting the Toolbox of Discourse Studies: New Trajectories in Methodology, Open Data, and Visualization (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2019), 1.
30 Gee, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis; Wodak, "Critical Discourse Analysis," 186-87; Teun Van Dijk, “Critical Discourse Analysis,” in Handbook of Discourse Analysis, 2nd ed., ed. Debora Tannen, Heidi Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin. (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 466-485; Van Dijk, Ideology and Discourse.
31 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists, 25-49.
32 Teun Van Dijk, "Discourse and the Denial of Racism," Discourse & Society 3, no. 1 (1992): 87-118.
33 Van Dijk, Ideology and Discourse, 43-60.
34 Ibid., 43, 87
35 Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology,” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3, no. 2 (2006): 77-101.
36 Rudder, “How Your Race Affects the Messages.” This article is no longer available on the OkCupid blog but can be found here: https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html. 450 out of 1557 comments were analyzed.
37 Kat Chow and Elise Hu, “Odds Favor White Men, Asian Women On Dating App,” November 30, 2013, in NPR: Code Switch, podcast, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/11/30/247530095/are-you-interested-dating-odds-favor-white-men-asian-women. NPR.org removed online comment forums on August 23, 2016. 63 out of 202 comments were analyzed.
38 Reihan Salam, “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html. 100 out of 2079 comments were analyzed
39 Enid Lynette Logan, “At this Defining Moment": Barack Obama's Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race, (New York: New York University Press: 2011), 13; Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “The Structure of Racism in Color-blind, ‘Post-racial’ America,” American Behavioral Scientist 59, no. 11, (2015): 1358-1376.
40 Jaime Loke, "Public Expressions of Private Sentiments: Unveiling the Pulse of Racial Tolerance Through Online News Readers' Comments," Howard Journal of Communications 23, no. 3 (2012): 235-252; Jaime Loke, "Readers Debate a Local Murder Trial: ‘Race’ in the Online Public Sphere," Communication, Culture and Critique 6, no. 1 (2013): 179-200.
41 Bill Reader, "Free Press vs. Free Speech? The Rhetoric of ‘Civility’ in Regard to Anonymous Online Comments," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 89, no. 3 (2012):509; Matthew W. Hughey and Jessie Daniels, "Racist Comments at Online News Sites: A Methodological Dilemma for Discourse Analysis," Media, Culture & Society 35, no. 3 (2013): 335-336.
42 John Suler, "The Online Disinhibition Effect," Cyberpsychology & Behavior 7, no. 3 (2004): 321; Helen Smith, Alpaslan Bulbul, and Christina J. Jones, “Can Online Discussion Sites Generate Quality Data for Research Purposes?” Frontiers in Public Health 5, (2017): 156.
43 Matthew W. Hughey and Jessie Daniels, "Racist Comments at Online News Sites: A Methodological Dilemma for Discourse Analysis," Media, Culture & Society 35, no. 3 (2013): 332-347.
44 Annette Markham and Elizabeth Buchanan, Ethical Decision-making and Internet Research: Recommendations From the AoIR Ethics Working Committee, (Association of Internet Researchers, 2012), https://aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf; Rebecca Eynon, Jenny Fry, and Ralph Schroeder, "The Ethics of Internet Research,” in Sage Internet Research Methods, ed. Jason Hughes (Los Angeles: SAGE: 2008): 279-304.
45 Stuart Hall and Alan O'shea, "Common-sense Neoliberalism," Soundings 55, (2013): 9-25; David Harvey, "Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610, no. 1 (2007): 21-44; Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction, (London: Oxford University Press, 2010); Dag Einar Thorsen, "The Neoliberal Challenge. What is Neoliberalism?" Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 2, no. 2 (2010): 188-214.
46 Lisa Duggan, "The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism,” in Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics, eds. Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press: 2002), 175-194; Harvey, "Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction."
47 Henry A. Giroux, "The Terror of Neoliberalism: Rethinking the Significance of Cultural Politics,” College Literature 32, no.1 (2005): 2; Henry Giroux, “Spectacles of Race and Pedagogies of Denial: Anti-black Racist Pedagogy Under the Reign of Neoliberalism," Communication Education 52, no. 3-4 (2003): 195-196.
48 IndyNC, reply to “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html.
49 Gomezzzx, reply to “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html.
50 Bill Brice, reply to “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html.
51 Patrick Thompson, reply to “Odds Favor White Men, Asian Women on Dating App,” NPR, November 30, 2013, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/11/30/247530095/are-you-interested-dating-odds-favor-white-men-asian-women.
52 Frankly, reply to “How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get,” OkCupid, October 5, 2009, https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html.
53 Lisa Rosenthal and Marci Lobel, “Stereotypes of Black American Women Related to Sexuality and Motherhood,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 40, no. 3 (2016): 416.
54 Van Dijk, “Discourse and the Denial of Racism.”
55 Elizabeth Ault, "Nightmares of Neoliberalism: Performing Failure on Hell Date," Spectator, 31, no. 2 (2011): 45-52; Steger and Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction.
56 Van Dijk, “Discourse and the Denial of Racism.”
57 Glenn T. Tsunokai, Allison R. Mcgrath, and Jillian K. Kavanagh, “Online Dating Preferences of Asian Americans,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 31, no. 6 (2014): 796–814; Chong-suk Han, “Being an Oriental”; Emerich Daroya, "‘Not Into Chopsticks or Curries.”
58 Michèle Lamont and Virág Molnár, "The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences," Annual Review of Sociology 28, no. 1 (2002): 168.
59 Murdock9000, reply to “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html.
60 HeatheCliffe, reply to “How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get,” OkCupid, October 5, 2009, https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html.
61 Soctratethekid, reply to “How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get,” OkCupid, October 5, 2009, https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html.
62 yourmothersir, reply to “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html.
63 Martha Augoustinos and Danielle Every, "The Language of ‘Race’ and Prejudice: A Discourse of Denial, Reason, and Liberal-Practical Politics," Journal of Language and Social Psychology 26, no. 2 (2007): 126; Van Dijk, "Discourse and the Denial of Racism."
64 Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists; Van Dijk, "Discourse and the Denial of Racism."
65 Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists.
66 Purple, reply to “Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes,” Slate, April 22, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/okcupid-and-race-is-it-racist-to-date-only-people-of-your-own-race.html.
67 Ibid.
68 DevilsChild, reply to “How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get,” OkCupid, October 5, 2009, https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html.
69 Hall and O'shea, "Common-sense Neoliberalism," 9-10.
70 Dan, reply to “How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get,” OkCupid, October 5, 2009, https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html.
71 Norman Fairclough, "‘Political Correctness': The Politics of Culture and Language," Discourse & Society 14, no. 1 (2003): 17-28.
72 Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2009), 37.
73 Norman Fairclough argues that, while the PC label is critical of cultural politics (e.g., naming practices where adult females are referred to as “women” not “girls”), it is decidedly uncritical of other troubling cultural shifts such as naming practices where bank accounts are re-labelled as “financial products,” or students in public education are referred to as “consumers.” See Norman Fairclough, “‘Political Correctness.’”
74 Bonilla-Silva, “‘Racists,’ ‘Class Anxieties,’ Hegemonic Racism,” 21.
75 Ibid.
76 Ruth Wodak, "‘The boundaries of what can be said have shifted’: An expert interview with Ruth Wodak (questions posed by Andreas Schulz)," Discourse & Society 31, no. 2 (2020): 235-244,
77 Richard Delgado, When Equality Ends: Stories About Race and Resistance (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 41.
78 Giroux, "Spectacles of Race,” 191-211; Dana-Ain Davis, "Narrating the Mute: Racializing and Racism in a Neoliberal Moment," Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 9, no. 4 (2007): 346-360; Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 3rd Ed. (New York: Routledge, 2015), 55.