Anonymous asked: http://community.livejournal.com/ucb_anoncon/3065.html?view=14558969#t14558969

Lena, above is an anonymous thread full of UC Berkeley students procrastinating for finals. AnonCon (Anonymous Confessions) is put up every semester during finals season. This thread is about Asian girls dating white guys. It's pretty crude. As an Asian girl who has dated white guys, I was pretty irritated after reading it. I wanted to see if you had any opinions.

Reader-submitted inquiries are fun to discuss, but half the time, they make me sad, because they ask me about my opinion on something shitty that happened, and then I feel compelled to bluntly respond, “People are assholes”. Which, let’s face it, a lot of people kind of are. Especially on the Internet.

First of all, before I default to the “people are assholes” explanation, it’s rather telling that this is question is about Asian-White interracial relationships in particular. (Because what about other interracial pairings — don’t they exist?) I was born in the Bay Area/grew up in LA and considered attending Berkeley for a while (until I realized I wanted to get the hell out of California). One of the things that really turned me off about the school was the lack of diversity. At Berkeley, the Black, Hispanic, and Native American population make up 15 percent of the student body combined. And this is a public university in the most diverse state in America. So, before we even get into discussing what a travesty it is that people can’t date who they want to date, we should recognize that there are more pressing issues, like entire groups who are structurally disadvantaged and expected to compete on an uneven playing field (which is never adjusted, because that would be unfair). My public service announcement of the day: we live in a country where we are sold the idea of meritocracy from birth and it is frankly bullshit.

Okay, rant over.

I’ve actually written before on the “Why aren’t you dating an Asian dude?” topic, which gets brought up from time to time and is usually more indicative of other people’s prejudices than my own. When I blogged at Sex and the Ivy, I always used pseudonyms (with varying degrees of success) and it was pretty difficult to figure out who I was actually hooking up with or dating unless you personally knew me. And yet! There were always accusations that I was a self-hating Asian who only dated White dudes. People could just SEE through their computer screens that I was banging Caucasian cock. Clearly, that is what one does at Harvard which is admittedly a land of privilege, the close cousin of whiteness.

But surprise, Harvard is actually really rather diverse, and so is Boston, if you are one of the very few undergrads who are willing to venture beyond Cambridge in search of love, drugs, or authentic Chinese food. There’s a whole world out there, kids! And not all of it is white or rich or concerned with finishing that problem set!

I digress.

My point is that these prejudices are real, and yeah, there are definitely some women (both Asian and not) who refuse to date Asian guys and will only date White guys and will not even consider those who fall on the darker end of the Crayola spectrum. That is shitty and close-minded, and obviously, those people should seriously reconsider how their sexual preferences are socially constructed (because um, they are!) but honestly, anyone that makes assumptions about my entire dating and sexual history based on my current partner is equally close-minded and needs to get a new hobby.

Preferably one that does not involve the Internet.

More burning questions? Ask them here.