In John Mayer's Defense, You May Be Racist, Too

John Mayer, the singer

I'm going to give John Mayer a break.

In a recent interview with Playboy, the pop musician not only used the "N-word," but proceeded to explain his preference for dating white women in the crudest way possible, calling his penis a "white supremacist" and comparing it to David Duke. It was a truly spectacular display of idiocy that has been reprinted, analyzed, and roundly condemned in print and online.

Instead of focusing on the way he expressed himself, I'm going to concentrate only on his underlying message. Because, in his defense, Mayer is not the first person to see no racism in the fact that he only finds himself romantically attracted to a certain race.

But if this isn't racism at work, what is it?

It's subconscious racism.

I concede that the preference toward one race — or against another — in the dating arena hardly feels racially motivated. It's a simple question of attraction, which is such a mixed bag that we generally don't try to dissect it. There's no accounting for taste, so we don't bother trying to account for it, whether that taste is for a certain height, build or ethnic makeup.

But dismissing it so easily begs a question, because our preferences come from somewhere. And when someone expresses romantic attractions that prevent them from seriously considering members of certain ethnicities as romantic partners, it's worth wondering whether racial stereotypes and acceptance of a single standard of beauty drive such dating behaviors.

Call it the soft bigotry of no invitations. When we find ourselves inexplicably unwilling to date certain ethnicities, racism is likely to blame.

I understand the argument that this shouldn't be called racism. If there is a sphere of sanctity where our preferences can be purely personal and have no larger political ramifications, it seems like that sphere should exist around our bedrooms. Even so, it seems overly simplistic to ignore racial preferences just because romantic attraction is involved.

This isn't to say that a person is automatically a racist if he or she never dated interracially; nor does it mean that a person who dates interracially is automatically self-loathing.

But where there is a pattern, we have to be willing to ask ourselves why.

"Why do I find myself only attracted to this race?" or "Why do I find myself never attracted to this race?"

"Why have I never been attracted to a member of a particular race, or, even when I have been attracted to members a particular race, why have I never acted on that attraction?"

And a quick note to Mayer and others who have taken this tack: Identifying very attractive members of a race and citing your attraction to them as proof that you find members of that race attractive completely misses the point. Please don't appeal to Kerry Washington, Holly Robinson Peete and Karyn Parsons when you want to prove you're attracted to black women. Everyone is attracted to those black women. That's like being accused of not buying American cars and countering that you're willing to drive a Cadillac. Talk to me when you find yourself in a Buick.

Simply put, we need to be willing to honestly ask ourselves, "Are my dating preferences being influenced by preconceived notions about race?"

The next step is the hard part.

We have to be willing to accept that the answer to this question will most likely be yes. The worst thing about institutionalized racism (and there are some pretty bad things about institutionalized racism) is that people don't have to be racist in order to be influenced by it.

The most racially conscious, progressive person living in America is still a product of a culture that perpetuates negative stereotypes about people of color, embraces a white standard of beauty, and communicates discomfort through a number of different mediums with interracial relationships.

It is difficult to ignore all of these influences, and so it is unrealistic to believe they don't affect our attraction in social situations. Chances are, we've all internalized them to some extent and they have an affect on us — and on who we date.

Maya Rupert is an attorney in downtown Los Angeles. She has previously contributed to the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as other publications. Her column explores issues of race, gender, and politics and appears in the L.A. Watts Times regularly. She can be reached at maya.rupert@gmail.com.

Photo from www.johnmayer.com.

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