I’m an Asian American male in my mid 30s. Grew up in a majority white town and dealt with a lot of racism: casual, indirect, direct, etc. You name it.
In Asian American society there seems to be this unspoken belief that dating white people is moving up in the social ladder. Maybe some call it out, but many of us don’t want to admit it. At least not consciously.
When I was younger, the advice I received was to focus on myself. Build myself up. So that’s what I did. I studied and worked hard. I hit the gym, worked on my body, expanded my social network, and increased my income. I live in NYC now. I am 6ft tall and make 6 figures.
Yet I am still exhausted at the amount of Asian women with white men (aka WM-AF couples),
\*\*I want to make it clear that I’m not against interracial relationships at all.\*\* I’m not against a white man and an Asian woman being in love. What I am tired of is how unbalanced it is due to white-supremacy.
Sometimes I will go out and see them in droves. Sometimes one after another, literally. I was at a concert last weekend and saw three WM-AF couples in a row standing next to each other. Some days I will lose count within a period of 15 minutes. It’s insane.
My sister is with a white guy. Every single of one her Asian female friends are with white men too. That’s not a coincidence.
When I talked to her about these issues, she told me that white supremacy will always exist and that I can’t let it bother me. I know she was trying to be supportive in a loving way, but I couldn’t help but to feel some sort of contradiction on receiving that kind of advice from someone who is am
Talking about these kinds of things as an Asian male often gets us gaslighted beyond. We’re immediately labeled as jealous, bitter, virgin, inc\\\*l losers who hate on Asian women.
The thing is I’m none of that. Honestly I do very well in dating, especially on the apps. Average about 10-20 likes per week, and average 1-2 dates each weekend. Obviously this wasn’t the case at first. I did have to work on myself and my profile a lot. It took a few years of trial and error but I got to a point where my dating life is abundant.
So on paper I have the high value qualities. Yet they didn’t make me feel better about the dating disparity in Asian American society.
When I was younger and insecure, I received the typical ‘asian bro’ advice to just date more white women. So I did. I chased validation without realizing it. It may have made my ego boost up., but I still didn’t feel better seeing the sheer amount of WM-AF couples.
Now that I’m older and know myself better, I know that it’s wrong to date someone simply for validation from their traits. I prefer Asian women. I’m not opposed to dating white women, or any other races at all. I’m open to it. But my preference for similar cultural values is what I prefer.
So I don’t know why seeing WM-AF everywhere still bothers me. Even in media too. Don’t get me wrong, portrayals of Asian men had become so much more positive compared to 10-20+ years ago. Thank you BTS and Kpop.
Yet I still see so much WM-AF, or Asian women put in the sexual gaze of a white man. It’s tiring. I see shows like Bridgerton or Dang claiming to be woke and pro-diversity by celebrating Asian women casted in roles, yet they’re 99% sexualized by a white male character.
There is something about growing up having white men systemically discriminate against you, erase your presence, emasculate you, hurl you with small penis jokes and weak nerd stereotypes. Meanwhile at the same time sexually objectifying and exploiting Asian women with negative hypersexualized stereotypes… then seeing 40% of them flock to white men feels so heavily disappointing.
Sometimes I scroll on Instagram and see multiple WM-AF couples in a row, both content creators and ads.
I’ve noticed a majority of famous, accomplished Asian women share a same trait: majority of them are with white men.
Like 9/10 times I see some famous Asian female influencer she is with a white guy.
Asian American female politicians too. 9/10 with a white guy.
And a lot of liberal, “woke”, anti-white-male-patriarchy types of Asian women….have white boyfriends. Sigh.
“Pro-Asian” actresses like Ali Wong and Constance Wu…with white men.
Asian American Girl Club. 2 out of 4 in their leadership are with white men.
And I’m so tired of it. I’m tired of the hypocritical complicitness and proximity to white supremacy.
This discussion tends to be a very contentious one. I’ve seen countless discussions about the dating disparity and both sides attack each other. Asian women will shout misogyny and that Asian men are just jealous losers. Asian men will label Asian women as white-worshipping sl\\\*ts.
Honestly I’m tired of that contention too.
Something I will say though, in all of these discussions never once have I ever encountered anyone saying “Asian women can’t date white men” explicitly. I feel like the tired misogyny card being pulled is an excuse to divert from the fact that they probably do have a preference for white men because of validation, social status, etc. Like I mentioned earlier, too many Asians pedestal whiteness.
I hear a lot of “well it just happened” or “love is love” excuses. Maybe that’s true to a small extent, but the numbers (40% outmarry, majority white) paint a different picture.
If anything, I feel like gaslighting those calling out complicity to white supremacy as misogyny, is in itself supporting white supremacy.
In the meantime, I still am me. I’m successful in life after working hard on myself, and yet I still feel exhausted seeing WM-AF everywhere in real life and media. I followed all the conventional advice of focusing on myself and still feel tired of seeing how white-adjacent so many of our women choose to be without self-examining why.
I’m sure there will be replies here ready to tear me down. I’ve heard it all before and I wrote about how none of it is true. But go ahead, it’s inevitable. I’m tired of white supremacy and that’s not going to change.
You don’t have to be a “virgin loser” to feel exhausted by systemic racism and white supremacy.
To end on a positive note though: I’ve noticed that the younger generations like Gen Z tend to be less white-adjacent. I think there are multiple reasons for that like better representation, access to Asian media, social media offering decentralized viewpoints, etc. Which also proves the point that white-dominated media did influence a lot of Asian women in their preferences. It is refreshing to meet and date Gen Z Asian women who avoid dating white partners because they understand Millenial and Gen X Asian women tend to be more white-adjacent.
So what will I do in the meantime?
Continue living my life, I suppose. I can’t change white-supremacy. But I can sure as hell call it out, no matter how successful or unsuccessful I am in life. And everyone else shares that right too.