Red States Top List For Online Interracial Dating
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The 2012 election heats up to a frenzy as the country
is divided between red and blue states, conservative and liberal. vBut
the personal may not always be the political, based on recent data
released by InterracialDating.com, an online dating service that
specializes in connecting people who choose "character above color."
It
turns out that some of the reddest of red states have the highest number
seeking interracial relationships. Ten out of the site's top 20 states
with the most populous members have historically voted Republican over
the past five presidential elections.
States like Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana and Indiana
historically vote Republican and tend to be socially conservative--not
exactly fertile ground for people openly and un-apologetically stating
their non-conformist dating preferences. Most of these states vehemently
opposed interracial marriage during the riotous Civil Rights era, with Alabama,
the last holdout, formally legalizing it as late as the year 2000.
"The
high interest in interracial dating might be a surprise because of a
perceived disapproval of interracial relationships in the Deep South
where racial tensions seem deeply ingrained in the psyche and culture of
the people who live there," says Christelyn D. Karazin, co-author of
"Swirling: How to Date, Mate, and Relate, Mixing Race, Culture and
Creed," and publisher for the popular interracial dating blog, Beyond
Black & White.
Karazin recently appeared on CNN's "HLN Weekend Express with Natasha Curry"
discussing historically "swirl-friendly" areas most accepting of
interracial couples. Predictably, these places were along typically
liberal coastal cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle with pockets of swirl-friendly places in the Midwest and the western portion of Texas. So are people in red states too socially conservative to widely accept interracial relationships?
Laura Noble, 46, a black woman who lives in Virginia
(Number 8 on the list) says, "As a black conservative, I posit that the
media has a vested interest in portraying all conservatives as racists
and all liberals as open-minded when in my experience, that is not the
truth. I think that many conservatives
are stereo-typically misrepresented in their interest of other races,
and their geographic location may be more racially homogeneous,
therefore if they want to date outside their race, they need to do it
online."
This new data may indicate that there's a higher interest in
interracial dating in red states than is perceived on the surface
because of it's anonymity and ubiquitousness. "The demand is there
because it might be harder for people to gauge who might be open to
dating interracially," says Rob Thompson,
founder of InterracialDating.com. "Online dating gives people the
ability to seek out like-minded people more easily than it would be face
to face."
Shaun Brown, 26, of Richmond, Virginia, plans to vote for Mitt Romney on November 6.
He's white, his girlfriend is black. Brown thinks that the legacy of
slavery, fear and mistrust keeps people in Southern (and historically
red) states from openly expressing their interest in interracial dating.
"The media narrative for the past 40-50 years is that all conservatives
care about themselves and their white friends and don't like black
people. We're drilled from grade school and beyond that as a white
person, your people oppressed black people. It makes you a bit reluctant
to approach a woman for fear that you might be rejected. With online
dating, you don't have that fear or anxiety of wondering if you ask a
girl out on a date she would say, 'Oh no I could never date you because
you're white."
*State rankings based on member registrations since 2008.
