SylviaB
Just Bee Yourself 🐝
Australia has robust laws against discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and religion in employment, education, political policy and government services. These wonderful laws have facilitated Australia becoming the vibrant, diverse nation that it is today.
However, one pernicious form of racial discrimination has become completely normalised in this country, and the psychological and emotion toll it has exacted on Australia's disadvantaged minority groups is truly staggering and defies comprehension.
What form of discrimination, you ask? Dating discrimination.
Every day in Australia, men from diverse backgrounds pursue romantic relationships with white australian women, who are not only a majority of the female population of Australia, but are also the women that our systematically racist white supremacist culture exalts as the ideal standard of beauty. They’re precisely the women these men are told to desire, who they’ve told they should pursue.
Putting aside the oppressive nature of these beauty standards and the marginalisation of Australian women of colour, one would expect in an otherwise healthy and functional multicultural society, the pursuit of these relationships should be a positive thing, with interracial, inter-cultural and inter-faith relationships benefiting from the effects of diversity at a personal level and breeding a level of cultural mixing and cross-pollination that
While also letting otherwise disenfranchised minority men know that they’re valuable and desired, which is crucial for these underrepresented groups grappling with the burdens of a Eurocentric, discriminatory society.
Nothing, however, could not be further from the truth.
The repeated message coming from the lived experience of these minority men is that, when it comes to dating in Australia, “Non-white men need not apply” is the de facto status quo.
Dating as a non-white man is reported to be an enormously frustrating and demoralising, perhaps even dehumanising, experience. Brazen ethnic discrimination that would be unthinkable in a modern workplace or educational setting is ‘business as usual’ when it comes to romance in Australia, where non-white men are treated as second-class citizens, and their sincere and commendable desire for love and connection with white Australian women is treated as an impertinent imposition on these women by men who ought to know their place, that is, decidedly beneath these women and the white men they typically date.
Men from muslim backgrounds are often faced with a double burden, being penalised by the dating market for not only their ethnicity but also their religion, with many of them experiencing severe psychological distress at the fact that their sacredly held beliefs would be effectively subject to vicious attack by these women who would deny them their chance at love because of them. This is a deeply disrespectful and hurtful state of affairs, but one completely normalised by oppressive Australian society.
It doesn’t matter that these minority men are often smarter, more progressive, more compassionate and more morally virtuous than white Australian men, and therefore, if anything, more deserving of affection. No, in Australia, it might as well be 1930s Germany given the enormous premium given to whiteness in dating. The effect of this discrimination is often devastating, both at the individual level, with minority men suffering severe harm to their mental health and sense of personal worth, as well as at a societal level, with a lack of cultural inter-mixing and all too many white people reproducing with other white people instead of making Australia more diverse and multicultural.
Dating apps like Tinder have noted this sad reality and have made some modicum of effort towards raising awareness of this injustice. However, without empowerment by the legislature and law enforcement agencies, these efforts are necessarily going to be limited in effect (as well as the fact that the extent of these efforts are limited by the fear of racist backlash from angry white men who sadly hold all too much power in Australian society).
It's simply the case that policymakers must start treating this reality for what it is: unacceptable racial discrimination.
The women in question, when pressed, will often hide behind the idea of this being merely a case of “racial preference”, “individual choice” or “cultural affinity”. But we must recognise that these are just weaponised rationalisations for racism that have more in common with fascist ideology than modern progressive democracy.
Agencies must be given the power to investigate and prosecute this discrimination the way any other act of racial discrimination in Australian society can be and is. Women must learn to fear the consequences for their bigotry so that it can be stamped out, and a fairer, more equal future can be built for everyone.
However, one pernicious form of racial discrimination has become completely normalised in this country, and the psychological and emotion toll it has exacted on Australia's disadvantaged minority groups is truly staggering and defies comprehension.
What form of discrimination, you ask? Dating discrimination.
Every day in Australia, men from diverse backgrounds pursue romantic relationships with white australian women, who are not only a majority of the female population of Australia, but are also the women that our systematically racist white supremacist culture exalts as the ideal standard of beauty. They’re precisely the women these men are told to desire, who they’ve told they should pursue.
Putting aside the oppressive nature of these beauty standards and the marginalisation of Australian women of colour, one would expect in an otherwise healthy and functional multicultural society, the pursuit of these relationships should be a positive thing, with interracial, inter-cultural and inter-faith relationships benefiting from the effects of diversity at a personal level and breeding a level of cultural mixing and cross-pollination that
While also letting otherwise disenfranchised minority men know that they’re valuable and desired, which is crucial for these underrepresented groups grappling with the burdens of a Eurocentric, discriminatory society.
Nothing, however, could not be further from the truth.
The repeated message coming from the lived experience of these minority men is that, when it comes to dating in Australia, “Non-white men need not apply” is the de facto status quo.
Dating as a non-white man is reported to be an enormously frustrating and demoralising, perhaps even dehumanising, experience. Brazen ethnic discrimination that would be unthinkable in a modern workplace or educational setting is ‘business as usual’ when it comes to romance in Australia, where non-white men are treated as second-class citizens, and their sincere and commendable desire for love and connection with white Australian women is treated as an impertinent imposition on these women by men who ought to know their place, that is, decidedly beneath these women and the white men they typically date.
Men from muslim backgrounds are often faced with a double burden, being penalised by the dating market for not only their ethnicity but also their religion, with many of them experiencing severe psychological distress at the fact that their sacredly held beliefs would be effectively subject to vicious attack by these women who would deny them their chance at love because of them. This is a deeply disrespectful and hurtful state of affairs, but one completely normalised by oppressive Australian society.
It doesn’t matter that these minority men are often smarter, more progressive, more compassionate and more morally virtuous than white Australian men, and therefore, if anything, more deserving of affection. No, in Australia, it might as well be 1930s Germany given the enormous premium given to whiteness in dating. The effect of this discrimination is often devastating, both at the individual level, with minority men suffering severe harm to their mental health and sense of personal worth, as well as at a societal level, with a lack of cultural inter-mixing and all too many white people reproducing with other white people instead of making Australia more diverse and multicultural.
Dating apps like Tinder have noted this sad reality and have made some modicum of effort towards raising awareness of this injustice. However, without empowerment by the legislature and law enforcement agencies, these efforts are necessarily going to be limited in effect (as well as the fact that the extent of these efforts are limited by the fear of racist backlash from angry white men who sadly hold all too much power in Australian society).
It's simply the case that policymakers must start treating this reality for what it is: unacceptable racial discrimination.
The women in question, when pressed, will often hide behind the idea of this being merely a case of “racial preference”, “individual choice” or “cultural affinity”. But we must recognise that these are just weaponised rationalisations for racism that have more in common with fascist ideology than modern progressive democracy.
Agencies must be given the power to investigate and prosecute this discrimination the way any other act of racial discrimination in Australian society can be and is. Women must learn to fear the consequences for their bigotry so that it can be stamped out, and a fairer, more equal future can be built for everyone.
why is this even a discussion
