Preference.

My ethnicity and citizenship are an inherent part of who I am. I want the person I am with to respect and value both of those as I do hers. That isn't racist. That's reality. Relationships work out best when you date someone for whom you are preferred.

Okay. First of all, this is obviously a response to this post, which seemed to hit a nerve with a lot of people who appear to be making arguments that are, to me, completely unrelated to anything that I said. I've gone back and forth this morning about resurrecting my critical writing skills from university and making a huge long post about the notion of inclusion versus exclusion, and the concept of the Other. I may still do this weekend, because I think this is an issue we are all grappling with being very obvious "Others" here in Korea (some of us for the first time in our lives), and also in coping with the Korean Other and our own notions about that.

But for now, let me just say....

Yes. We all have our preferences when it comes to partners. Obviously. Your preference is for a partner who prefers your race. Which, I'd like to point out, was not what I was addressing -- what I was addressing was your partner preferring you for your race. That aside, my preference is for a partner who does not prefer anyone based on race, most of all me. Those are not my values and those are not the values I want my children raised with. If my daughter were to ever look at me and say something to the effect of, "He's really nice, but I'm just not into Indian guys," I would feel like an utter failure of a parent. And I don't want my partner in bringing up said daughter to be giving her the idea that race has absolutely any bearing whatsoever on a person's value, as a partner, or as a person. Or, for that matter, on their beauty value, which is another huge issue altogether.

That's just my preference.

I have a feeling this won't be the end of this....