Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 125 posts

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#61

Post by petercooper »

henrikschroder wrote: post #51
petercooper wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, if race-specific dating sites aren't offensive to you (and to me, they ARE) then why not race-specific bars? Or race-specific public transport? But there are plenty of dating sites that are exclusively targeted to gay men or lesbian women. If you think that race segregating dating sites are bad, then what are dating sites that segregate on sexual orientation? Are they also bad? No, because dating is entirely a…

If one has a personal preference, that's OK to exercise passively, but holing yourself up in a segregated community is rather anachronistic. You clearly do not belong to any minority, because if you did, you would understand how incredibly nice it is to be in an environment where you're not. A lot of people that belong to a minority clearly see value in services that target their niche, and it's very difficult to exp…

You clearly do not belong to any minority

Unless you're demographically perfect in some way, everyone belongs to a minority in some way or another. I'm a rare southerner in a northern town - I don't want to socialize with "other" southerners, because that has nothing to do with my identity. I don't see a need to fraternize with people who are "like" me, beyond sharing a language and them not being religious nutcases.

The niche dating sites we were discussing aren't discriminating, they're targeting a niche, and that has to be ok.

Even when they say things like "exclusively for black people" (e.g. http://allblackdating.com/)?

Some people likes blondes. Some people like brunettes. Some people like black hair. Is that bad?

You can exercise preferences within open systems. It doesn't require discriminatory silos. The concept of a dating site "exclusively for blondes" is as ridiculous as a dating site "exclusively for whites." If you have preferences (and, sure, we all do) you can filter and exercise those within larger, non discriminatory systems like OKCupid.

Some people like whites, some people like blacks, some people like asians. Is that bad? Is that racism?

Often. If I didn't want to hire an Asian because I didn't "like Asians", that would be racist. If I didn't like a particular Asian for some reason, that's not (necessarily) racist.

I understand that people might have preferences on the race of people they date, but closing their minds to even seeing people of other races come up on their dating site sends a bad signal.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#62

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #20

It's more parsimonious to just assume that black women have fewer options. Black men between 20 and 34 (prime mate-choosing years) have an 11% incarceration rate. The unemployment rate and median income among (unincarcerated) black men is also low. So black women are more likely to need to look for people of a different racial background. That means that if everyone has a slight bias towards their own ethnic group, i…

It would be a pretty strange mutation if you didn't have that bias

Since this is potentially a sensitive subject, I'll preface my question with the assertion that I'm not offended, just curious.

I have no such bias; why do you consider it a "strange mutation?"

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#63

Post by najirama »

natrius wrote: post #30
lsb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is to Morgan Freeman, as he explained to Mike Wallace: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1131418n "You're going to relegate my history to a month? What about White History Month? Black History is American History. I'm going to stop calling you a white man, and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."

That makes sense in the context of history, but not in the broader scope of our social interactions. As long as outward appearances are significantly predictive of one's culture, humans aren't going to just disregard that predictive value unless they're making an effort to do so. I doubt that there are many people who are purely racist and judge people solely on their skin color. However, when you combine skin color…

Skin color isn't any more an indicator of class than shoe size or fingernail length. To show this, one need only think about the consequences of skin color actually being an indicator of class.

Given a random sampling among a race, if skin color was an accurate indicator of class, you should be able to predict the same class (other than middle class) for each sample, and ultimately be right more than you were wrong. But you can't: http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf

Furthermore, I posit that class isn't even a predictor of behavior in the macro-sense. That is, across all classes the proportion of people who behave foolishly, is a constant. The difference money makes is in the degree of associated risk with the behaviors that occur, not in the number of occurrences of the behaviors themselves.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#64

Post by _pius »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #23

There is another explanation of OkCupid's conclusions which is not discussed in that blog. The author of the blog even censored a comment pointing this fact out. 39% of black women are obese, compared to 23% of white women. Men prefer to date non-obese women. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=6456

Hard to believe that you're serious.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#65

Post by natrius »

najirama wrote: post #63
natrius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense in the context of history, but not in the broader scope of our social interactions. As long as outward appearances are significantly predictive of one's culture, humans aren't going to just disregard that predictive value unless they're making an effort to do so. I doubt that there are many people who are purely racist and judge people solely on their skin color. However, when you combine skin color…

Skin color isn't any more an indicator of class than shoe size or fingernail length. To show this, one need only think about the consequences of skin color actually being an indicator of class. Given a random sampling among a race, if skin color was an accurate indicator of class, you should be able to predict the same class (other than middle class) for each sample, and ultimately be right more than you were wrong.…

In America, skin color is a good predictor of class. The barometer isn't being right more than you're wrong; it's being more accurate than assuming everyone earns the average income. You will be able to make a more accurate guess of an American's income if you know their race.

When you add in clothing, hair and accent, it'd be pretty difficult to misidentify someone's class, or more importantly, culture. Identifying members of subcultures with criminal tendencies is a skill that anyone who has walked around in a city late at night has put to use.

Class isn't a great predictor of behavior, but culture is. Moreover, I think it's safe to assume that people with lower incomes commit violent crime, for instance, at a higher rate than the rest of society. All other things being equal, the better the risk to reward ratio of an action, the more likely someone is to take it.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#66

Post by natrius »

_pius wrote: post #64
yummyfajitas wrote: post #23

There is another explanation of OkCupid's conclusions which is not discussed in that blog. The author of the blog even censored a comment pointing this fact out. 39% of black women are obese, compared to 23% of white women. Men prefer to date non-obese women. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=6456

Hard to believe that you're serious.

I don't see what's unserious about it. It's an incorrect explanation of the effect at work, but it was still a valuable comment.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#67

Post by Mz »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #20

It's more parsimonious to just assume that black women have fewer options. Black men between 20 and 34 (prime mate-choosing years) have an 11% incarceration rate. The unemployment rate and median income among (unincarcerated) black men is also low. So black women are more likely to need to look for people of a different racial background. That means that if everyone has a slight bias towards their own ethnic group, i…

(It would be a pretty strange mutation if you didn't have that bias.)

Humorously enough:

I have one of the most common white genetic disorders on the planet. It is homozygous recessive, so daddy has to contribute a gene for it to be passed on. The odds of someone who is neither white nor ethnically Jewish carrying the gene are substantially lower than the odds of a white man carrying it. I have tended towards getting involved with non-whites post-divorce, in part because the idea of having a second child with this disorder is one of my worst nightmares. I have already raised one child with it and he is remarkably healthy. But he and I have a relatively mild form of it. Having a second child with the disorder by a different father might mean having a sicker child.

So it really does give me pause when some white man starts making eyes at me. And I'm mostly Irish-German, so I'm quite pale. Close friends who know my situation have joked about getting me a t-shirt "to go clubbing" (which I don't do) which says something nasty and discriminatory, like "No white meat". I don't automatically rule out white men, but, yes, I do in fact have a "strange mutation" which does actually give me a bias in the opposite direction.

:-D

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#68

Post by ekiru »

danieldon wrote: post #18
carbocation wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is relying on the same data for his assertions as everyone else has been. I see his analysis of that data as no less valid than that of OKCupid, etc.

Maybe you read a different post, but the one linked here simply argues that "any black person will tell you, when black folks date online they don't go to OKcupid," then lists a bunch of sites targeting black users and concludes that the OKCupid data is not representative of the public at large, despite the complete absence of supporting data. I don't see an analysis of data, just a hypothesis.

Actually, it said "when black people who don't want to date non-black people date online, they go to one of the black-only dating sites rather than dating sites aimed at the general population." It did still simply provide a hypothesis, but it is at least a plausible hypothesis that might explain the data. One would need further data to determine its validity, of course.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#69

Post by dkarl »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #16
pw0ncakes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I can't speak from any racial perspective than that of a white man, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to date a woman who joined a whites-only dating site, and most of the women I've dated or been interested in dating haven't been white anyway.

Why is that? Would you refuse to date a Jewish woman who had signed up on Jdate? (Assume you met her outside of Jdate.)

I think people draw a distinction, valid or not, between "looking for similar people" and "excluding different people." The former is seen as more acceptable. For a group that is a small percentage of the population, a niche dating site is acceptable because it helps them find other people in that group. For a group that is a large percentage of the population, any generic dating site will help them find other people in the same group, so a niche site only makes sense as a tool of exclusion.

Re: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions

#70

Post by Mz »

najirama wrote: post #63
natrius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense in the context of history, but not in the broader scope of our social interactions. As long as outward appearances are significantly predictive of one's culture, humans aren't going to just disregard that predictive value unless they're making an effort to do so. I doubt that there are many people who are purely racist and judge people solely on their skin color. However, when you combine skin color…

Skin color isn't any more an indicator of class than shoe size or fingernail length. To show this, one need only think about the consequences of skin color actually being an indicator of class. Given a random sampling among a race, if skin color was an accurate indicator of class, you should be able to predict the same class (other than middle class) for each sample, and ultimately be right more than you were wrong.…

Skin color isn't any more an indicator of class than shoe size or fingernail length.

Actually, long fingernails on a woman are typically used to signal "I don't do manual labor" and is very much intended as a class indicator. It's part of the appeal of long nails. As I understand it, there is lots of historical precedent across a number of cultures for this.

Post reply on HN