TW: Racism, discrimination, fetishisation.
Sexual racism is something that I'm sure we all have known to exist, but maybe didn’t quite have the words to define it, however, with the fantastic “Are you a sexual racist? "seminar provided by the university that excuse of not knowing how to define it is no longer.
Sexual racism is defined as “a specific form of discrimination enacted in the context of sex or romance” The most common form of sexual racism that we’ve probably all heard and maybe even experienced is when someone argues that their interest in one race and not another is “just a preference”. No, it's not a preference, its racist. Think about it, let's change the preference from race to eye colour, if someone said “sorry I don’t date people with brown eyes, it's just a preference” it would probably raise a few eyebrows and rightfully so, have you met everyone with brown eyes to able to safely say you don’t date that group of people? Now keep that line of thought and redirect it back to race, it doesn’t make sense!
Sexual racism and fetishisation go hand in hand with one another as fetishisation is where a person is reduced down to their appearance that you find attractive in order to fit a sexual fantasy and in my personal experience, dating apps are criminal for this, who approved a racial preference filter?! The racist stereotypes that were chanted around school such as “once you go black you never go back” or "Asian men have small penises” aren't jokes and have real life consequences.
There are numerous ways in which we can tackle sexual racism at the root of the problem and the first being reflecting on your own behaviour. If you think back to things that you may have said in jest regarding racial preferences, evaluate where that bias came from, was it unchecked white supremacy? Was it outright ignorance? Whatever the cause may be, take a moment to step back and educate yourself. Similarly, if you hear examples of sexual racism and feel comfortable in doing so, call it out! Hold not only yourself but other people accountable for their actions so that BAME people don’t have to.
——Rebekah Akinyele, BAME Officer
