I’m a Black man in the Pacific Northwest, and I’ve been thinking about interracial dating, especially Black men dating Asian women. I want to be clear: I’m not here to attack Asian people, Asian women, Black women, white people, or anyone else. I’m asking because I’m genuinely trying to understand the conversation better. I’ve dated Asian women before, including a Vietnamese woman I still think highly of because she was mature, open-minded, and not racist. I was young then and my intentions were different then. I was offered to marry an Asian woman but I declined; The person of interest behaved one way in front of her parents, another way around her friends and a different way around my friends, and overall she treated me like I was an experiment. I side eyed her a lot. She was 4 years older than me. My interest is not based on stereotypes or fetishizing. I’m attracted to different kinds of women, and I try to see people as individuals. But when I search Reddit or read comments online, I often see people joking or implying that Asian women prefer white men over Black men, or that Black men should not even bother. Sometimes it feels like there is a quiet racial hierarchy being reinforced, where whiteness is treated as the safest or most accepted option, and Black men are treated as undesirable, threatening, or socially costly. That makes me wonder: where is the real conversation about this? For Black men who are open to dating Asian women, how do you deal with the possibility of racist family members, cultural pressure, or being seen as a “problem” before someone even knows you? And for those who have been in these relationships, was it worth it? Did the woman actually stand with you, or did you end up carrying the emotional weight alone? I also wonder about the Asian women who may be open to dating Black men but feel pressure from family, community, or stereotypes. I have read that Asian parents instruct and or educate their children early off to not date Black people. So I wonder when I see this type of couple out and about; even though it’s rare in my location…Is there real support for those couples? Or do people mostly avoid talking about it because it is uncomfortable? I know some Black people believe we should only date within our own race. I do not personally believe that is the only answer. At the same time, I understand why some people feel exhausted by interracial dating when racism, stereotypes, and family disapproval are involved. So my question is: Black people, where are we on this conversation? Should Black men who are interested in Asian women just accept the risk and deal with the issues as they come? Or is it sometimes wiser to avoid situations where racism from family, community, or society may become a constant burden? And for thought, is this something to be combating as a narrative, for those who may need the backup and support? I’m not looking for hate toward any group. I’m looking for honest experiences, advice, and perspective — especially from Black men who have dated Asian women, Black women who have observed this dynamic, and people who have dealt with racist families in interracial relationships. Main question: How do Black men navigate dating Asian women when racism, family pressure, stereotypes, and social judgment may be part of the relationship? Should we keep an open heart, or protect our peace?
it just depend son how Americanized her family and her are.
asian people generally, are conservative though and racist af.
Hello, I had a hard time reading your post. May I give specific feedback about your writing? If you don’t want that, completely fine, just ignore this comment :)
I okay with you making an opinion. I know I’m perfect. If you care to help, I would appreciate it.
So I’m personally really struggling because there are no paragraphs. The text itself is completely fine, I think. But when paragraphs are missing, I’m just unable to focus on the text for long and extract meaning from it.
Usually, you try to group closely related sentences together in a paragraph. It’s a bit of an art but uuuusually relatively obvious. So for example, when I start reading your post, the first group I could identify was the “preamble of stating your intention”, which is
I’m a Black man in the Pacific Northwest, and I’ve been thinking about interracial dating, especially Black men dating Asian women. I want to be clear: I’m not here to attack Asian people, Asian women, Black women, white people, or anyone else. I’m asking because I’m genuinely trying to understand the conversation better.
Then it continues with some personal experiences, each of which deserve its own paragraph:
I’ve dated Asian women before, including a Vietnamese woman I still think highly of because she was mature, open-minded, and not racist. I was young then and my intentions were different then.
I was offered to marry an Asian woman but I declined; The person of interest behaved one way in front of her parents, another way around her friends and a different way around my friends, and overall she treated me like I was an experiment. I side eyed her a lot.
Then it gets hard for me, because it seems you make a generic statement about your preferences/thoughts:
My interest is not based on stereotypes or fetishizing. I’m attracted to different kinds of women, and I try to see people as individuals.
Which sounds like a separate set of statements which should stand apart from the rest, because then you go into another section about online discourse, but you start with a “But”, which sounds like the statements are related. I did not understand at first what you liking women in a certain way has to do with online discourse that says asian women like white men over black men.
I think I understand now after taking this long time dissecting it, but that’s kinda what I mean, I had to do that dissecting now which I would have to do much less/none of if the statements were nicely grouped by paragraphs.
I hope that was clear :)
I will offer you my opinion about the actual content in another comment.
The questions are: How do Black men/Asian women couples manage the pressure of conservative family views or racist stereotypes, and was it worth it?
Black men in the PNW who have dated Asian women: What is your experience with navigating cultural differences and family opposition?
So yeah I am not black, but you said elsewhere that that kind of opinion is still fine.
And also, if you want, you do not have to bring ethnicity into it at all, in my opinion. This can just be handled like any kind of “family disapproval”. Of course some people are sensitive to racism based issues, but I think it’s not actually that relevant in this question/situation.
In my personal opinion, people value family, and “approval of other humans” in general entirely too much. I understand that family is an important survival mechanism of our species and thus ingrained in our psyche to care about, but in some situations, family bonds are just a straight detriment to one’s life.
For example, if your family causes(/d) huge emotional pain and trauma, which prevents you from properly functioning in society, even if there is the potential safety net of “my family takes care of me while I’m in trouble” (i.e. idk, losing your home and needing a place to sleep) severely loses its value if the result is more pain and dysfunction accompanying it.
This is just to illustrate my general thinking.
Now with regards to situations you mentioned, I would just say “fuck em”. In my opinion, there’s no need to associate with a family that’s not even yours. If your partner insists on it, I would find another partner. With my current partner (who is also Asian), neither she nor I have contact to our families, so it’s not an issue anyway, but in general, there should ideally never be any “requirements” to be fulfilled. If I say no to my partner on something, that’s it, same as when she does it, that’s it for me.
Maybe I’m just extremely lucky or I’m very tolerant, but I think you should have a partner that you like as a human in general, whose whole set of worldviews align with your own. If a partner were to try to force me to interact with their racist family, I fundamentally disagree with that and I would dislike that person so much as to not be able to be with them.
I generally don’t think you can change humans very much, so all of this kind of “attempting to conform to a set of expectations” is moot and shouldn’t be done.
So to summarize this, I think family ties are not that important, and having to confront annoying situations is not necessary, as a loving partner that cares about you would not force that on you. This kind of attitude might leave you without a partner, but it also leaves you free to get a partner who you’re actually compatible with and don’t need to care about stupid family views.
White man who lived in China here chiming in.
The racism, or at least prejudices and a lack of understanding that cause racism, are very real.
Asia benefited from being near the top of the racist hierarchy of lies that Europeans instituted in the 19th century and also mostly learn about Black people from Hollywood films. (There’s also a really odd trend of New Right and crypto-fash talking points getting popular and spread around Chinese social media.)
In China at least, dating is seen as valid only in the path to marriage, and family and kids is an expected and socially impressed upon goal. To the point where plenty of women in China have kids they don’t want because of familial and social pressure.
At the same time, Asian society is very colourist which combined with having ingested the racist hierarchy somewhat and only really knowing Black people and culture from Hollywood isn’t a great start.
Rounding it off, I China at least is a desire for in group marriage. Foreigners are seen as a risky choice, who could leave and don’t share the same cultural values (regardless of the truth of it).
White people get more of a benefit of a doubt, but there’s still pressure against a Chinese-White relationship. I’ve heard of plenty of families putting pressure that ens inter-ethnic relationships, and there is definitely more pressure against Chinese-Black relationships. (Both cases also, sexistly, exacerbated when Chinese women, foreign man.)
Don’t think this is anything new or not know, sadly.
If the family is supportive, things work a lot better - unsurprisingly. But with Asian value of family, if the family are openly against it, it’s very unlikely to work out.
Thank you for your personal perspective. I honestly agree that there is a large misrepresentation from films produced from “Hollywood” in regards to the everyday Black caucus here in America and how that rerun imaging continues to hurt the international portrayal of the Black people.
I don’t plan to visit China per say. I’m not opposed to the thought of dating a Chinese woman.
I really would like to know just how deeply ingrained in thier population is it okay to “hate” another race and especially Black people.
even though it’s rare in my location…Is there real support for those couples?
It’s kinda lame how few black folks there are in the pnw generally. I support the hell outta y’all; do whatever makes you happy.
there is no reason for them to move there. PNW was insigificant region until like the 1970s/80s. most of it’s population and economic growth has been since 2000.
black population centers were mostly for economic reasons and black migration was mostly during the early 20th century, most of which was form the south to the midwest during the industrial boom.
Thanks for the love and response.
when I search Reddit or read comments online, I often see people joking or implying that Asian women prefer white men over Black men, or that Black men should not even bother. Sometimes it feels like there is a quiet racial hierarchy being reinforced, where whiteness is treated as the safest or most accepted option, and Black men are treated as undesirable, threatening, or socially costly.
Yes, there is still a racial hierarchy being socially reinforce, it is getting weaker, but slowly. The average society moves slowly, seeing black people getting better represented everywhere every year does not mean the previous centuries of racism are over. Intimate relationships will probably be one of the last things to equalize because it is the furthest away from rationality. So we sadly still need strong minded and/or strongly in love “pioneers” defying social conventions and taking the emotional risks to help make this aspect of racism wash away.
I’d like to know where you draw your rational from. I don’t completely doubt your view of the social progress and credit of a people in the eyes of many other’s. Just would like to know your background a bit.
Anecdotal personal observation, I didn’t research the literature.
asian women are 2nd to white women in being sought after by men of all races, if you look at dating apps, black women are the least desirable apparently, and latin people are in between. seems like a white guy dating asian women seems more sketchy because its often seen as a fetish"im not racist i have an asian wife" or the fact the culturally and language barriers the asian wife is more ignorant to the politics of the white guy.
and and the racial hiearchy is pretty much there, perpetuated in media. and conservative men seem to go after ASIAN women, despite being racists themselves, because white women are likely turned off by thier bs and is more familiar with conservative mens behaviours towards woman, they see asians as more submissive. In contrast asian men have a very hard time dating white women in some case unless you are in tech and earning a pretty high income, thats why theres a huge manosphere thing going on with asian incels.
I have a lot of experience, but since I’m not a black male I’m not sure if my experience means anything to you.
But if you’re able, after you figure out Asian women — can you come back and explain black women for us…??
I am sorry, I can’t. I’m not a woman. What I can offer is this, they are not all the same. I have dated Black women that went to college, church; job and no job; weed smoker and non weed smoking…and the black women still want to hit me. Just try not to piss them off, I suppose. I personally love a woman that can and doesn’t mind throwing hands. Be in the gym or defending her self if need be. However, if any woman raises her hand toward me I’m out.
I think a lot of movies and bad parenting or lack of parenting are the vectors as to why women feel its okay for them to assault a male and think it’s okay and not against the law. I don’t. I also dont think a male is a man if he raises his hand to a woman; without a righteous cause in the purest of action. I know we dont live in a perfect world and thus there are no perfect women nor men. So, I excuse her throwing stuff at me or slapping my chest with tears in her eye’s. If I did something wrong, talk about it and if I cross the boundary again, I dont respect you and you should leave me. As if and when she crosses that boundary, I’m leaving her.
I vented.
Your opinion may shead some light on the topic, regardless of your skin color. Please enlighten me. I doubt I have as much experience as you? Are you located in the PNW?
