美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Least Desirable'? How Racial Discrimination Plays Out In Online Dating

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Millions of people have tried online dating or at least thought about it. Almost one third of Americans who have never been married have gone on dating apps or dating sites, according to the Pew Research Center. And a recent study based on data from the National Academy of Sciences found the rise in digital dating coincides with a rise in interracial marriages. One possibility here is that online users are exposed to people they normally might not meet in person in our segregated¹ lives, including people of different races and ethnicities. But there's also some data here suggesting that race and ethnicity play into online dating in a more complicated way.

CHRISTIAN² RUDDER: On these sites, black users especially, there's a bias³ against them. Every kind of way you can measure their success on a site - how people rate them, how often they reply to their messages, how many messages they get - that's all reduced.

INSKEEP: Christian Rudder is the co-founder of OKCupid, a major dating site, who looked at data from his site and other sites back in 2014. It turns out that online dating reflects something that many people have perceived in the offline world for generations, black women and Asian men are rejected more often than other people. NPR's Ashley Brown talked with some dating app users about whether the numbers reflect their reality.

ASHLEY BROWN, BYLINE⁴: I met Jason on a balmy winter afternoon in Los Angeles. He was about to take his puppy on a walk. He'd just gotten home from his internship⁵. He works with men and women with mental health needs. And we're not using his last name, to protect his privacy and his clients' privacy.

JASON: You got to take care of yourself. Our professors say that all the time. Self-care this, self-care that. But it's true.

BROWN: Self-care ended up playing a big role in Jason's personal life, too. He started using dating apps and websites about seven years ago, and he told me things got ugly.

JASON: The messages were saying, I don't date Asians, sorry not sorry, you're cute for an Asian. Like, it was really disheartening.

BROWN: Jason is gay and Filipino. He says some of the rejections⁶ he got were overtly⁷ racist⁸.

JASON: It was like, like, I usually like bears, but no panda bears. I'm like, yikes. It really hurt my self-esteem.

BROWN: So Jason says he wasn't surprised to see some of the numbers from OKCupid making headlines back in 2014. The dating site's blog said Asian men and black women were rated the least attractive compared to other races and genders⁹. Even though the numbers focused on straight users, Jason says he could definitely relate.

JASON: It was like an unfulfilled validation¹⁰. Like, yeah, I was right, but it feels like [expletive] that I was right.

BROWN: I also talked to Ari Curtis. She says she feels the same way. She even started a blog about her experience dating as a black woman. Here's a little bit of one of her blog entries.

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ARI CURTIS: For black women like me, this is life. The data are mere¹¹ tiny representations of a messy existence. And while I'm a big fan of big data, the good stuff begins where the data ends.

BROWN: Her blog is called Least Desirable. One of her posts talks about an OKCupid date she had at a bar in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

CURTIS: This is it. Yup.

BROWN: Ari took me to that bar, and she told me what the date told her over drinks.

CURTIS: He had recently gone home, and he was like, yeah, my family would never approve of you. (Laughter) And I was just like, OK (laughter).

BROWN: Because she's black.

CURTIS: Yeah. Because I'm black.

BROWN: That interaction left Ari feeling confused, really uncomfortable. And, it wasn't a new feeling. She also shared this account of a date with another white man she met on Tinder.

CURTIS: He was like, so we have to bring the hood¹² out of you, bring the ghetto¹³ out of you. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? (Laughter). It made me feel like I wasn't enough, that who I am wasn't what he expected and that he wanted me to be somebody else based on my race (laughter).

BROWN: OKCupid told me the site is definitely paying attention to all of this. I talked to their chief marketing¹⁴ officer Melissa Hobley, and she said they've changed a lot about the app over the years. They want to encourage users to focus less on looks alone and more on what she called psychographics.

MELISSA HOBLEY: Things like what you're interested in, what moves you, what your passions are.

BROWN: Hobley said OKCupid's also talked to social scientists about why people's dating preferences come off as racist.

HOBLEY: I think that what OKCupid was seeing in the data was reflective of what happens IRL, in real life. And people tend to be often attracted to the people that they are familiar with. And in a segregated society, that can be harder in certain areas than in others.

BROWN: Ari told me she understands that. She's had to come to term with her own biases¹⁵. She grew up in the mostly white town of Fort Collins, Colo., and says she was only dating white guys until she moved to New York.

Do you think that people expressing a racial preference on a dating app is just like expressing a preference for any other physical attribute, or is there something different about race?

CURTIS: I feel like there is room, honestly, to say I have a preference for somebody who looks like this, and if that person happens to be of a certain race - it's hard. It's hard to blame somebody for that. It really is. But on the other hand, you have to wonder if racism¹⁶ weren't so ingrained in our culture if they would have those preferences.

BROWN: She says she's still conflicted about her own preferences and conflicted about whether she'll even keep using dating apps, but for now she says her strategy is just to keep a casual attitude about all of it.

CURTIS: If I don't take it seriously then I don't have to be disappointed when it doesn't go well because I wasn't taking it seriously anyway.

BROWN: Jason's out of the dating game entirely¹⁷ now. That's because he ended up finding his current partner, a white man, on an app a couple of years ago. He credits part of his success to making bold statements about his values and his profile.

JASON: Yeah. I said something, like, really obnoxious¹⁸ looking back on it now. I think one of the first lines I said was, like, social justice warriors¹⁹ to the front of the line, please.

BROWN: He says weeding through those racist messages was really hard, but for him, worth it in the end.

JASON: Everyone deserves love and kindness and support. And pushing through and holding that close to yourself is, I think, actually also what kept me in this online dating realm, just knowing that I deserve this. And if I'm lucky enough, it'll happen. And it did.

BROWN: Ashley Brown, NPR News.

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INSKEEP: Hey. That story is part of What Makes Us Click, MORNING EDITION's series on online dating.

1 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

2 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

3 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 internship   

n.实习医师，实习医师期

参考例句：

• an internship at a television station 在电视台的实习期
• a summer internship with a small stipend 薪水微薄的暑期实习

6 rejections   

拒绝( rejection的名词复数 )； 摒弃； 剔除物； 排斥

参考例句：

• Most writers endure a number of rejections before being published. 大部分作家经历无数次的退稿才守得云开，作品得到发表。
• Supervise workers and monitors production quality to minimize rejections. 管理工人，监控生产质量，减少退货。

7 overtly   

ad.公开地

参考例句：

• There were some overtly erotic scenes in the film. 影片中有一些公开色情场面。
• Nietzsche rejected God's law and wrote some overtly blasphemous things. 尼采拒绝上帝的律法，并且写了一些渎神的作品。

8 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

9 genders   

n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分

参考例句：

• There are three genders in German: masculine, feminine and neuter. 德语中有叁性：阳性、阴性和中性。 来自辞典例句
• Japan was fourth among the genders of foreign students. 日本在二十个留美学生输送地中列第四位。 来自互联网

10 validation   

n.确认

参考例句：

• If the countdown timer ever hits zero, do your validation processing. 处理这种情况的方法是在输入的同时使用递减计时器，每次击键重新计时。如果递减计时器变为零，就开始验证。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Although the validation control is a very widespread idiom, most such controls can be improved. 虽然确认控件是非常广泛的习惯用法，但还有很多有待改进的地方。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

11 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

12 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

13 ghetto   

n.少数民族聚居区，贫民区

参考例句：

• Racism and crime still flourish in the ghetto.城市贫民区的种族主义和犯罪仍然十分猖獗。
• I saw that achievement as a possible pattern for the entire ghetto.我把获得的成就看作整个黑人区可以仿效的榜样。

14 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

15 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。

16 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

17 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

18 obnoxious   

adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的

参考例句：

• These fires produce really obnoxious fumes and smoke.这些火炉冒出来的烟气确实很难闻。
• He is the most obnoxious man I know.他是我认识的最可憎的人。

19 warriors   

武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
• The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。