Reinforcing the Racial Structure: Observed Race and Multiracial Internet Daters’ Racial Preferences

Abstract

Abstract Is the growing multiracial population changing the US racial structure? This study examines how self-identifying with more than one racial group relates to racial dating choices—an outcome that reveals multiracial individuals’ agency in the process of racial boundary-making and reduction. Quantitative analyses of profiles drawn from the largest online dating website, combined with observer racial classifications of profile photos, reveal divergent patterns in racial preferences among multiracials who self-identify as part-Black compared with those who do not. Non-Black multiracials express racial preferences that are more similar to Whites than to minorities, consistent with Whitening theories suggesting that these groups situate themselves closer to Whites and reinforce the existing racial hierarchy. In contrast, part-Black multiracials’ preferences are more similar to Blacks. However, regardless of racial self-identity, multiracial online daters’ exclusion of Whites as possible dates depends upon how they are racially perceived by others—their observed race. In particular, among self-identified part-Black multiracials, those whom others view as non-Black are much more accepting of Whites as dates than are those whom others classify as Black. Since preferences for dating Whites vary substantially among individuals who self-identify as part-Black depending upon their observed race, this suggests a decline in the salience of the one-drop rule, even while some aspects of Black exceptionalism persist among multiracials whom others classify solely as Black.