Insight: May 13

Tonight on Insight Jenny Brockie talks to people who only date those from different racial backgrounds to their own.

Rudo is a black woman, with South African background, who has never been attracted to black men. She has always dated white men and eventually married one. She says she enjoys the physical contrasts between herself and her husband.

But some people in Rudo’s community aren’t impressed. Rudo’s been called a ‘race traitor’ by people who think she shouldn’t be with white guys.

This week, Insight meets people who only date those from different racial backgrounds to their own.

Host Jenny Brockie asks guests about the basis for their preferences and finds out whether racial stereotypes are at play – and whether that matters.

The program also hears from match-making services that specialise in cross-cultural matches and reveals some intriguing cultural trends.

Guests include:

Rudo Banya
Rudo Banya says she’s never been attracted to black men. She’s only ever dated white men. She thinks it’s partly because her aunties used to tell her how “rubbish” black men were and told her to “make better choices”. Rudo says it’s not racist to be attracted to one race over another, it’s just a preference.

Han and Sophie Song
When Han Song first met Sophie in a pub, he thought she was gorgeous … but he didn’t think he stood a chance. “I thought oh well, I’m Asian, probably she’s not interested.” He was wrong. Despite big language barriers, the two hit it off. Han had only dated Korean women in the past and thought dating a white woman was “a fantasy”. Sophie found Asian men attractive but says it was shared values that was most important.

John and Edelisa Carroll
John and Edelisa met on a dating site called FilipinoCupid. After three months of chatting online, John proposed to Edelisa – before they’d met in person. John specifically sought out an Asian woman for a partner because “Asian women treat western men better than a white woman might”. Edelisa thought a western man would be “better than a Filipino husband” because they’re more responsible and provide better for their children.

Ida Harding
Ida Harding migrated to Australia from Ghana at the age of four. Despite growing up and going to school with mostly white people, Ida has never dated someone from a different racial background. “I think my preference is for black men and that’s simply because I don’t want to be someone’s fantasy or fetish,” she says. “You want someone who dates you because they like who you are.”

Shaun Comerford
Shaun Comerford is the General Manager of speed dating company Fast Impressions. He says one of his company’s popular events is ‘Asian women speed dating’, where all the women have an Asian background and the men are from any race. He says there’s been no demand for a speed dating night featuring only Asian men. He says race is just one element that people have on the list of things they’re looking for in a prospective partner.

Jennifer Lundquist
Jennifer Lundquist is a US-based sociologist who has studied racial preferences in online dating. The study found that race plays a big part in people’s decisions about who they choose to contact and respond to online. It found that heterosexual men of all races respond to all women except for African-American, and that women of all races respond first to Caucasian men.

Professor Bill Von Hippel
Bill Von Hippel is an evolutionary psychologist. He says “multi-ethnic coupling” will become increasingly more common as time goes by – it’s an inevitable consequence of the proximity of so many races in the same place. He also says there are evolutionary reasons why people of mixed-race would be seen as the most attractive.

Tuesday at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.