[arrrg]

On a personal level it is probably in most cases (all but the most extreme) very hard to disentangle racism from preference. It’s also not necessarily conscious or intentionally malicious, either. That doesn’t stop it from being racist, though.

I think everyone agrees that not dating someone based on their race can be consciously racist. (“I’m not dating xyz people because they are all so dumb!”) The belief that conscious racist believes can influence who someone finds attractive and who not surely isn’t very controversial.

Is it then too much of a leap of faith to believe that our own image of what’s attractive and what’s not can also be less consciously influenced by the society we grow up in or the media depictions of different people we see – and that that society and those depictions can and often are racist?