Being a "progressive" dude trying to date must be miserable because not only do you have to worry if paying for your girlfriend's dinner is considered toxic masculinity, you also have to ponder whether your leftist comrades approve of your date's skin color, according to one op-ed writer for The New York Times.
In a piece titled, "I Broke Up With Her Because She’s White," Chris Rivas laments that in trying to serve some sort of social justice god and "trying to be woke" that he has actively chosen "not dating white women, and feeling kind of bad about that."
While Rivas admits that family members of previous caucasian inamoratas have made stereotypical and racist remarks towards him for his skin color, even ignorantly asking if he speaks "Mexican", the writer says it is actually peer pressure from "woke" friends which causes him to forgo love with white women.
"But the real reason I think I can no longer date white women isn’t any of that. It’s because in today’s hashtag-woke society, there is mad pressure to be hashtag-woke. To be aware of the implications of whom you’re attracted to and why. Which means that in the eyes of others, the color of the women I date is a big deal. Like I’m the problem. Like I’m betraying my people if I date white women."
The problem, Rivas says, is that he can "see people watching me with a stink eye, noses turned up, as if they think black and brown people would somehow be better off if I dumped my white girlfriend." Rivas says he feels forced to "pick a side" between dating a non-minority or being a true person of color and excluding whites from his love life.
He also says that "colorism" for him is not limited to just white people. He says that in his own family his older relatives have made derogatory remarks if he dates somebody with darker skin tones than he. Still, Rivas seems to understand there is something inherently wrong in this new world created by the left today. In the piece, he writes a string of questions regarding why he can't date a white person. These queries see unanswerable for the young man.
How did we get here? If everyone is so woke, why are things so terrible? Maybe everyone isn’t so woke. Anyway, what am I supposed to do? How do I love as a brown body in the world in a way that makes everybody happy? I fell for a white woman and she fell for me — simple as that — yet I feel as if I’m doing the wrong thing by dating her.
Am I the problem or is everyone else? Do white women find me attractive or do they see me as some exotic idea they should find attractive? Do I find white women attractive or do I see them as some exotic idea I should find attractive? Do I even know whom I’m attracted to or why?
Rivas is essentially saying he feels confused as to why he has to self-segregate himself away from white people. And it is confusing, but as for the question "How did we get here?" the answer is pretty simple; Identity politics introduced by the Left have regressed certain sections of society into choosing whom you love based on skin tone.
That notion is bigoted and it is hindering our country's success by dividing us. As I've written previously, "Once again, we see that the Left have become the 'New Puritans'. Only instead of rigid rules and guidelines for a society based on the Bible and hard work, it seems they have replaced societal expectations with ever-changing parameters of political correctness and victimhood. For Democrats on the far-left, the terms are simple: Agree with the progressives or be eaten by your own." In this case, as in most cases, Leftists believe that white people are bad because of previous transgressions committed by white ancestors. Thus, to date a white person would be betraying your entire race. Rivas feels social castration from his fellow lefties because by dating a white woman, in their mind, he is saying he does not agree with their world view. What's worse, Rivas says, is that in choosing to do so he is seen as a traitor to his people and one who does not understand his own victimhood. He says for his community, dating a white woman is seen as a false attempt at grabbing "power." For the left, this means he must be shunned. He has picked "the wrong side." Because of this he has decided, perhaps temporarily, that he would rather be accepted by progressives rather than date whom he chooses.
In truth, I could not care less who Rivas chooses to pursue for love -- white, black, brown, woman, man, who cares? I'd like to think this piece is a little more facetious than some on the right give him credit for. The two sentences "If everyone is so woke, why are things so terrible? Maybe everyone isn’t so woke," are pretty telling that he does not fully buy into what the left is selling.
Nonetheless, he ends his piece by saying he's "hoping that I’m doing woke right, because something just doesn’t feel right." The reason it doesn't feel right is that it isn't right. He should date whom he wants to regardless of skin color. Yet rather than making these romantic decisions based on individual choice and attraction, the left is forcing him into identity politics. In their desire for a collectivist society, they are holding individuals like Rivas back from personal success, even in love. If a person's idea of success does not fit within their "wokeness" then progressives see that person as a failure who deserves shaming. And Rivas, for whatever reason, does not want to fail these New Puritans.