“Ugh, look who just passed by.”
“Who?”
“The guy with the Asian fetish.”
“Which one?”
I wish this weren’t a real exchange I had with my friends. Unfortunately, there are too many white men on campus who share a reputation for exclusively pursuing women of color. I decided to interview five women of color across the 5Cs as anonymous sources to hear how they have been affected.
Student A, an Asian American woman, said that despite most interracial dating being generally unproblematic, there’s “a slightly disturbing minority of people who created a sense of campus culture [that makes] women of color feel a little worried or uncomfortable.”
This worrying behavior is often hidden behind good intentions, like activism or language learning.
“There’s a kind of man who goes to the language tables to try to find women of color and specifically target and flirt with them,” Student B, an Asian woman who attends the Japanese language table at Pomona College’s Oldenborg Center, said.
A group of white men frequents the table on a daily basis. When I asked Student B what prompted those men to learn the language, she said: “It’s 50-50. 50 percent anime, 50 percent pornography.”
One of the students wrote sexual phrases on the whiteboard. Another student approached her personally and told her that his type was specifically East Asian women.
“They’re trying to learn a new culture, a new language, and [language tables are] such a nice way to be surrounded by native speakers. But also sometimes I feel really uncomfortable,” she said.
Some women on campus involuntarily assist in white men’s language learning, including Student C.
Student C, who is Latina, was romantically involved with a white student activist. When they first met, she was surprised that he pronounced her name correctly. Later, though, it became obvious that he was “really, really happy” about pronouncing it right.
After they’d spent more time together, he started speaking to her in Spanish, unprompted. “I would reply in English, and he’d be like, ‘No, why don’t you want to speak to me in Spanish? This is great.’”
“I just refused, because it was really bizarre, and it made my skin crawl,” she said. “He was so proud that he was speaking to me in Spanish, and it just felt so inorganic and off-putting.”
Similarly, Student A described how a white man’s interest in women of color is sometimes an extension of his interest in “exotic” cultures.
“It’s just uncomfortable to be a part of that, to be a participant without really realizing it,” she said.
This is not an exclusively 5C phenomenon. But I do think part of it is particularly fueled by being at a liberal arts college. For some students, the 5Cs is the most diverse space they have been in; this can come with the desire to be more culturally aware.
Yet seeking cultural awareness can quickly border on a lack of awareness; students are prone to distancing themselves from their privilege, with whiteness being one example. And sometimes, women of color unwillingly become the vehicle away from whiteness.
“In the fragility of woman-of-colorhood at this time, I am always just hyper-aware and very protective of myself, especially in liberal arts environments,” Student D, a Black woman, said. “There’s not always a genuine air when I’m being pursued by people.”
Student E, an Asian American woman, noted that most of the white men who have approached her are politically progressive.
“Am I just a part of your agenda to fulfill how you think you should live your life, being this woke white man who can connect with women of color over difference?” she said.
This archetypal “woke white man” has been present on our campus for a while.
In December 1990, the former 5C student publication “Harmony” devoted an entire issue to interracial relationships, interviewing 40 students. One article mentions how a white Pomona alumnus had, “through a relationship with an Asian American … extended his awareness to the Hispanic community and further to the anti-apartheid and divestment movement.”
It’s good to care about communities that are not your own, so long as you’re centering members of these communities instead of yourself.
Student C clarified that it’s valuable to have a wide range of students advocating for marginalized groups, but that “there’s this really weird element with [one of these men] where it feels like a white savior situation. He feels like he’s doing this for us, that “his” voice is so important in these matters,” she said.
To shed light on this phenomenon, where else to look but a text many of us have read at our time here, Edward Said’s “Orientalism?”
Said describes Orientalism as “an exclusively male province” that was conducted “with sexist blinders.” He analyzes French writer Gustave Flaubert’s depiction of an Egyptian courtesan in his travel writings; what attracts Flaubert is not the woman herself but “what … she allows him to think.”
The Orientalist can now travel without leaving Claremont. For him, like Flaubert, a woman can be reduced to a tool for his own intellectual or moral flourishing.
Of course, self-growth is an important outcome of any relationship. But when it’s the driving force for getting to know someone rather than a side effect, and when only one person is responsible for educating another, it gets a little complicated.
Student C said that though you initially think these guys are genuinely curious about you or your culture, you later learn that it’s coming from “a self-gratifying angle.”
“It doesn’t feel totally reciprocal — it feels like they’re pushing all their wants and desires onto us,” she said.
A lack of reciprocity is glaring in these relationships. White men aren’t “other” to women of color in the way the women are to them. Their world, portrayed in books, movies and scholarship, is all too familiar. Meanwhile, women of color, in their perceived exoticism, are often tasked to be representatives for their race or culture.
“It’s lovely to have white men, or people who are very centered in society, recognize the beauty of women of color,” Student D said. “But sometimes it does feel like a form of fetishization or political performativity.”
Student D added that even in female friendships, Black women are often used as “social capital.”
Some people might see the interest in women of color as a sign of progress. From the outside, it looks much better than blatant discrimination, especially when it’s accompanied by commendable acts like language learning and leftist organizing.
But being fascinated with women of color is often paired with putting down white women, which, from a white guy, seems to be nothing short of plain misogyny.
Not to say that the fascination with — or frankly, the fetishization of — women of color isn’t a form of misogyny, either. Behind the pretense of flattery, fetishization strips someone of their humanity.
Behind the pretense of flattery, fetishization strips women of color of their humanity.
The appropriation of the identities of women of color isn’t just a “taking” in the abstract sense; women of color actually lose something essential in the process — their sense of being a complete self.
In most of my interviews, the concern over not being seen as a person came up.
“It makes dating people kind of scary. Do they like me just because I’m Asian?” Student A said.
“Even if I vibe with this person, I always try to think whether this person likes me because I’m Asian, or if this person likes me as a person,” Student B said.
“What parts of me are marketable or attractive to a subset of society, rather than me being seen as intrinsically who I am?” Student D said.
“Do they even really like me, or do they like what I could embody?” said Student E.
So why do these men seek connection with women of color in ways that make those women feel disconnected from themselves? Self-interest.
“Certain white people, especially at a place like this where it’s very diverse, can find non-white culture to be especially intriguing, because they want themselves to seem or feel more interesting,” Student A said.
But being a white guy obsessed with non-white women isn’t interesting anymore, at least to me. It’s not just harmful; it’s boring. What can never be boring is treating people like people and loving for the sake of loving.