There is a whole buffet of emotions that roil around inside my head when I start considering race and relationships.

Because, you know, I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland where race and cultural was a big deal, very salient, but on the other hand WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE.

We were all aware of the racial differences, but expected to be crunchy granola enough to ignore them.

Yep, that doesn't work. It only worked, I thought, when culture and economic status are similiar.

But I guess I'm wrong. Some economists did a dating experiment. One of their findings was fairly interesting to me in terms of how far opposite it was from what I have believed all my life about women and their racial preferences.

Wouldn't you think, as I did, that women choosing their mates based on intelligence and ambition would be more likely to overlook race as a factor than men basing their choices on looks alone?

Apparently not. It seems beauty is the racial equalizer, not focus on mind over body.

"Women of all the races we studied revealed a strong preference for men of their own race: White women were more likely to choose white men; black women preferred black men; East Asian women preferred East Asian men; Hispanic women preferred Hispanic men. But men don't seem to discriminate based on race when it comes to dating. A woman's race had no effect on the men's choices."

Crap, there goes my superiority complex.

On the other hand, their finding that

"Daters of both sexes from south of the Mason-Dixon Line revealed much stronger same-race preferences than Northern daters."

made me feel better about my choice of where to live. I've said before that a major reason I'm not in Japan right now are the girls. I don't want them to grow up with consciousness of their race as a major big deal (they won't escape it in the states, either, I know, but it's not the same)

And we chose Portland because of a job, true, but you notice we didn't even look in certain parts of the United States because I didn't want to take my girls out of the frying pan just to dump them in the fire.

So maybe racial dating preference doesn't necessarily correlate with racial attitudes that might impact the girls' lives negatively, it's just, you know, I don't want to take that chance.

Besides, I've got enough issues and stereotypes inside me for them to deal with.