Yesterday I was looking at a blog on Xanga when I noticed the banner atop of the page that advertised a dating service called blacksingles.com. I stopped for a moment and wondered if that might not be considered offensive by some? I’m not suggesting it’s racist but isn’t it at least encouraging a segregationist attitude? Moreover how would the target audience of that site feel if I created a site called whitesingles.com?
I understand, of course, that as human beings we tend to congregate among groups with whom we share a commonality, be that race, religion, social economic standing or whatever. But when Martin Luther King Jnr led the Montgomery Bus Boycott do you suppose he might have seen a service such as blacksingles.com as unhelpful in what was a long fought battle to end segregation not only in Montgomery but across the entire United States?
The site itself doesn’t actually state on it anywhere (that I could see) that it is closed to people of other races. However the ‘about‘ section of the site states “BlackSingles.com is an online community created specifically for African American singles,”
Now I want to be clear, I’m not suggesting that there is anything wrong with this site or the ad for it on Xanga. Xanga like many community sites likes it, caters to all people or all ages, races and geographical locations, so to that end the ad would seem entirely fitting. But I’m curious if Xanga would be so keen to take the ad of a site that had some kind of similar service specifically tailored for whites?
Indeed there is a website at whitesingles.com. It links to a site run by the Stormfront White Nationalist Community which proudly displays a prominent “White Pride World Wide” motif. If a banner ad appeared on Xanga with “White Pride World Wide” emblazoned across it I’m fairly sure there would be an outrage, and rightly so. But if that’s the case then it leaves me wonder whether services such as blacksingles.com are in some way counterproductive in efforts to stamp out racism and segregation.
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Blacksingles.com
Segregation in the United States
Wrote the following comment on Jun 17, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I see where you’re coming from with this. Its the same across most social groups, be they ethnic, religious, locality or sexuality. One example is Gay Pride, I said to someone at such an event that there should be a Straight Pride seen as a lot of straight people come to Gay Pride events anyway and they should celebrate their freedom of expression too.
To say I was met with hostility is an understatement, I got called everything under the sun by different people in the crowd. “Why should they? Who in the straight world has had to fight for equality, for rights” to which I rolled off about women fighting for a right to vote, ethnic minorities met with prejudice etc. That soon shut them up but was rather shocking to see that some homosexuals that want equality still want to be segregated.
Bizarre behaviour to say the least.