Yesterday I was reading a blog when I noticed an advertisement on the page for a dating service called blacksingles.com. I stopped for a moment and wondered if that might not be considered offensive by some? To be clear, I'm not suggesting it's racist, but there was something about it that felt strangely segregationist to me. Moreover, how would the target audience of that site feel if there was an ad for a similar service called whitesingles.com?
I do, of course, understand that we tend to congregate among groups with whom we share a commonality, be that race, religion, economic standing, or whatever. But when Martin Luther King Jnr led the Montgomery Bus Boycott do you think 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, again, I want to be clear I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with this site or the ad for it. But I'm curious if the blogging platform the ad appeared on would be so keen to take an ad for 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 this blogging platform 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 to wonder whether services such as blacksingles.com are in some way counterproductive in efforts to stamp out racism and segregation.
I get it though, there's nothing unusual about community sites or dating sites for specific groups. After all, there are Christian dating websites, Muslim ones, dating sites for people who like to dress up as animals, and countless sites for other specific groups. But seeing that ad just stopped me for a moment because I suppose because the idea of whitesingles.com is just so offensive and I try to constantly keep biases in mind and personally in check.
--- Article Notes ---
Time of death : 22:36
This was more like a thinking out loud writing exersize rather than a fully formed thought. There's more to dive into here, much much more. But when I reflected on it I didn't want to compare the blacksingles.com website in anyway with the hideous notions behind the whitesingles.com website. I felt like my writing was vague and open to being misread so I shelved the piece.