I'd Hate To Be Black On Adam4Adam
-by Jeremy Gloff
-appeared on TheNewGay.net
-April 26th 2010

No blacks please.
Sorry no blacks.
If you are black not interested.
Chocolate not welcome.

You will never see the above four sentences on a job application.
You will never see the above four sentences on a sign in front of a club.
You will never see those four sentences while applying for an apartment.
However you will see those sentences quite frequently on the gay dating site Adam4Adam.

In the year 2010 it is illegal to be racially selective in the work place. In the course of making friends it would be considered racist to say out loud that you do not want black friends. I am hard pressed think of any situation where it is socially acceptable to physically single out a black person as being undesirable and not welcome. Except on Adam4Adam.

Many times on Adam4Adam these racially driven statements are followed by “I’m not racist, it’s just a preference.”

If an employer doesn’t want to hire a black person that is also a preference isn’t it?
If someone doesn’t want to have black friends that is a preference as well.
All of the above situations are one form or another of racism. An entire race of people is being disqualified solely based on skin tone.

Adam4Adam is basically a gay sex site. While its credibility is extremely low, its popularity amongst a sizable portion of the gay population is high. While browsing the site (for reasons unspecified here) I found it shocking just how acceptable and normal it was for a large number of these profiles to state out loud that black men were not desirable. And then there was the guy who didn’t like Asians either who said that “if you are chocolate or rice please don’t bother.”

“No blacks. It’s just a preference.”

I sit now putting myself in another man’s skin. I am at my computer lonely at night browsing people’s profiles. I am trying to imagine how it would make me feel to see over and over and over and over that someone does not want me to message them because of my skin color.

“No blacks. It’s just a preference.”

Had they not said they didn’t like black people I may have e-mailed them. Would it have been that horrible to receive an e-mail from a black man? Is it that hard to not open an email? Is it that hard to not open fifty emails?

I do not think a black man should ever have to get used to seeing people express out loud they find them undesirable. It is time for gay men to stop this. We cannot dismiss Adam4Adam. Millions of people are on this site daily. The language used on this site has an effect on many people’s daily lives.

We all have a right to our preferences. Every single person in the world has the right to have sex with whatever turns them on. Despite our liberty to choose our sexual partners we are obligated as human beings to take into consideration the feelings of our fellow man. For the sake of people’s feelings is it that fucking hard to keep some of our preferences to ourselves?