
Others, however, are quick to point out the race and gender imbalances behind interracial dating. My Chinese-American ex-boyfriend once pointed out an Asian woman and a white man locking hands as they left a store together in Times Square. "I'd like that more," he whispered to me as he shook his head, barely hiding his disdain for the young couple, "but you never see it the other way around. No Asian man is considered attractive enough to be in that kind of relationship."
While Asian women in this country have been hypersexualized, exoticized, and painted as docile, submissive creatures, Asian men are consistently portrayed by the media as accented, effeminate boys whose value lies in calculators and your occasional, well-choreographed kung-fu scene. Along the same vein, black women are portrayed as aggressive, loud, and masculine. Could these deep-rooted racial stereotypes, coupled with traditional, heteronormative gender expectations of relationships, be partly responsible for the gender imbalances in interracial relationships? Do these depictions quietly affect who we choose to view as sexually appealing?
Cheerios recently released a commercial starring a black father, white mother, and their young bi-racial daughter as members of your average, honey-roasted-carbs-loving family. I applaud the company for defending their bold depiction of a biracial family after bigoted viewers decided to air their opinions en masse via YouTube and Reddit, but I will also posit that Cheerios' depiction wasn't interracial enough. Until depictions of Asian men and black women in interracial relationships become more commonplace in our media, I refuse to believe that interracial love can be a sign of post-racial bliss.

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