Too many white people at UVA Multicultural Student Center

[Arctish]

Posting 'no Asians' on Grindr is similar to the statement about 'too many white people' in the MSC in that both express a desire to limit and/or exclude people based on their race.

The statements are similar. The contexts are completely different.

Those Grindr posts aren't private interactions. They are public announcements. The whole point is to have them read by a large number of random people in order to garner responses.

Whatever passes between a poster and a respondent via PM or text is private, but the listing is not.

Your wall is like an internet page that somebody has to have deliberately gone to. Fragile narcissist bigot had a captive audience. The context is completely different.

Your wall is in a public space. It is an open invitation to anyone to read your message to them.

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Yes, the venues in which 'no Asians' and 'too many white people' were said are different. But 'no Asians' isn't any less explicitly racist or offensive just because it was written on HotCoxx666's wall rather than said in person. And HotCoxx666 is 100% responsible for any asshattery he put there. There is no lessening of responsibility just because someone had to click on his link to see it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But I get the point of wanting to say straight out: No (whatever) on a site like Grindr. My impression of sites like Grindr is that they are essentially shopping sites for some fantasy of easy, no commitment sex, and generally a one and one thing. If I'm buying a sweater on line, I want one in the color I want and style I want. If I don't like pink or turtlenecks, I have every right to say so. I realize that Grindr isn't actually a site for hiring a prostitute--it's much more mutual sex than prostitution.

That would be a weird thing to do at most stores just as a matter of general practice. Usually, I just walk through the racks and pick what I want from what's available, leaving the rest. No declarations are required, really. The obligation to actually take other items just isn't there.

I think the issue with 'no Asians' (and other similar declarations) isn't about an individual person saying it. It's that it's said with a high enough frequency across users that the site feels like it isn't particularly inclusive of Asians in some regions. If you see 'no Asians' over and over--even from guys you may have just been checking out but then decided not to contact--you're getting repeatedly pre-rejected for something you cannot change. It's not even that. Ordinarily, you present yourself to someone and if they like you, cool; if not, move on. But you're being rejected not based on who you are or necessarily even how you look, but based on a loose qualifier and likely prejudicial ideas about what that might mean about you. Some groups may be disproportionately targeted by these pre-rejections over others, making it feel like they are repeatedly being singled out. They may also experience other overtly racist behaviour with higher frequency. And if this is an issue they experience outside of Grindr as well--feelings of exclusion and isolation within an already often (especially historically) marginalized group--, then, well, it's likely going to feel shitty to see reminders you are considered 'less than' in the broader community any time you feel like thumbing through the app for a hookup.

"No Asians" is basically giving you a window into the box to get a better view of what's on offer.