Chapter 25 Quiz: Race, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Desire

Instructions: Select the best answer for each multiple-choice question. For short-answer questions, write a clear response of 2–4 sentences.

Question 1

Christian Rudder's analysis of OkCupid racial preference data, published in Dataclysm (2014), found which of the following?

A) Racial preferences were randomly distributed across groups, suggesting no systematic hierarchy B) White users received the highest ratings from all racial groups, and Black women and Asian men received the lowest average ratings C) In-group preferences were equal in magnitude across all racial groups D) Asian women and Black men were rated most desirable across all groups

Answer: B

Question 2

Which of the following best describes colorism?

A) Racial discrimination based on whether someone identifies with a particular racial group B) The preference for lighter skin tones within racial groups, rooted in colonial associations between Whiteness and value C) A form of discrimination that only affects mixed-race individuals D) The legal enforcement of racial categories in census data

Answer: B

Question 3

Frantz Fanon's argument in Black Skin, White Masks about colonial desire suggests that:

A) Colonized people's desires are completely free of the colonizer's influence if they reject political assimilation B) The colonized person who desires Whiteness is simply expressing false consciousness and should be educated out of it C) Desire has been deformed by the colonizer's value system, and proximity to Whiteness has historically offered social survival in a rational response to an irrational structure D) Fanon believed interracial relationships were inherently exploitative

Answer: C

Question 4

The In-Group Preference Ratio (IPR) measures:

A) The percentage of users who explicitly state a racial preference in their dating profiles B) How much more likely a user is to match within their racial group than would be expected if preferences were randomly distributed C) The overall match rate of a racial group averaged across all platform users D) The number of cross-racial relationships initiated per month on a given platform

Answer: B

Question 5

Which of the following is a key methodological limitation of all existing racial preference data from online dating platforms?

A) Dating apps are used only by young, highly educated users, so results cannot be generalized to any population B) Racial categories are ambiguous, user-selected, and vary by platform, meaning groups like "Asian" may include very different subpopulations C) The sample sizes are too small to detect statistically reliable patterns D) Researchers have not been able to obtain ethical approval for analyzing dating app data

Answer: B

Question 6

How do dating app algorithms produce racial disparate impact even when they do not use race as an explicit variable?

A) App developers intentionally design algorithms to demote profiles from certain racial groups B) Algorithms optimizing for engagement learn from racially structured user behavior, reproducing and amplifying the racial preferences embedded in millions of swipes — without explicit racial coding C) Race-blind algorithms always produce racially equal outcomes by removing demographic information D) The disparity comes entirely from user-level filtering features, not from the algorithm itself

Answer: B

Question 7

Robin Zheng's philosophical distinction regarding racial preferences argues that:

A) Having a preference that was produced by racist socialization is equivalent to being a conscious racist B) Because preferences are involuntary, they carry no ethical weight and cannot be examined C) There is a meaningful difference between having preferences shaped by racist socialization and being a morally culpable racist — but the preference still has social effects regardless of intent D) Racial preferences are only ethically significant when they lead to explicit statements of exclusion

Answer: C

Question 8

Short Answer: Describe the "default White" problem in media representations of attractiveness and explain why it matters for understanding racialized desire.

Model Answer: The "default White" problem refers to the cultural tendency to imagine unspecified characters, romantic protagonists, and beauty ideals as White, positioning Whiteness as the universal and unremarked baseline while other racial identities are marked as particular or special. This matters for desire because attraction is partly learned through cultural exposure and narrative identification: when the dominant archive of romantic desirability is White, non-White individuals have fewer templates for imagining themselves as desirable protagonists, and consumers of all races are trained to treat White faces as the default object of romantic aspiration.

Question 9

Which of the following statements about interracial relationship attitudes and behaviors in the United States is most accurate?

A) Stated approval of interracial marriages and actual interracial marriage rates have both remained flat since the 1960s B) Approval of interracial marriages has risen dramatically (to ~94% by 2021), while actual interracial marriage rates have increased more slowly and remain below 20% of new marriages C) Behavioral rates of interracial marriage now equal the proportion of the population that expresses approval D) The rise of dating apps has completely eliminated racial preferences in actual partnering behavior

Answer: B

Question 10

Short Answer: Distinguish racial fetishization from racial exclusion and explain why fetishization is considered dehumanizing even when it involves attraction rather than rejection.

Model Answer: Racial exclusion is a behavioral pattern of consistently not dating members of a particular racial group. Racial fetishization is the opposite pattern — intense attraction to members of a racial group — but organized around stereotypes that project essentialized characteristics onto all members of that group. Fetishization is dehumanizing because it treats the fetishized person not as an individual with their own biography and personality, but as a representative of a racial type; their individuality is irrelevant, and they are desired only as an avatar of racial meaning. Partners of fetishizers often report feeling surveilled for conformity to racial stereotype and rejected when they deviate from the archetype.

Question 11

The "contact hypothesis" (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006) is relevant to debates about racial preferences in dating because:

A) It argues that people always prefer partners from their own social network, regardless of race B) It demonstrates that meaningful cross-racial contact consistently reduces racial prejudice, including racialized aesthetic evaluations — suggesting racial preferences are mutable, not fixed C) It shows that online contact through dating apps is equivalent in effect to in-person contact for reducing racial bias D) It argues that increasing contact between racial groups always leads to higher rates of interracial marriage

Answer: B

Question 12

Short Answer: Explain the ethical dilemma that Okafor and Reyes face when their racial preference preprint is weaponized by white nationalist media. What solution does the chapter propose, and what does it suggest about researcher responsibility?

Model Answer: Okafor and Reyes face the dilemma of having published data that — when stripped of its structural framing and caveats — can be used by white nationalists to argue that racial hierarchy in desirability is natural and justified. The chapter proposes that they restructure the paper so that historical and structural analysis is the organizing frame, not a caveat, and add an explicit section addressing how the data should not be interpreted. This reflects a broader argument about researcher responsibility: in a world where bad-faith actors actively seek data to naturalize racism, researchers cannot claim "value-neutral" publication insulates them from responsibility for their findings' social life. Framing, communication strategy, and anticipation of misuse are themselves methodological and ethical obligations.