I dated a Chinese American woman years ago and at one point she asked me if I was dating her "because she was asian" and holy shit was that one of the most heartbreaking things. I cannot imagine living under the weight of that fetishization, always wondering what your boyfriend's real "motives" are.

A couple of my real "holy shit racism is real!" Moments were when I was dating women who weren't white, and realizing with shock and horror that people around me saw them completely differently than I did. I still remember walking through Madison holding hands with a black woman and the stares from people in the street were terrifying. I'm a semi-professional weirdo, I'm used to people looking at me, and this was just completely different, a mix of spectacle and hate.

Idk, I'm white, and a lot of my "education" in racism has been from gut-punch moments like that, where I got a tiny glimpse of the seething hatred of white society towards anyone different.