The NAACP of Salt Lake City found nothing offensive about an online dating site geared toward white people.
Sam Russell, creator of the website WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com stirred things up when he posted an advertisement for his website in the Utah town of West Valley City.
“What prompted the idea is I was at home a few months ago sick watching daytime television being bombarded with whereblackpeoplemeet.com, farmersonly.com LDS Singles, Christian Mingle, you name it there were websites out there and I thought, ‘well, why can’t there be where WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com?'” Russell explained to Salt Lake City’s Fox 13.
Russell insisted the website is not racist. Regardless of the site’s intended racial demographic, the dating hub welcomes users over the age of 18 of all races and ethnicities. The site’s Terms of Use prohibits content that “promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual.” The rule extends to treatment of the site’s customer service representatives.
Jeanetta Williams, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City NAACP, appears to agree with Russell.
“I thought it was strange that they would put this Billboard up in Utah, especially with such a large White population and the high cost of Billboards,” Williams told Fox 13. “I was surprised when they would put up billboards here so you can meet other white singles because everyday you can meet white singles.”
“Apart from being perplexed by the need for a service to meet white people in a state that — according to 2014 census estimates — is more than 91 percent white,” he continued. “I didn’t find the website or billboard to be hostile to people of color. However, there might be other underlying reasons for this site.”
“If it were some type of a hate group that was putting these billboards up, we would take a closer look at the actual target. But here we’re seeing other advertisements for [dating services for] Black Singles, Farmers Singles, Religious Singles, LDS Singles, 50+Singles and others.”
Other popular mainstream dating sites like OkCupid and Dating Ring are accused of creating tools that allow users to discriminate their dating selection based on race and not everyone is brushing off Russell’s website. The Washington Post took issue with it asking him if he is “aware that white people already had the upper hand in online dating.”
“It’s our right to have this business,” he responded. The Post noted, “the ‘we’ presumably referring to white people, generally.”
“If we want equal rights in this country, it has to be equal rights for everybody,” Russell said.