You know... maybe in addition to complaining to (and about) guys who post shitty racist statements of "preference" on their dating app profiles—all of which essentially boil down to "asshole seeks same"—we could complain and really go after companies that allow guys to include statements like "And Asians, prease reave me arone" on their profiles. They're not just helping to normalize hate (and/or "beauty standards" that are shaped by racism)... they're profiting from it.

You know... way, way back in the day... I ran the Stranger personals. Well, ran is overstating it. I labored in the personals trenches. For years I personally entered every personal ad that came in to our offices. (Back then people clipped a form out of the paper, filled it in by hand, and mailed it to the Stranger—hard to believe, I know.) And I refused to enter the phrase "straight-acting only." Hated it, wouldn't put it in print, didn't allow it in the pages of the Stranger. I didn't zap their ads—I entered whatever else they had to say—but they had to deal with the horror of deleting messages from any insufficiently "masc" guys who responded to their ads.

Seems to me that Grindr—and Scruff and Jacked and Recon and whatever else—could easily zap racist language, suspend accounts, and delete the accounts of serial offenders. Or in other words: dating app companies could and should get out of the business of normalizing, perpetuating, and profiting off of this kind of racist bullshit.