When deciding whether to swipe right, what are we really looking at?
Is it someone's smile? Their sense of fashion?
Or is it their skin colour?
Look, I'm Indigenous.
So it's nice to know at least half of our society
has some positive feelings towards me.
But I'm interested to know
how does being one of the losers of the race popularity contest
affect your chances of finding love.
Luckily, someone at SBS has already been looking into just that.
Santilla is the presenter of the new SBS documentary Date My Race.
My name's Santilla, I'm an SBS journalist and I've just turned 30.
I'm on a mission to find out whether racism is sabotaging my love life.
Hey... So, Santy...
after all your research in this area,
does it surprise you
that African Australians
and Aboriginal Australians
so, you and me,
are at the bottom of the food chain?
It doesn't surprise me one bit.
People seem to think racism is that very overt, you know,
someone saying bad things to someone or behaving in a particular way
but I don't think they think that it manifests itself in behaviour,
in how certain groups of people are treated.
And in relationships.
So has this actually affected you in your love life?
Do you have any dating- as-a-black-woman horror stories?
Certainly when I've gone out and met people, strangers,
they have come up to me
and they've said some pretty interesting things...
"Do you have a big booty?"
Thinking that I might be like Beyonce or Rihanna or something,
or the hair thing, you know, or um...
- People ask to touch your hair. - All the time.
I'm wondering if this happens to you as well...
Do people ever try and guess where you're from
or try to bring it up in conversation but not actually know how to do that?
Yes, all the damn time.
It is one of the most annoying questions I get asked.
When is it going to be acceptable for someone to just
consider me Australian, why do I have to constantly explain my blackness?
You've got to have pretty thick skin to open up your love life
to a film crew.
What was the hardest part of making this documentary?
The hardest part was having what I already knew...
validated.
For the longest time I thought
"There's no way someone could be discriminating against me based on my colour when it comes to dating.
There's no way every time I go on Tinder or whatever
someone's not swiping on me because of how I look.
The combination of the really dark eyes and the really dark hair,
it doesn't do anything for me.
If I came across her online, probably wouldn't go down that route.
I've never really been in the atmosphere where African women
are there as such.
Um... so I don't think she would be my type.
And to hear people say
that it's because of your race, it's your skin colour, this is why...
Yeah, it's just...
I just... I just...
Somehow... I wish that people knew, um,
what it's like to be on the receiving end of that.
To hear repeatedly actually, it's your colour.
It's your colour.
I can't change it.
Now, real talk.
Are you still single?
Yes, oh my god, yes. After all that.
- It's a travesty. - I know. It's terrible.
Things like Tinder may have failed both of us.
I'm thinking we could try something a little bit different.
A little bit old school...
- Would you like to go speed dating? - Totally.
We brought together some unsuspecting Melbourne singles,
plied them with booze and tried to get them talking
about sex, dating and race.
Hi...
- I'm Laura. - Nice to meet you, Laura.
- Hello. - Katerina.
Nice to meet you, my hands are wet from the thing.
That's a really bad handshake.
I don't think I could date anyone that was vaguely racist.
If somebody didn't like puppy dogs, I probably wouldn't date them.
What am I looking for? That's a tough question.
I think someone to do fun things with, go exploring with,
just do the things that I do alone... with someone.
Who I wouldn't date?
A douche.
Um... How do we make it?
Um, all right, I...
- Make... a game for a living. I make games. - You make game?
So how's your day been?
Because you told me mine was really stressful...
- How's yours been? - Yeah, my day was really good.
- What do you do with yourself? - I started a beard oil company
where I sell beard oils.
- What do you put in the beard oils? - That's a great question, Santy.
I have a club night thing that I run once a week.
It's a nightclub except for geeks.
- Do you have the beard oil... - It's so soft.
It is soft, isn't it? Yeah. Told ya.
Like, the history of the Mediterranean
and the Middle East has always been war, war, war...
How about you? What do you get up to? What do you do for fun?
- Dancing. - Dancing? Time for dancing.
- You're a speed dating pro? - Not pro. I've done like a couple.
Once again, they were all like geek speed dating things.
OK, I'm sensing a theme here.
Is it ever a case of bang on the first date?
Um, I think it just depends on how well the date goes,
how well the two people,
how comfortable they feel with each other and I mean...
It just depends from person to person.
So you would say yes, it's OK?
I would say, if there's forcing themselves to,
they should always take a step back and have a real think about it...
- Sure. - Be honest.
- To themselves and to the other person. - Yep.
- What do you think? - Sure.
On my Tinder profile there's one of me on top of the back of a camel
but just facing the wrong way just to confuse people.
- Does that go for you? - Oh, not well.
I'm like a Turkish or a Lebanese magnet.
They all come for me.
Would you date anyone that wasn't from your race?
Oh, no, I have no preferences like that, no, not at all.
You'd be surprised how many people seem to have an issue about it.
Have you ever dated an Aboriginal person before?
- No. - That's my cultural background.
So it's still like a stressful thing on a date...
Do you find that's a stressful thing to bring up?
Cos I've had bad reactions from people before.
To be honest, people kind of like make kind of racist jokes
or whatever... Maybe I'm dating the wrong people.
Race isn't an issue to me, if there's a connection, there's a connection.
Nice dating you.
Ah, hypothetically, would you go on another date or drink with me?
- Probably. - Burn!
Oh, no, I'm critical.
Wow.
OK, see you, Skaidris. See ya.
So, Santy, how did you find it?
I loved it, met some very interesting people.
It was really good because people get to know you,
they get to see beyond and kind of go, ooh...
You're not your colour, you're not, whatever,
or any other idea they might have.
It was really good, I enjoyed it. It was fun.
So are you going to give up Tinder altogether
and just go speed dating, maybe with Skaidris from now on?
Hell, yeah!
Happily.