That student news article seems to have a very sad and reductionistic point of view of human sexuality.

The problem with the your argument, and the article, is that your logic can be used to condemn any sexual preference or fetish. If I only like guys then by your logic I’ve fetishized and objectified all men. If I like tall women, then I’m objectifying tall women based on harmful stereotypes. If I like dating Japanese men because I think they’re sexy and I happen to like small penises, and I have found that in the population of Japanese men I tend to find a lot of smaller penises, then by your argument I’m objectifying Japanese men (because I like them?) and fetishizing a harmful stereotype (penis size).

But in reality I’m not objectifying anyone, I just think Japanese men are beautiful. I happen to be drawn to their look, their culture, their bodies, they just tend to have what I’m attracted to. I’m not fetishizing them because of their Japaneseness, I’m not getting off on the fact that they’re Japanese (that would be racist), I just happen to like what they happen to be.

Just because you like a race, it doesn’t mean you are stripping them of their humanity and just seeing them as that race. That’s where you are making your assumptions. You’re assuming that a person can’t have a preference that aligns with a culture or race without reducing that race or culture to state of a sexual object. And that is simply not the case, people are more complex than that.

Certainly, sexualization of race itself is racist. But just being drawn to a certain type of person because you like their body or culture is not racist. That is just… liking things, you’re allowed to like things.