The dating world today feels like a minefield—swiping, ghosting, endless situationships, and more. What if the problem isn’t just app fatigue, but the very idea of romance itself? Sociologist Sabrina Strings unpacks how centuries of racism and sexism have shaped our ideas about modern love, leaving many people—especially women who don’t fit the "white enough" ideal—excluded from the fairy tale of true love.

Drawing from her latest book, The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance, and her own experiences, Strings challenges everything we think we know about love, and asks: Is something better possible?

Sabrina Strings is author of The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance. She is Professor and North Hall Chair of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was a recipient of the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship with a joint appointment in the School of Public Health and Department of Sociology. A certified yoga teacher, her work has been featured in The Feminist Wire, Yoga International, and LA Yoga. Sabrina is also an award-winning author with publications in diverse venues including, Ethnic and Racial Studies; Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society and Feminist Media Studies. Her first book, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (NYU Press 2019), was named one of Essence magazine’s "10 Books We're Dying To Toss Into Our Summer Totes." It also made “must read” lists in Ms. Magazine, Colorlines, and Bitchmedia, and has been featured on NPR, KPFA and WNYC.

Full transcript available here at relationscapes.org.