Interracial Dating-Does It Turn You On?
J Schipper
Interracial dating and intermarriage has increased in the last
century due to greater human mobility and multiculturalism. It
should be remembered that personal preferences and the presence
or absence of prejudice are irrelevant to people who are born
and die in the same town or city, which was often the case
before the invention of the automobile and the jet plane.
Before the 20th century, with the exception of soldiers and
traders, most people rarely interacted with foreigners.
Even the term "interracial dating" is subject to
interpretation. Often people take it to mean marriage between
caucasians, asians and blacks. However, most people have strong
historic, national and linguistic identities as well, which may
cause more interpersonal differences than just ethnological
definitions of race. For instance, most caucasians would not
view a union between Korean and Japanese nationals as a "mixed
marriage"; however, many Koreans and Japanese would heartily
disagree.
According to USA Today, in America 6% of marriages are
interracial; in 1970, it was less than 1%. A Gallup Poll on
interracial dating in June 2005 reported that 95% of 18- to
29-year-olds approve of blacks and whites dating. About 60% of
that age group said they have dated someone of a different
race.
This level of tolerance did not always exist.
Anti-miscegenation laws used to be very common in America. They
were first passed in the 1600s to prevent freed black slaves
from marrying whites.
More such laws were passed in the 1700s and 1800s as a response
to an influx of Chinese and Filipino laborers, almost
exclusively male. In this case, anti-miscegenation laws were
part of a larger anti-asian movement that eventually led to the
Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and other restrictive regulations.
These laws actually excacerbated ethnic tensions because asian
men were no longer allowed to bring their wives to America.
Those who wanted to marry had no other choice but to find a
non-asian partner.
After World War II, racial barriers began to lessen somewhat as
U.S. servicemen who had fought and were stationed overseas in
Asian countries returned with asian "war brides" of Chinese,
Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese origin.
It was only in 1967, during the height of the Civil Rights
Movement, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that miscegenation
laws were unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia). At that time,
38 states still had formal laws on their books to forbid the
marriage of whites and non-whites. In this era, these laws
still had widespread public support: just two years earlier, a
1965 Galllup poll found that 72 per cent of Southern whites and
42 per cent of Northern whites still wanted to ban interracial
marriage.
Especially in the Southern states, there was widespread public
fear specifically over predatory black men lusting after white
women, and white women being unable to resist their charms.
Black men who merely looked at white women were in danger of
being lynched. In one famous case, a 14 year-old black boy
named Emmett Till, who whistled at a white woman, was murdered
by Mississippi Klansmen in 1955. There was no similar level of
high-pitched racist hysteria about black women or asians.
Studies consistently show that asians have the highest rates of
intermarriage, and that Japanese are the most likely to have a
white spouse. Those who are most likely to marry within their
own ethnic group are Vietnamese men and women, Korean husbands
and Asian Indian wives. Most asians who marry a non-asian have
a white spouse; intermarriage with blacks and latinos is less
common. However, even among asians, most people still marry
someone of their own racial group. 22 percent of Asian-American
women have a non-asian husband. A mere nine percent of asian
husbands have non-asian wives
The 2000 Census showed a gender disparity in the composition of
interracial couples. The Census Bureau confirmed many black
women's complaints that white women tend to marry black men
more often than white men marry black women. Currently, six
percent of black husbands are in an interracial marriage,
compared to only two percent of black wives. Fourteen percent
of black men who are cohabiting without marriage have a white
woman living with them, while only three percent of cohabiting
black women live with a white man.
African-American men had white wives 2.65 times more often
than black women had white husbands. In other words, in 73
percent of black-white marriages, the husband was black. This
trend is even more pronounced among black-white couples who
cohabit without being married; in this case, five times as many
black men live with white women as white men live with black
women.
18 percent of Asian wives have white husbands, while merely
seven percent of asian husbands have white wives. The sex
ratios of asian/white couples is the mirror image of
black/white marriages. Asian women had white husbands 3.08
times more often than asian men had white wives. In other
words, slightly more than 75 percent of white-asian couples
featured a white husband and asian wife. However, unlike the
situation with black/white couples, the gender imbalance is
slightly less with cohabiting couples; only 2.09 times as many
white men cohabited with asian women as asian men cohabited
with white women.
Black-asian marriages, such as the one that produced golf
legend Tiger Woods, are still rare, but here the gender
imbalance is even more pronounced than interracial pairings
involving whites. 86 percent of black-asian couples consisted
of a black husband and an Asian wife. This means that there
were 6.15 times more couples where the husband was black and
the wife was asian than where the husband was asian and the
wife black.
Non-Hispanic whites marry other whites 96.5 percent of the
time, with little difference between men and women in the rates
of intermarriage.
Slightly less than 18 percent of Hispanic wives are wed to
non-Hispanics husbands, and a little over 15 percent of
Hispanic husbands have non-Hispanic wives.
This gender discrepancy has grown larger over time; in 1960,
white husbands were found in 50% of black/white marriages, and
in 62% of asian/white marriages. The social result of this
imbalance is a lack of marital opportunities for black women
and asian men.
It is tempting to blame media-driven social stereotypes for the
large gender discrepancy in black and asian intermarriage. Black
men are prominent in sports have frequently been depicted in
films as icons of virility. Americans engage in hero-worship of
sports figures, and despite the average low income of lack
males, elite black athletes are rich and famous.
Black women are rarely cast in highly sexualized film roles.
However, black women are prominent in sports, and are often on
stage as glamorous singers and dancers. In addition, black men
are have high incarceration rates, earn lower incomes and are
less likely to get post-secondary education than black women.
For practical reasons, one would expect black women to be
viewed on average as more desirable mates than black men.
However, according to a 2005 study done at Columbia University
by Aaron Gullickson, black with college degrees are 35% more
likely to enter into interracial marriages than blacks with
less education, and lower-class blacks showed "strong isolation
from the interracial marriage market". Whites who marry blacks
engage in cherry-picking, removing only the most successful
individuals from a disadvantaged minority community sorely in
need of successful role models. The Columbia study showed no
correlation between educational level and interracial marriage
for white spouses of blacks.
The image of asians may be more clear-cut and consistent; Asian
women are presented as quiet, delicate and exotic. Asian men,
with the exception of martial-arts films, are portrayed as
"nerdy", unathletic intellectuals. In fact, asians (both men
and women) are slightly smaller than the national average size.
Asians have been called a "model minority", for they tend to be
well-educated, hard-working and law-abiding. However, judging
from the low rate of intermarriage for asian men, it seems that
these old-fashioned personal virtues are less appealing to women
than a hypermasculine, macho image.
In the search for a mate, people say they are high-minded and
look for beauty within, and that their mates' personalities are
the most important factor in determining the outcome of a
relationship. Yet it is abundantly clear that people are quite
superficial and still to adhere to age-old sex stereotypes :
women find muscular, aggressive males attractive, while males
idealize the image of non-threatening, demure, petite women. In
the public's mind, if not in reality, black men and asian women
fit these social roles, and are therefor most fashionable as
dates and spouses.
2005 Census data was derived from counts of all 54,493,232
married couples in America as of April 1, 2000. Due to the
large population surveyed, these statistics are extremely
reliable. Census enumeration is made once every 10 years. The
Census Bureau also releases annual Current Population Survey
reports on "Families and Living Arrangements," but these are
based on sample sizes too small to be entirely trustworthy.
About The Author: J Schipper is interested in Interracial
Dating
http://www.dating-service-now.com
http://www.adult-friend-finder-now.info
http://www.dating-louisville-online.info
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