Black Women-White Men

Ivan Seeking

Probably a doomed thread, I thought this was a very striking story.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/perso....ap/index.html

IMO there is little doubt about it: Generally speaking, black men are in trouble, even in the view of black women, which is ironic when we consider that Obama is the first black man who could be elected to the highest office in the land. Even though racial barriers are falling, on the average, black men are struggling as much as ever.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-01.htm

turbo

My nephew is a lifer in the Navy. His wife is a lifer in the Navy, and when he married her, she already had a daughter. He is white, his wife is black, and his daughter is probably the most attractive and charming lady that I have ever met. She is killer cute.

My nephew is a chief and has been voted "Sailor of the year" for his ship, his group, etc, over and over again. He gets to choose assignments in the Navy, but if he opted out, he would have to fight to come back to rural America and live with his family, even in "liberal" New England. I love my family, and I hate intolerance.

Ivan Seeking

Sure, but this is not about intolerance, it is about black women literally giving up on finding an acceptable black husband; of a similar social status. I don't think I have heard of anything quite like this before. At the root of this are the questions: What's happening to black men. And next, why are black women seemingly doing better? And of course one has to wonder about the long term implications. I guess for one, a trend like this will help to brind down racial barriers as mixed families become more common and as the races are diluted.

turbo

I don't know if she "gave up" on finding a suitable mate who is black, but she got a loving mate who is serious about raising a smart, well-adjusted daughter who isn't afraid to work for what she wants. I'm not sure that there is a whole lot of social import in the "dating out" idea anyway. If you find a person that you click with, their race is not real important to that relationship, though it may have implications with family, friends, etc.

I'm just concerned about the longer-term implications of their eventual retirement. Their pensions would go a lot farther in rural Maine than in San Diego, but interracial couples are rare here, and they would face challenges socially. My wife and I had a house in a fairly nice development, and when an interracial couple bought a house a couple of blocks away, the previous owner (retired state trooper) went around the neighborhood apologizing to people. What an idiot! The new owners are a nice couple. He manages a chain store and his wife operates a day-care center out of their home.

I dated a young black woman in college for a bit. That earned me a lot of grief from a couple of black guys who were interested in her, including one HUGE fellow who wasn't shy about spouting racist crap in the dining hall and other public places. One reason that I lost interest in that woman is that I found out that she held a white co-ed in disdain, seemingly for the same reason - she was dating a black guy. Intolerance comes easy, it seems.

Ivan Seeking

That was the entire point of the story: That black women are starting to date white men due to a lack of acceptable black men.

turbo

I know. The fact is that there are a lot of black male sailors based out of San Diego, and the fact that they're making it in the Navy with the discipline, training requirements, deployments, etc, implies that there might be a lot of decent, eligible black guys there. She ended up with my nephew, though, and they are perfect for each other, and he is a perfect dad for their daughter.

LydiaAC

Hello everybody:
I think this is a sort of "diffusion" phenomena. Interracial couples has been always possible but now, they are more probable because barriers are weaker. So, some black women try a white guy and if things work, they marry. However, we see a big flux of black women marrying with white men, because we think that the normal thing would be black women marrying black men and white women marrying white men. Actually, if race were not an issue, we must find that black women choose black or white men in the same proportion. We are very far from that situation.
Nevertheless, I think that the statistics about black men reveal a real problem. Racists make a big fuss about this thing, but the fact that black women do not share the problem proves irrefutably that race has nothing to do. We Mexicans have a similar problem. A work partner said to me that he had a Green Card but he did not want to work in United States because he did not want for his kids be criminals.
I had never understand this Mexican thing to love everybody who is Mexican, independently of behavior. When a Mexican is condemned to death in United States, he is a sort of hero, guilty or not. Mexicans living in United States have preference to make friendship with other Mexicans. Do you think this is right? I think it is not when you prefer a criminal Mexican to a decent American. The isolation of Mexican Americans is apparent when you hear how they speak Spanish. I know people who left Mexico with a College education, speaking Spanish very well and some years later, they speak Spanish like an illiterate, because this is the kind of people who they have exclusive contact.
So, I don't think nobody must be worry about black women marrying white men. What must be a worry is black women marrying criminal black men, only because they are black. If black men lost the advantage to be selected by his race, I am sure they will try harder to be an eligible partner. Men can do any possible thing to have women.
Lydia

Economist

Not neccessarily true. If there were no racist people and everyone was color blind, you still may find that different races tend to hand out with each other more often and marry within their race more often. Even without racism people may still be likely to live in areas and go to schools that tend to be racially disproportional for various socio-economic reasons that don't depend on racism, discrimination, etc. Therefore, you still may see people tending to marry within their race more often than not.

LydiaAC

Hello Economist:
If everyone where colorblind and educational level, hobbies, activities, neighborhoods and languages, were equally distributed, do you think that people would prefer marry within their own race, either?
I think it is possible but must be proven or refuted by some evidence. Maybe sociobiology has something to say.
However, if the equilibrium value is not 50-50, the fact that now we see a flux of black women marrying white men, suggest that the current proportion is not at equilibrium.

When I went to Melbourne, some students of University recommended to me to visit "Casa de España" when Spanish speaking people reunited. I walked a few blocks to find that, apart from language, they have nothing in common with me. I saw a pool table and I wanted to play and they have problem with that because women "do not play pool". They thought that world is a hard place and Hispanics are doomed to suffer. If I lived in Australia, I am sure I would never have married some of them.
Lydia

turbo

Maine may be an exception, but here the white woman/black man couples seem to far outnumber the black woman/white man couples.

Economist

No. If everything was equally distributed among races, then I think you'd expect that race would make no difference at all, and everyone would be equally likely to marry. However, even in a world without any racism and discrimination I think we would expect to see hobbies, education levels, neighborhoods, etc, somewhat correlated with race for various reasons.

Astronuc

Probably culture/ethnicity would be major factors.

I think though, that there is an inherent racial discrimination that leads to segregation by socio-economic factors, based on my experience of that last 40 years. The segregation by race, ethnic group or socio-economic status transcends generations.

Economist

That could be true.

I guess I'm just not convinced. I think different races, differ for reasons outside of just racial discrimination. Many African Americans get very poor education, because African American's make up a disproportionate number of people in low income areas. The reasons for this are probably very complex, and some of the factors are probably related to racial discrimination while others aren't. For example, many children raised in these circumstances come from single parent households (usually a single mother), which is clearly a variable related to income and therefore where one lives (and it's also a variable that is probably not tied much to racial discrimination). Another example, is that Jews only make up 1 in 1000 (0.1%) of the population, yet they receive 29% of the Nobel Prizes in Science and Literature. These facts don't seem so clearly tied to racial discrimination, but maybe I'm just missing something.

Thomas Sowell is very interested in this topic, and in his view people should not expect things to be completely equal among different races, because of geography, culture, values, hobbies, history, and many other variables. He claims it's odd that people look to disparities in various things as "proof" of racial discrimination, because in his view it's an exception rather than the rule. If anyone is interested he's written many books, articles, and speeches on the topic.

Just for the record, I'm not saying Dr. Sowell is correct, but rather that it's complicated topic, and there might be many variables aside from just racial discrimination that play a key role.

LydiaAC

Hello:
That is exactly the reason by which so much people do not like capitalism. People differ in interests and this difference is translated into economic differences because the market value to write poetry or to stoke broking very different.
Races differ because they were selected in different environment. If sun is abundant, blacks are the superior race and if sun is scarce, whites are. I think that it is probable that African-Americans (not Africans in general) were selected to survive adversity. How do you think that a black person, proud and arrogant, sure of his own ability and with a predisposition to be his own boss, could manage to be subject of slavery? I think they could not: they died. However, black people, hard and strong, able to control their pain and with a more than extraordinary love for life, survived.
What of both sets of qualities is "superior"? I think none, but the first set is more valuable in a market economy. But, if an atomic bomb or an electromagnetic pulse destroyed the society in which we live, I am sure that blacks would be more able to cope with it.
This is somewhat an exaggeration, only intended to point out that I am open to accept some genetic component in differences between races, but I think that we must not hurry to attribute any difference to genes. I think that the most important component is a cultural disadvantage. It is different to be educated than to be children of educated people than to be grandchildren of educated people or descent of a long tradition of educated people.
I can see it in Mexico. I always say that I am "second-generation" because my parents had a college education, but not my grandparents. Most of my schoolmates are "first-generation". They must learn in school things that I learned in home. In a party, a Russian professor talk us about how she and her son interchanged e-mails in which they discuss about meaning of life and ask us if we talk with our parents about that. Most students were perplexed and one of them said her that "if I said my father something similar, he would slap my face and shout "Are you crazy? Think of something useful: food, home, not that crap!""
I think that in the case of Jews, a cultural advantage is the answer. From biblical times, they were used to read and discuss scriptures. There is a long tradition for study between Jews which make things easier for them. Could it be genetics? It could be if Jews were a race, but they are not! Askhenazi gene pool is more related to Germans than Sefaradi gen pool. And Sefaradi gen pool is more related to Spanish people than to Askhenazi gene pool.
I think that if I could live in a world with zero discrimination, it could be easier to see how much and which differences between races remain. Some people think we already live in that world because discrimination is not already in law, but that is not true.
Lydia

Economist

I was not implying that genetics had anything to do with it. In my own personal view, genetics has nothing to do with it. I was just pointing out that there are many socio-economic reasons that would lead to differences amoung race, gender, age, religion, etc, that have nothing to do with prejudice and discrimination.

Ronnin

Would it be considered racist if a man or woman chose a spouse based on say hair color, eye color, build, ect? Perhaps, for the sake of "shaping" the look of the children. I think people can have prejuduces without being a racist.

Economist

Well, to be technical one needs to seperate prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. In my Social Psychology class we defined them this way. Stereotypes are broad over-generalizations people place on a group (such as, women are bad drivers, old people are cheap, athletes are dumb, asians are good at math, etc). Prejudice is an emotional dislike of someone for belonging to a group (such as, racism, sexism, etc). Discrimination is a behavior directed at someone for being part of a group (such as, not hiring someone because of race or gender, or not marrying someone because of race, etc). These three things can sometimes go hand-in-hand and sometimes one causes the other, but they're not neccessarily related (you can have elements of one without either of the other two).

I would say that your example is possibly discrimination (if for example you wouldn't date someone for a certain hair or eye color). Unless of course you just not attracted to those eye or hair colors, then I guess it'd be more prejudice.

I agree with you though that prejudice and racism are not the same thing, specifically racism is a type (or subset) of prejudice (but not the other way around).