http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-usa-poll-race-idUSBRE97704320130808(Reuters) - About 40 percent of white Americans and about 25 percent of non-white Americans are surrounded exclusively by friends of their own race, according to an ongoing Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The figures highlight how segregated the United States remains in the wake of a debate on race sparked by last month's acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of unarmed black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. President Barack Obama weighed in after the verdict, calling for Americans to do some "soul searching" on whether they harbor racial prejudice.
There are regions and groups where mixing with people of other races is more common, especially in the Hispanic community where only a tenth do not have friends of a different race. About half of Hispanics who have a spouse or partner are in a relationship with non-Hispanics, compared to one tenth of whites and blacks in relationships.
Looking at a broader circle of acquaintances to include coworkers as well as friends and relatives, 30 percent of Americans are not mixing with others of a different race, the poll showed.
Respondent Kevin Shaw, 49, has experienced both integration and racial homogeny. He grew up in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and attended a mixed high school where he was one of only two white teenagers on the mostly black football team. His wife, Bobbi, is Hispanic. They met in high school and have been married for 27 years.
Eleven years ago, they moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in the suburb of Liberty. "Soon after we moved in, my mother-in-law came to visit and a neighbor asked if she was my maid. It was just a matter of ignorance," he said.
In the time he has lived there the neighborhood has become less blinkered, helped by the arrival of younger families.
He also puts prevailing attitudes down to environment. "A lot of it comes down to where you grow up," he said.
As a group, Pacific states - including California, the most populous in the nation - are the most diverse when it comes to love and friendship. By contrast, the South has the lowest percentage of people with more than five acquaintances from races that don't reflect their own.
Some of this is down to precedent. "This country has a pretty long history of restriction on inter-racial contact and for whites and blacks, even though it's in the past, there are still echoes of this," said Ann Morning, an associate professor in the department of sociology at New York University.
"Hispanics and Asian Americans have traditionally had less strict lines about integrating."
In his comments two weeks ago, President Obama expressed optimism about the future, saying his daughters' experiences show younger generations have fewer issues with race. "It doesn't mean we're in a post-racial society. It doesn't mean that racism is eliminated. But...they're better than we are, they're better than we were, on these issues," he said.
Younger American adults appear to confirm this, according to the poll. About one third of Americans under the age of 30 who have a partner or spouse are in a relationship with someone of a different race, compared to one tenth of Americans over 30. And only one in 10 adults under 30 say no one among their families, friends or coworkers is of a different race, less than half the rate for Americans as a whole.
"My Mom's school, they had ended segregation, but she told me there was still basically one side of the road for whites and one side of the road for blacks," respondent Carlon Carter, 18, said.
A keen athlete and music fan, his racially diverse group of friends in Birmingham, Alabama, comes from these shared interests.
"There's a big difference now. We don't see each other so much like 'you're white and I'm black'. If you like the same thing I like, then that's all that matters," he said.
These results were taken from the ongoing Reuters/Ipsos online poll and include the responses of 4,170 Americans between July 24th and August 6th. The credibility interval, a measure of precision, for these results is plus or minus about 2.7 percentage points for a five-day average on any given day during that period. Smaller subsets of the poll, such as blacks, Hispanics and adults under 30, have a credibility interval for that period ranging from about 3 percentage points to 11 percentage points.
The race and ethnicity questions in this story are part a polling project that started in January 2012, surveying about 11,000 people a month since then. More information on the these questions and hundreds of others asked since the poll began can be found at polling.reuters.com/
Many Americans Have No Friends Of Another Race
- Thread starter Straight Shooter
- Start date
CrimsonBolt
I AM A SLUT FOR RYAN GOSLING
and again George Zimmerman
what he could do? leave that ghetto trash beating him till death?
Zimmerman just save his life! what's wrong with you black people?
you think you can't beat us till death and we can't defend our own life? just because your black do you think black people have all right?
screw you!
what he could do? leave that ghetto trash beating him till death?
Zimmerman just save his life! what's wrong with you black people?
you think you can't beat us till death and we can't defend our own life? just because your black do you think black people have all right?
screw you!
Obama is a funny guy. "Birds of feather flock together" as the saying clearly mentions. Some people aren't into race mixing and that is their own right whereas others are for it. Tough question too because when you know who is involved in gangs or who rots in the US jails, you can easily understand why some people are against mixity or even being with the "wrong" crowd. Not everyone is an Obama muppet or is sharing Obama's ideals. The first inhabitants of America were the Indians tribes and the British settlers. Obama is an antiwhite racist but it has been known for quite a while, especially when he has back ups as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Farrakhan and Black Panthers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panthers. He even portrayed himself as Trayvon as if something like that happened to him 20 years ago, that says a lot about who he is and who represents. Let's say it frankly and without any political correctness, he represents the minorities before all.
Shifty
O.G.
Thanks for that opinion. All the way from France. Very helpful.
L3ggy
Special Operations FOX-HOUND
They are Americans.
I'd say it's about 65%. When I was in high school 15 years ago, usually blacks hung out with blacks, Spanish with Spanish, whites with whites, etc. However I think there's one thing that needs to taken into consideration here- language. Many of the Spanish people I've met either can't speak english or can't speak understandable english. This affects how much I'd want to be around people I have trouble understanding. Same way with Asian folks. Blacks tend to have different interests compared to the rest of the ethnic groups so they usually hang around each other. Now the Spanish and Asian friends I had could speak clear english so we could understand each other.
:cmon:icardfacepalm:
CrimsonBolt
I AM A SLUT FOR RYAN GOSLING
do you talking about native americans or indians from india? i ask because with you...
of course native americans are americans they the real americans the others are just immigrants!
I mean Indians who live in a place called America.
Yes, they are native, but are they American in the case that they do not want to be.
I wonder what name they used before it become America.
I don't see this as a bad or a good thing; (here comes the cliche') it is what it is. You associate with who you want to. Let the racial chips fall where they may.
Rey C.
Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Maybe each tribe used whatever name it had been using all along - and still uses.
Right, there were many different Indian tribes and they all had their own sayings.
Let's look at what Yahoo knows.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100531123440AAGVlrV
Philbert
Banned
"Smaller subsets of the poll, such as blacks, Hispanics and adults under 30, have a credibility interval for that period ranging from about 3 percentage points to 11 percentage points."
In other words "...we took in gobs of information which is essentially meaningless, and came up with lots of made-up facts from people; we had no way of verifying how many lies they were actually telling us, so neither do you."
A very typical statistical Jabberwocky...
PS: Native Americans were immigrants as well, who took other tribe's lands , and were often nomads with no claims to any specific area of land as their home.
In other words "...we took in gobs of information which is essentially meaningless, and came up with lots of made-up facts from people; we had no way of verifying how many lies they were actually telling us, so neither do you."
A very typical statistical Jabberwocky...
PS: Native Americans were immigrants as well, who took other tribe's lands , and were often nomads with no claims to any specific area of land as their home.
Elwood70
Torn & Frayed.
I am a native American.
I was born and raised here, therefore I am a native American.
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