Interracial Friendship and African American Attitudes about Interracial Marriage

Abstract

For a variety of reasons, there is little systematic evidence about African American attitudes about interracial marriage. National data are often sparse or not available, and they are often dated. Using a Year 2000 nationally representative poll from The New York Times, we analyze African American approval of interracial marriage. The sample comprised 934 African Americans. Eighty-five percent say they approve of interracial marriage. Education, sex, age, and region are significantly related to approval in the bivariate analyses. Analysis of the amount of contact or friendship African Americans have with Whites appears to be a critical variable affecting attitudes about intergroup marriage; the effects of most of the other variables become nonsignificant when friendship is included in the analysis.

Interracial contact and fear of crime

“…Comparatively fewer studies of interracial contact had examined its effects on Blacks (Jacobson & Johnson, 2006;Powers & Ellison, 1995;Sigelman & Welch, 1993), and fewer still had linked it to Blacks' fear of crime. Chiricos et al (1997) provided one of the few exceptions, and their study used an ecological measure of whether Blacks resided in predominantly White or Black neighborhoods.…”

The world's biggest salad bowl: Facebook connecting cultures

“…Moreover, friendship usually involves long-term cross-group interactions and interpersonal closeness, which is frequently based on strong affective ties. The notion that contact between groups involving friendship is especially powerful in changing intergroup attitudes has received growing empirical support over the last years (e.g., Aberson, Shoemaker, & Tomolillo, 2004;Jacobson & Johnson, 2006;Page-Gould, Mendoza-Denton, & Tropp, 2008;Paolini et al, 2004;Turner, Hewstone, Voci, Paolini, & Christ, 2007). According to a meta-analysis on cross-group friendship (Davies, Tropp, Aron, Pettigrew, & Wright, 2011), self-disclosure and time spent with out-group friends seem to be the two crucial aspects influencing intergroup attitudes.…”

Acceptance, Rejection, or Somewhere In-between: Family Communication Regarding Interracial Relationships

“…This cultural belief is a well-established attitude, passed down from one generation to the next, in hopes of preserving superiority. Jacobson and Johnson (2006) supported the notion that geographic location and age were directly associated with the uncertainty and negative attitudes regarding interracial relationships. Many in this present generation still embrace past ideologies; however, there are enough individuals who welcome a tide of change to challenge these past ideologies.…”