"White Republicans (81 percent) are no different from white Democrats (78 percent) .....

[kwassa]

in that they both have social networks that are entirely composed of whites. Among white independents, 73 percent say their social networks are comprised entirely of people who are white. More than 8-in-10 (82 percent) white Midwesterners report that their social networks are entirely composed of whites, compared to more than three-quarters of white Northeasterners (78 percent) and Southerners (77 percent), and 68 percent of white Westerners. White seniors (ages 65 and older) are only slightly more likely than white young adults (ages 18-29) to have entirely white social networks (80 percent vs. 72 percent). There are, however, no substantial differences by gender: men (76 percent) are about equally as likely as women (77 percent) to report having all-white social networks.

I know this is not news to anyone here, but it is from the original report.

found here:
http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/08/analysis-social-network/

and I am fascinated by the thread whose subtitle should be "But I have black friends!"

[msongs]

1. this, as other polls, only represent those surveyed nt

[kwassa]

2. What is your point?

Do you have a problem with the poll? Do you have a problem with polling?

[1StrongBlackMan]

14. Because no poll that presents findings ...

that we do not like are to be believed representative of the larger society.

"Besides ... I had a drink with a Black guy at the annual conference, two weeks ago ... what was his name ...?"

[randys1]

31. Good thing I didnt post that poll, I would be gone by now

I am in trouble again for pointing out it is white crybaby liberals who didnt show up in 2010 (yes minorities may not have also but way more white people than not)

and i was attacked immediately and will have mail any minute now about a hidden post

i dont know why i tolerate this place

[Gormy Cuss]

29. No, this survey was a nationally representative probability sample

and that means it's generalizable to the overall population within a measured (and small) margin of error. IOW, if you asked everyone in the U.S. the same questions the results would be distributed in a similar manner.

[jaysunb]

3. There's a big difference between "friends & acquaintances" n/t

[kwassa]

4. Explain.

Please elucidate.

[jaysunb]

5. People sometimes equate their professional and casual acquaintance's

as friendship. But that's not so. You invite friends to important events in your life. You include friends in most aspects of your life. Friends most often share your personal values and more than likely have a similar background.
I know people mean well when they claim to have "friends " of other racial or cultural groups, but it's just not so in most cases. They are merely acquaintances.....big dif.

[1StrongBlackMan]

15. The survey doesn't speak to "friendships" ...

rather it speaks to "social networks", i.e., that group with whom one has social, but not necessarily intimate, contact ... this would include professional and casual acquaintances.

[Number23]

6. and I am fascinated by the thread whose subtitle should be "But I have black friends!"

Which thread is that? And was it done by our persistently stupid friend?

[kwassa]

24. here it is ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=883857

[JDPriestly]

7. Do you think that non-whites -- people of color -- have a more racially varied circle of friends

than do whites?

I sat by a young African-American girl at a retreat recently. She was extremely unfriendly to me, absolutely ignored me, until I began to talk to the white person across from me about social injustice. Sometimes I think that it isn't just white people who are cautious about reaching across racial barriers.

Seems understandable that people of color are very cautious.

And yet, think of the thousands of thousands of white Americans who died, many of them quite specifically to free the slaves in the Civil War. Think of the number of white members of Congress who voted for civil rights legislation and the federal and state judges and legislators who supported civil rights legislation.

It is easy to focus on how far we have to go. It is clear that we do have far to go. But, we have come a long, long way and if we keep the faith, we will go much, much further.

At 71, I must say that in 1959, I would never have thought it possible that we could have a president who was the child of a marriage between and African man and a white woman. Never. I lived in the South (although I was not by culture or birth a Southerner) and the discrimination was painfully evident to me.

We have come so far. We all have to work -- not just white people -- to become one people. (At least that is what I want. I don't know whether other people, even African-Americans are willing to make the effort and sacrifices it will take to do that.) Both African-Americans and other people of color will need to, just as white people will, reach out and make friends with people of other races. You can't teach your children to believe that every person of another race wants to hurt them and expect your children to have friends from the other race. That goes all ways. We need to give our children opportunities to be in positive situations with children of other races and ethnicities and religions.

[Voice for Peace]

8. this

I would never have thought it possible that we could have a president who was the child of a marriage between and African man and a white woman.

Wasn't (isn't?) that the supreme fear of white men -- that their
women would prefer black men?

[Skittles]

9. I asked an ex a long time ago

Last edited Wed Sep 3, 2014, 05:19 PM - Edit history (2)

to try to explain to me why he was bothered by a mixed race couple in the neighborhood - a black man with a white woman - I really wanted to know because until then I had seen no signs of overt racism in him - he told me, "I KNOW this sounds ridiculous but, it feels like "they" are taking "our" women" - yup

[JustAnotherGen]

11. And the reality is

That it was the other way around - long long after slavery ended.

Maybe it was the collective unconscious at play?

[Skittles]

23. I'm not really sure

but you make an excellent point - yes indeed

[JDPriestly]

10. I don't know. I just don't understand it.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. It was a dodge deflect and defer

Young white men would sow their wild oats with black women during the Jim Crow Era. Sowing their oats being the 'fun' of raping the sexually deviant black woman (Sapphire Stereotype). I.E. Fair Game. Think - Strom Thurmond's maid he raped and impregnated - yet he was a hell of a guy who -

Ugh. Yucky yucky people and horrible behavior still having an impact today.

[1StrongBlackMan]

17. I, still, remember the locker room verse ...

from my days at a all white (but for 4 other Black kids) prep-school I attended:

"Lay a tan/Be a man."

I can't tell you what that did to my psyche.

[JustAnotherGen]

18. Oh god

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. Anecdotally, I would say "Yes" ...

Every Black person I know has/includes white folks in their social network (not to be confused with their "circle of friends); which includes participating in/attending sporting activities, meeting for lunch/dinner/drinks, participating in volunteer activities, etc.

By way of (simple) definition, I include someone in my social network if: I know their name, their telephone number, have been to their home and/or they have been to mine, and we know something about each other.

It is easy to focus on how far we have to go. It is clear that we do have far to go. But, we have come a long, long way and if we keep the faith, we will go much, much further.

I know you mean well; but this statement is made because you have the luxury of not having to suffer as we, in keeping the faith, go that much, much further. In the (paraphrased) words of Malcolm: "Should I be thankful that you (in the generic sense) are just choking me because you are no longer stabbing me. I will be thankful, when you stop trying to hurt me."

[JustAnotherGen]

12. In the spirit of the thread

I have an actual real live FRIEND - that lives out in Henderson NV.

She's mixed latina/black and married to a white former Mormon. Go figure.

I'm mixed black/european with a very strong dash of Native American - married to a white guy from Italy. Go figure.


We have a 'common' aquaintance.

She's more like a petri dish for us - someone we put under the microscope as a litmus test of the middle class, struggling, midwestern caucasian woman who votes against her own interests. She's also a good 'Christian'. . . though last year she was cheating on her husband with a man from her church who was ALSO married but I digress and well - her marriage started the same way - she was the other woman. But alas -she's 'morally superior'. Even more so - when the Chik-Fil-A thing happened she was outside on the day of the boycott waiting to order and posting bullshit ignorance about 'Gayonaise on my Sammich Please' - *sigh*. Again I digress - but I'm painting a portrait for you okay?

She thinks R and I are her 'friends'. We aren't. We actually joke back and forth about which one of us has to be 'Sarah's One Black Friend' so she can feel good about herself. *teehee*

I wonder - if there are other white Americans who don't realize they are the butt of this kind of joke? I'd say that it's much more likely that those folks exist within the Republican Party than on the left - though certainly they exist on the left too.


TBH I'm just being honest in this post. I really don't think it's my job or your job kwassa to have the burden of correcting people. Sure - throw out the - 'check yourself' when you can! And this was a good one.

But trust me - this Sarah woman? This thread would be TOTALLY lost on her! She would just throw out - but I have two black girlfriends and . . .

[1StrongBlackMan]

19. On a better than monthly basis ...

Mrs. 1SBM and I receive invitations to be a liberal's best Black friend.

How can we tell? Well ... Do you think it a coincidence that we are the only Black guests and much of the conversation around us has to do with how liberal and racially tolerant, everyone within earshot is?

[Number23]

25. Sounds like Dante forgot to mention a level

Do you think it a coincidence that we are the only Black guests and much of the conversation around us has to do with how liberal and racially tolerant, everyone within earshot is?

'Cause if that ain't the eighth level of hell I don't know what is!

[1StrongBlackMan]

26. It's all about one's approach and grounding ...

while the events can be grinding ... I(We) recognize the why, such events are important, and the how to benefit from them. Then, we come home and laugh.

[heaven05]

21. excellent example

of american cultural/religious/moral insanity.

[JustAnotherGen]

22. heaven

She scares me.

Seriously.

That total internal disconnect scares the hell out of me.

[heaven05]

20. no surprise, ever

with news such as this. This is amerika after all. And most don't desire black friends. Most prefer to stay among their own kind. It's kind of tribal with definite racial overtones and meaning. 'Cept one tribe has a privilege based on that tribes skin tone/color and the other one don't. Always has been that way and getting more pronounced EVERYDAY!. America is an experiment that has gone very wrong. Have had 300 years-200 hundred as a nation and ain't got it right yet. People are walking home with skittles and arizona ice tea or illegally walking in the street and both of these unarmed people end up dead from puncture wounds caused by lethal projectiles shot from weapons in the hands of racist? whites? Those question marks are just to sooth those who say racism was not a factor in those two shootings. I believe those stats concerning white democrats, I get those feelings around here a lot on this forum. Not here, particularly, but in the GD especially when racial matters pop up. Great analysis. Knew it all along.

[carolinayellowdog]

27. I suspect those Westerners with nonwhite members of their social networks

are referring to Asians or Native Americans. Even though Southerners overall have a lower rate of black/white intermarriage, due to the much higher overall percentage of blacks in the population of the South the total number of black/white intermarriages is far higher in the South than other regions-- over half of the national total.

Wish I could find the website where I saw all this laid out in color coded maps just this week-- a quick Google search was fruitless. One of my major problems with DU is the way "the South" is used to treat Virginia and North Carolina, #1 and #2 in black/white intermarriage percentages in the 2010 census, as equivalent to Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, which are very low in the rankings. I went to college in Louisiana, to graduate school in Alabama, and they sure are racist hellholes. But so are Michigan and Ohio, where I've spent a lot of time, compared to Virginia and North Carolina, in terms of social distance between the races.

found the link to the story I saw-- here:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204880404577226981780914906

[kwassa]

28. My Maryland interracial marriage is in the South, according to this map ...

This should have been divided up into more sectors, with a Mid-Atlantic region, as many demographic maps do. The whole area around DC is generally liberal and interracial marriages of all kinds are quite common. Maryland is a completely blue state, and Virginia is a purple state, mostly blue in the affluent suburbs of DC.

This graphic, the second on the page, show that for blacks the South is the LEAST percentage of interracial marriages at 12%, while the West is the highest at 38%.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/06/04/interracial-marriage-map/

[carolinayellowdog]

30. the zone of highest frequency runs from MD all the way through VA into northern NC

Martinsville, where I live, is down on the NC line next to the Blue Ridge, and about 55/45 white/black-- yet Obama carried the city by a bigger percentage in both elections than in Danville which is 45/55. Which means the whites are a lot more liberal here than there.

True story: one of my favorite local color spots Uptown is called a Donut Shop but has all kinds of breakfasts and lunches. Two visits in a row I sat at a table next to a mixed group and it only slowly dawned on me that they were all likely (or some) related. First time, old redneck guy my age (60), very light-skinned black guy same age, Hispanic looking teenager, and cute 4-year-old with dark blond hair and tan skin interacting with both old guys as if either or both could be his granddad. Finally the child left with the white man and the Hispanic looking teen left with the black man. I sat there and thought, wow, that could be me and my siblings and nieces and people would be wondering what the relationships were. Next week I went back and saw white old lady, maybe 80, 50ish blond woman, black 12 year old boy. When granny hobbled out of the place on the arm of the kid, I got the definite feeling I was looking at three generations of the same family.

But one county over to the west, everything becomes all white all the way to Kentucky. This is the last bastion of any kind of racial mixture. If you look at the map at this link, you can see that the interracial black/white zone isn't just NoVA but runs down into the northern NC Piedmont. (Just the non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black map.) And then, pretty much stops right there.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/marriage/data/census/InterracialMarriages_PAA2013_FINAL.pdf