The Perceptions Of College Students About Interracial Relationships

In the story, “I Never Dated A White Girl,” Lawrence Otis Graham (1996) talks about how racial issues in a society plays a role in interpersonal relationships. He provides a few accounts on why some blacks still oppose to interracial dating. One account claims that when a black leader marries outside the race, he or she demonstrates less commitment to the black community. An example he provided was the popular black U.S. congressman Adam Clayton Powell who married a non-black women. Powell used his light complexion to advantages during his college education and lied about his racial background. A second account claims that intermarrying blacks are making a statement to both communities that black spouses are less desirable partners than whites,

For centuries human beings have been on a quest for love. As time has passed, this search has lead to mixing of races and resulted in interracial relationships, both long-term couples and casual dating.

Dating back to the early 1900’s and all the way through to the present, romantic relationships have been viewed differently. From strict unwritten dating regulations to not having regulations at all, recent generations have become more liberated in making their own decisions. The progressing times have made us become a more accepting society and have caused a decrease in the strong practice of religion and class. Even though differences such as religion and class in relationships were more than an issue they were not always a complete deterrence.

African Americans are the most judged group of individuals in the U.S. and around the world. Many American and non-American citizens see African American males as threating and thugs, while others view African American females as angry and ghetto. These stereotypes have led to Blacks being least likely to date outside of their race compared to other races. In this study we will discussing the reasons why White Americans would either object or not object to a member of their family bringing home an African American for dinner, we will also look at how education, gender, and region affect these decisions. In this study we will go into detail about why these attributes can cause different responses with White American. This research is important because there has been little to no research done on how whites really feel about family members dating outside their race and to test why White Americans would either except or object this notion. While White and Black Americans have come a long way in our hatred for each other we still have so far to go. Americans (White, Black, Hispanic, and other) are all entitled to our own opinions but these opinions should not be based off of racism.

One’s colour, religion and families origin should not interfere with the happiness between the couple. A publication by the University of Toronto Scarborough furthers this notion of love and relationships; yet explains there are many barriers and challenges which many interracial couples strive to overcome.

Love has a lot to do with race it has a way of bringing out both good and bad in some people and unfortunately in some cases the issues of love and race are taken too far. In today’s society it is not as much of an issue to see interracial couples together as it used to be in the past, but that does not mean that it is not still an issue for some people. Throughout the semester we have studied different ways that not only in the cases of love but also family, friendship, and community are affected by racial issues both past and present, which only goes to show that racism still exists in our world today despite all of the progressions that we have made towards fixing the issue.

I found my situation very thought-provoking that my family fell within the “51%” of African American kids that were raised by a single mother. Additionally, it was even more interesting that I fell within the “390,000” of black American male that is in an interracial relationship. Furthermore, Black Demographics (n.d.) states that “while black men marry white women at twice the rate of Black women, only 7% of married Black men had White (non-Hispanic) spouses in 2014. About 14% percent of African American men married non-Black or Hispanic women in 2014. It is Asian women who have the highest rates of intermarriage which is twice that of Black men”. As a result, the interracial relationship between black and white Americans has held strong.

Using the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), Whites’ attitudes towards dating, cohabiting with, marrying, and having children with African Americans and Asian Americans was studied. It was found that 29% of White respondents reject all kinds of relationships with African Americans and Asian Americans, while 31% endorse them. Second, Whites are less willing to marry and start a family within an interracial relationship than to date interracially. These attitudes and behaviors are related to political conservatism, age, gender, education, and region. Third, White women are likely to approve of interracial relationships for other people but not for themselves. White men however, express more willingness to engage in such relationships

Interracial dating has been considered as unacceptable, and as times has passed, numerous of people have come to accept the relationships of people with

People who date and socialize with people of different racial groups frequently experience negative reactions. Many of the disapproving messages come from people of their own racial group. They scoff and make fun of the idea that they are dating someone with a different tone of skin or ethnic background. According to a poll taken in

Lewis and Ford begin by pointing out the Civil Rights movement that began in the 1960’s which acted as a jumpstart to the more diverse institution that we now know today. The article conveys that although there is a significant difference between interracial marriage and interracial dating – there has been a tremendous increase in both in the past several decades. A study and chart done by the U.S Census Bureau in 2004 shows, that there was a 26% increase of White/Other marriages from the 1980’s to the 1990’s; where in the 1990’s to the 2000’s there was a significant 72% increase. The chart also shows a drop in interracial marriages where Black/White marriages from the 1980’s to the 1990’s was 38% to a smaller 31% from the 1990’s to the 2000’s. The chart seems to show a significant trend in dating habits over the last few years, which is something that I was not expecting to see.

In the multi cultural society that we live in today, relationships from all different cultures are welcomed. The mixing of races has been going on for hunherds of years and dates back to the unfortunate years of slavery. Where the mixing of white and black was a taboo, but still carried out by the white slave masters on their black maids/ slaves.

Relationships formed by two ethnicities can create a union between different cultures such as Asian, Hispanic, African American, American, and many others. One factor that comes from these relationships is children. Adolescents, whether they are involved in or are the product of mixed race couples, are negatively affected by interracial relationships. In result of these relationships, those adolescents face social, emotional, and cultural issues. Those issues include receiving social backlash from those around them, experiencing an identity crisis, and receiving neglect from their families.

Living in the United States means living with diversity. A historically controversial topic that comes with diversity is interracial couples. Having only been made legal in 1967 by the United States Supreme Court ruling in the Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, there are still prominent parts of society that took down upon mixed raced couples. (Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1967) This research paper is designed to show data collected from ___ interviews from participants of a variety of ages and ethnicities. The purpose of this study is to see how modern day college students and working members of society see interracial couples now and in the future. Interracial marriages has increased dramatically since the 1970s but according to 2007 U.S. Bureau of the Census data (2009), Black/White marriages count for half a percent of all marriages in America (Field, Kimuna, Straus, 2013, p. 742). In fact, white people are less likely to marry black people then they are to marry any other ethnic race other than their own. According to a 2012 Current Population Survey:

The law forbidding interracial marriage was terminated in 1967, and in the midst of rapid racial change, one fact is unmistakable: A growing number of Americans are showing that we all can get along by forming relationships and families that cross all color lines. In the past couple decades, the number of interracial marriages has increased dramatically. Interracial dating and marrying is described as the dating or marrying of two people of different races, and it is becoming much more common to do so. Thirty years ago, only one in every 100 children born in the United States was of mixed race. Today, the number is one in 19. In some states, such as California and Washington, the number is closer to one in 10 (Melting Pot).