Black-White Interracial Relationships

By Janis Prince Inniss

One of the many reasons that I love staying in hotels is that I get to watch cable TV. And although I have had cable for about a year—as a side-attraction to the best telephone deal we could find--I only have the 5,000 or so basic channels. So on my recent hotel stay, I was rather excited to have access to HBO. I salivated when I saw an advertisement for comedian Chris Rock's "Kill the Messenger" special on that channel. And this treat was the impetus for getting back to the hotel by 9:30 one evening. One joke has stayed with me since then. Without giving it away, Rock tries to answer the following question: Why are more black men romantically paired with white women than black women are with white men?

It was not until the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia , that interracial marriages became legal in the U.S. There are many aspects of this case that are striking, but in the context of this post, it is remarkable that this landmark case was of a black woman and white man. This combination of race and gender is noteworthy because, although interracial marriages are relatively rare overall, those of black women to white men are rarer still. (The most recent census data put these unions at about 7% of all U.S. marriages. Although this is a marked increase from 40 years ago, it is still a very low percentage.)

In the last 27 years, despite enormous social shifts in American society, there is nothing approaching equality in terms of the ratios of black men and women who choose white spouses. Looking at the graph below, you will see that the black female/white male pairings of today are about what they were 30 years ago for black male/white female dyads. (The blue line represents black husband/white wife). In other words, today, white men and black women marry at about the same rate that black men and white women married about three decades ago.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Table 59 and Table MS-3.

Even when we look at interracial cohabitation, black men are far more likely than black women to be living with a white partner of the opposite sex. In fact, 82% of blacks cohabiting with whites are male. Why is this so?

As I contemplate this question, I can’t help but reflect on my own experiences in the world of dating. When I attended USC—which had, and still has, a majority white student body—I felt invisible to white men—completely and totally invisible. It was like I didn’t exist to them, not as a person, let alone as a woman. Of course, there were exceptions. My professors recognized me and knew my name. And a fellow first year graduate student once gave me a lift home on his motorcycle. This time at USC was notable for me because my experience there was in great contrast to some of my experiences when I lived among large populations of blacks; from an early age, I was used to men and boys noticing and admiring me. Any feminist worth her sensible shoes will disavow whistles, but it was an odd, if not unwelcome experience for me to be so ignored. How typical or not was my experience?

If it is typical, it would begin to explain why there are fewer black female/white male romances. If men are still mostly the initiators of relationships, one explanation may be that men—regardless of their own race—have been exposed to a similar beauty standard. And that beauty standard is white. Tall, thin, straight- haired white women is the image most of are bombarded with as being beautiful. All men seeking that image would be seeking white women. (This is not to suggest that these relationships remain at a superficial level.) Given this standard, who would be attracted to me? This is a question that I considered as a single woman in Los Angeles. I chose to wear my hair in braids, before cutting it to little more than peach fuzz. Neither of these hairstyles created a look reminiscent of “the average girl from the video” or those on magazine covers. Perhaps, these looks underscore why I was invisible to white males at USC.

Many sociologists have used social exchange theory to explain interracial marriage. Maybe this seems cold, especially in relation to romantic relationships, but this theory asks us to think about the costs and benefits of relationships. It posits that we keep relationships in which their benefits out weigh their costs. Unfortunately it does not provide an explanation for why there are more white female-black male pairs than the other way around? (Can you guess what social exchange theory has to say about the characteristics of whites and blacks that do intermarry?)

Comments

[sexe interracial]

I'm agree whith all of that

[Online]

Sometimes we cannot just consider our personal feelings but also think about what our family

[lena]

I support Inter/racial relationships! I believe love has no color!

~~~Blac k Whi te Da te. C’ 0- M ~~~

This club is for those of us that don’t discriminate! This is to all my people who don’t care about somebody’s ethnic background, just how they are on the inside.

If you want to find a sincere Inter/racial relationship. If you are serious. Come and join us!

[sandara]

I am 17 years old and I am a african american mix with white and indian. Me personaly I dated out of my races and I own it to my mother. My mother raise me to believe that they are more to a person than a color of skin. My mom also dating out of her race espically white males, so by mom dating out of her race. It give me courage that I can do it to.
I believed that the youth are changing dating wise, because if you go to a lot of high schools and ask kids "how many of them dating out of their race" most of them will raise their hands.
I believed that in a couple of years you will see more AA girls dating WM, but the reason you dont see more AA girls dating WM is because most AA girls are scared that WM parents might not approved of her, WM probably don't know how to apporach AA, if most AA girls would get out and seek for more options, and yes AA girls you need to change your attitude a little that a reason why they are scared.
Personaly i have fun dating out my race you will learn that more WM preferd to dated AA.

[D]

As a white male myself, I can truthfully say it is not because the media portrays light skinned women as the standard of beauty. As hurtful as this might be for some, white men simply aren't attracted to black females. Not even black women who have lighter complexions. The attraction is just utterly absent.

I'm almost 30 years old and I can truthfully say the amount of black women I have seen both on television and in real life that I found to be attractive are very very few. Enough that I could count them on my fingers.

I think though, that the reason why black men go for white women is because there are alot of white women in pornography. Another possiblity is because alot of white women don't go for black men and so this drives black men to pursue white women until they can find one, who likely doesn't have the things they need in life for stability(whether being loved, or financially.) This is very evident to me in that most white women I see with black men in real life aren't very attractive and look as though they aren't very successful in life(trashy.)

I see black men with white women occasionally. Maybe 6 or 7 times out of a year and I live in a fairly populated area. I can count on one hand the amount of white women i see with black men that I personally found attractive.

my2cents

[Jennifer]

1) White men tend to be more traditional than white women. Women tend to be more liberal minded than men on average which can help explain this. 2) A white woman's traits may seem more appealing than a black women's traits even to some black men. 3) Yes, I do believe what the author said, that men are still usually the initiators in relationships which may be a big factor of this result. These are 3 reasons that I believe are true out of experience. Although in my opinion, I do prefer that people date within their own race

Cathy (WW)

[Johnathan Fain]

me and my girlfriend are making interracial vloggs about our daily life on youtube! come check us out at youtube.com/monstervloggs

[Boogey Man]

Culture and time has done a flip flop. it used to be legal for the white man to take black women against their will, the white woman used to force black men to lay with them or say they were raped if she was caught, resulting in his death, or if she got pregnant, they killed the man and the baby.Things have changed and both races have a genuine attraction for each other, and no matter how hard racists try to stop that or reverse it, it will not work, because white women have had attraction to strong black men since slavery and white men have always preferred the fine round booty black woman over their flat ass wives....in the age of fighting racism, we will see it more, and racist hate it because they see their race becoming a minority and there is NOTHING they can do to stop it.