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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHardly any of my friends are black..
I do believe that part of the healing process for America is for folks to step out of their comfort zones of needing to be around folks that look like them. Otherwise the cancer that eats at away at America called racism will continue to undermine this country...Racism will continue to rear it's head, until there is some sense of all people being treated equal..
"All my black friends have a bunch of white friends. And all my white friends have one black friend."
That's the memorable punchline of a Chris Rock bit from 2009 on interracial friendships. And according to some recent number-crunching by Robert Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute, there's a good deal of truth to that statement.
Let's consider the average American white American and the average American black American, and let's say, for simplicity's sake, that each of them have 100 friends. If you were to break down their respective friend networks by race, they would look something like this.
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In a 100-friend scenario, the average white person has 91 white friends; one each of black, Latino, Asian, mixed race, and other races; and three friends of unknown race. The average black person, on the other hand, has 83 black friends, eight white friends, two Latino friends, zero Asian friends, three mixed race friends, one other race friend, and four friends of unknown race.
Going back to Chris Rock's point, the average black person's friend network is 8 percent white, but the average white person's network is only 1 percent black. To put it another way: Blacks have ten times as many black friends as white friends. But white Americans have an astonishing 91 times as many white friends as black friends.
Another factor is our tendency to seek out and associate with people who are similar to us in any number of ways - religiously, politically, economically and yes, racially too. The polite term for this phenomenon is "sorting," and it impacts everything from political polarization to income inequality to the racial differences in friend networks seen above.
As PRRI's Robert Jones writes in The Atlantic, Americans' segregated social circles have influenced responses to the events in Ferguson, Missouri over the past few weeks. Polls show deep divides between blacks and whites on everything from the role of race in Ferguson to the appropriateness of responses by protestors and police.
The numbers above offer insight into why so many whites have expressed bafflement over protesters' responses to the shooting of Michael Brown. The history between many black communities and the police forces that serve them is long, complicated, often violent, and characterized by an extreme imbalance of power. But as Robert Jones notes, most whites are not "socially positioned" to understand this history, simply because they know few people who've experienced it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/25/three-quarters-of-whites-dont-have-any-non-white-friends/?wpisrc=nl-wnkpm&wpmm=1
Response to HipChick (Original post)
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HipChick
(25,485 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,703 posts)Especially when your city government and city leaders have tramped the zoning rules in order to remove multi-family housing that would allow openings for ethnic people; and also supports secret societies that rewards people of like mind and image.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)but since I moved to Indiana, I barely even SEE black people where I love, much less socialize with them.
Some Koreans, some Indians (one of which is one of my best friends), but hardly any black folks. It's kind of weird!
is full of potentials for exploring diversification
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Sorry for being dense. What did you mean?
HipChick
(25,485 posts)Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Yeah, growing up in Maryland, even in relatively rural Maryland meant I had lots of social contact with black people. Here it is very socially and economically segregated.
ancianita
(36,048 posts)"bafflement" or some narrative of a perceived "accident of social positioning."
These phrases might be the meaning for the poll numbers by this author, but in my view, these polls indicate no acceptable rationalities for any whites to use about the brutality and injustice that African Americans have endured. None. No excuses for whites "bafflement" by now. None. Whites have all the exposure to American reality and history that they want to have, "social positioning" be damned.
Your post is worth discussing, and I didn't read the other thread referred to here. But you might tackle the charge of "shit stirring," even if the poster's been censored. I'd like to read anyone's thoughts on that, given the tendencies around here for people to get labeled and disallowed any 'evolving' on issues.
HipChick
(25,485 posts)if no-one wants to talk about it?
ancianita
(36,048 posts)to be proven over time.
Seriously, in the same way that most whites think we've been living in some 'post racial' America -- using that claim to justify removing all affirmative action standards and/or voting rights -- I think, now, that African Americans have "given" as much consciousness raising time to whites as can be reasonably expected.
Now, whites have no excuse for not knowing about the realities of African American life. So they should admit it and ask for help. If they're met with derision, they need to just go study up on it all. Do their own damned homework. Which is what these polls show.
There are lots of good books out there on African American history and current issues. One good book that answers a lot of questions for anyone familiar with African American history, is Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum's "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?".
HipChick
(25,485 posts)ancianita
(36,048 posts)reading for all white people in America.
It would go a long way toward demolishing their fears of young black teens. As if they have any reason to fear them to begin with.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)HipChick
(25,485 posts)rjj621
(103 posts)I have a low tolerance of people. That tolerance doesn't change based on race or gender, I still don't like people.
ancianita
(36,048 posts)curious.
951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)dilby
(2,273 posts)I would say I have something like 20 friends who I would call friends, the people I regularly do stuff with and would actually help move. Everyone else I know and I am friendly with are just acquaintances.
Response to HipChick (Original post)
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HipChick
(25,485 posts)BTW White females benefit more from Affirmative Action than blacks..
http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/17/affirmative-action-has-helped-white-women-more-than-anyone/
Response to HipChick (Reply #22)
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Glassunion
(10,201 posts)Enjoy...
HipChick
(25,485 posts)11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)Response to 11 Bravo (Reply #26)
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Glassunion
(10,201 posts)I'm shocked.
riseabove
(70 posts)This is why I love DU, you won't see topics like this discussed in the "mainstream".
Excellent post.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)and many others like it lately ... what about Latinos, Asians and other groups?
Talk about invisible! Talk about a MUCH MUCH greater percentage of the population.
A more telling question / pregunta would be: how many Latino friends do you have?
Especially in Southern California where over 50% of the population is Latino.
Real blinders on here as to the current and future population when blacks are maybe 9% of the population in Socal for instance.