Interracial Marriages and the Effects on Children

1. One thing that made me interested in joining this project is the hope that I could get some more insight into the lives of interracial families. I have been dating a black man (and am a white woman) for about 4 years, and, as with all couples, we are starting to enter the phase where we are going to have to start making serious choices, like whether we will marry and start a family. He has always felt that the interracial individuals he has met have had a hard time of it. Unfortunately, watching the documentary did not dispel this conception, as Cicily struggled with her identity.

I think that to some degree having children is a selfish act, but would having interracial children be an even greater act of selfishness? Please don't misconstrue this as saying that I think people shouldn't have interracial children -- quite the opposite -- I want to start a family with this man I love. But I would like to be a little bit more educated about what the real-life consequences would be of our choice. I would love to hear from people in interracial families about how they have dealt with these issues.

Black Love story

I found and fell in love with a man I meat on Blackcentury.com . He is everything I ever wanted in a man and more. He makes me laugh, and he's a great step father for my daughter. We are engaged and expecting a child of our own. When I first heard about this sight I had my doubts but I have to admit I found my prince! Ronda23

Intercultural/interracial marriage-barrier or bridge?

Do intercultural/racial marriages work? Do they pose more problems than a marriage wherein the couple share the same background?

I have friends who have married across, & are happy. Then I know people who have married within, & are unhappy.

What do you think?

Marriage is for white people

There was a big thing (nullus) in the Washington Post last week about this issue, but I was distracted a bit by all those damn Mexicans out in the street marching for their right to follow only the laws they find personally convenient.

As it turns out, the state of black marriage is rather fucked up in 2006. We've all heard the grim statistics before, but here they are again, per the WaPo article.

• In 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites.
• African American women are the least likely in our society to marry.
• In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34 percent.

Having been written by a black woman, of course the story mainly had to do with all the things that are wrong with black men that make them unworthy of marrying. A similar article from a man's perspective would've been called sexist. And probably racist too, as if that makes any sense.

Interestingly enough, it's always black women you see bitching about how they can't find a suitable spouse. Could it be that their standards are too high? If these broads can watch garbage like Madea's Family Reunion, I think they can handle marrying a jig with a few outside kids.

I mean, who are they kidding? Are you agree that?

Interracial Marriage

Interracial relationships are on the increase in U.S., but decline with age, Cornell study finds

The number of interracial marriages involving whites, blacks and Hispanics each year in the United States has jumped tenfold since the 1960s, but the older individuals are, the less likely they are to partner with someone of a different race, finds the new study.

"We think that's because relationships are more likely to be interracial the more recently they were formed, so younger people are more likely to have interracial relationships. This trend reflects the increasing acceptance of interracial relationships in today's society," said Kara Joyner, assistant professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell and co-author of a study on interracial relationships in a recent issue of the American Sociological Review (Vol. 70:4).

Although more young adults are dating and cohabiting with someone of a different race, the study found that interracial relationships are considerably less likely than same-race relationships to lead to marriage, though this trend has weakened in recent years.

"Studying trends in interracial sexual relationships is important because intimate relationships between different racial groups are viewed as an indicator of the social and geographic distance between racial groups, and a barometer of race relations," said Joyner. Unlike other studies, which typically look at marriage or cohabitation and sometimes at current dating relationships, this study looked at trends in these relationships over a 10-year period.

The researchers found that among 18- to 25-year-olds in 1990 and in 2000, interracial sexual involvement became increasingly common, with the greatest increase seen in cohabitating relationships, followed by dating relationships and then marriages.

Yet, interracial relationships declined with age within these two periods. In 1990, for example, about 14 percent of 18- to 19-year-olds, 12 percent of 20- to 21-year-olds and 7 percent of 34- to 35-year-olds were involved in interracial relationships. Roughly 10 years later, 20 percent of 18- to 19-year-olds and 16 percent of 24- to 25-year-olds were in an interracial relationship. (Information on 34- to 35-year-olds was not available for this period.)

While Hispanic is an ethnic group composed of both racial and ethnic groups, Joyner, like many demographers, uses the categories -- non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black (or African-American) and Hispanic (or Latino) -- to measure race.

"Although interracial relationships were far more common in the early part of this decade than in the mid-1990s -- about five percentage points higher -- they still decline with age," said Joyner, noting that the fact that many young adults' transition to marriage is also a factor in the age decline. The rate of interracial marriage, however, is still relatively uncommon: in 2002, only 2.9 percent of all marriages were interracial, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census.