Posted: Thu 19 Jun 2008 06:13 Post subject: Biracials More Socially Close to Whites
It turns out the social distance between any type of biracial and whits is significantly smaller than between whites and the mono-racial minority group. This is a study done on about 300,000 married US couples, in 2000.
Similarly, while 50.2% of American Indian men are married to White women,
69.2% of White and American Indian men are married to White women. Along
the same lines, while 41.8% of Asian men are married to White women, 71.8% of
White and Asian men are married to White women. Even more dramatic, while only
6.5% of Black men are married to White women, 54.2% of White and Black men
are married to White women. Thus it appears from these simple frequency
distributions that men of mixed racial identity who identify as White (in
combination with another race) are much more likely to have a White spouse
than are their non-White single race counterparts. These patterns are suggestive
of the idea that mixed-race White individuals are socially much less distant from
Whites than are single-race non-Whites.
========================================
Last edited by ImBack on Thu 19 Jun 2008 21:09; edited 2 times in total
This is actuall a topic that may belong in Improving US Relations...
I just printed out the study and I shall read it today while Mary Lee drives (we are off to visit the grandkids again). My gut-feel from looking at the synopsis is that it would better fit the multiracialism forum, rather than the "improving" form since it is not overtly political other than as regards multiracialism. But we might want to discuss it in the context of whether B/W social-distance is changing due to multi-race identity (as opposed to debating whether it the trend is "good" or "bad"). If it takes that direction, I shall move it to "History of the Color Line." For now, feel free to move it either to "biracial" or to "improving" (your choice).
The paper was presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the Population Association of America and was apparently not published elsewhere. Its most startling finding, at the top of page 9 is:
Quote:
while 41.8% of Asian men are married to White women, 71.8% of White and Asian men are married to White men.
I suspect that it was a typo and that one of those plural nouns should be "women."
Some of its findings confirm other sources. The social distance between part-Black "multiracials" and non-Blacks is nearly as great as that between "monoracial" Blacks and non-Blacks (see figure 3). As ImBack points out, the distance is marginally shorter, but not by much. The one-drop rule is apparently alive and well.
Although the study is an interesting read, you should interpret its conclusions in the light of its data-collection method and terminology. Here are two examples of potential reader misunderstanding.
First, the study defines "B/W multiracial" as someone who checks off both the Black and the White boxes on the census. It has nothing to do with appearance or genetic admixture. Since only 3 percent of non-Hispanics who check off "Black" also check off "White," (although virtually all African Americans have some Euro admixture -- see http://onedroprule.org/viewtopic.php?t=2505), this means that the study does not actually measure the intermarriage rate of B/W multiracials. Instead, it measures the fraction of Black Americans with White spouses who are persuaded to check both boxes. The authors understand this and mention it in their text. The fact that African Americans with a White spouse more often check both boxes than those with Black spouses is interesting. But it may not address multiracial issues related to appearance or admixture.
Second, the census "Hispanic" question is separate from the "race" question and its instructions say that you must choose one of the given "races," even if you already answered "yes" to the "Hispanic" question. Since the study authors consider Hispanic a separate "race," they define "multiracial" Hispanic as anyone who answered answered "yes" to the "Hispanic" question and then followed the instructions and checked off any answer to the "race" question. The only "monoracial" Hispanics, according to the authors are those who did not follow the instructions and left the "race" question blank or filled in a nonresponse. Again, this definition of "multiracial" has nothing to do with admixture, appearance, or even ethnic self-identity. In this case, it simply means any Hispanic who followed federal regulations.
Posted: Sun 22 Jun 2008 04:24 Post subject: social distance
fwsweet wrote:
The paper was presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the Population Association of America and was apparently not published elsewhere. Its most startling finding, at the top of page 9 is:
Quote:
while 41.8% of Asian men are married to White women, 71.8% of White and Asian men are married to White men.
I suspect that it was a typo and that one of those plural nouns should be "women."
Some of its findings confirm other sources. The social distance between part-Black "multiracials" and non-Blacks is nearly as great as that between "monoracial" Blacks and non-Blacks (see figure 3). As ImBack points out, the distance is marginally shorter, but not by much. The one-drop rule is apparently alive and well.
Although the study is an interesting read, you should interpret its conclusions in the light of its data-collection method and terminology. Here are two examples of potential reader misunderstanding.
First, the study defines "B/W multiracial" as someone who checks off both the Black and the White boxes on the census. It has nothing to do with appearance or genetic admixture. Since only 3 percent of non-Hispanics who check off "Black" also check off "White," (although virtually all African Americans have some Euro admixture -- see http://onedroprule.org/viewtopic.php?t=2505), this means that the study does not actually measure the intermarriage rate of B/W multiracials. Instead, it measures the fraction of Black Americans with White spouses who are persuaded to check both boxes. The authors understand this and mention it in their text. The fact that African Americans with a White spouse more often check both boxes than those with Black spouses is interesting. But it may not address multiracial issues related to appearance or admixture.
Second, the census "Hispanic" question is separate from the "race" question and its instructions say that you must choose one of the given "races," even if you already answered "yes" to the "Hispanic" question. Since the study authors consider Hispanic a separate "race," they define "multiracial" Hispanic as anyone who answered answered "yes" to the "Hispanic" question and then followed the instructions and checked off any answer to the "race" question. The only "monoracial" Hispanics, according to the authors are those who did not follow the instructions and left the "race" question blank or filled in a nonresponse. Again, this definition of "multiracial" has nothing to do with admixture, appearance, or even ethnic self-identity. In this case, it simply means any Hispanic who followed federal regulations.
I wouldn't say that it proves anything about the "one drop" myth since the authors are not asking anyone how they feel about black ancestry in white-identified people. I know of no study that does, do you?
A major problem with the "check all that apply" option on the last census, is that anyone checking "black" in combination with anything else is automatically classified as an "African American" or "black" with white or other nonblack ancestry, not the other way around. Those in the Multiracial Movement that opposed "check all that apply" in favor of a single "multiracial" option predicted that the government (influenced by black and other minority lobbying groups) would pull that trick. The hunger for "minority statistics" is institutionalized, but the anti-affirmative action movement (especially Ward Connerly's) is causing many regular white Americans to be highly suspicious of forms with "race" questions and racial statistics.
Posted: Sun 22 Jun 2008 09:40 Post subject: Re: social distance
Powell wrote:
I wouldn't say that it proves anything about the "one drop" myth since the authors are not asking anyone how they feel about black ancestry in white-identified people.
Sorry. That was an inadvertent violation of rule 3.3 on my part. I should written, "the rule of hypodescent," since I meant definition 3.3.9, not 3.3.10. My point was that the figure shows that, according to their social distance (as measured by endogamy), people who check both "Black" and anything else are Black socially, or at least much closer to Black than to anything else.
Powell wrote:
I know of no study that does, do you?
No. That is the Holy Grail of this site. I am so desperate for solid data on this that If I were rich I would personally fund a study.
In all honesty, A.D., I was once skeptical of your hypothesis, that the ODR is advocated and maintained only by A-As and academics, and that most ordinary Whites could care less. But as the years have gone by, published scholars who have examined the phenomenon seriously have tended agreed with you. (See, for example, Christine Hickman, “The Devil and the One Drop Rule,” Michigan Law Review 95, no. 5 (1997): 1161-1265.). They also believe that the ODR is A Good Thing, and that those who oppose it are racists. Nevertheless, they conclude that only A-As advocate the ODR nowadays, and that most ordinary Whites could care less.
Again, hard data continues nonexistent. I am begining to suspect that serious demographic investigation of ODR advocacy is politically dangerous in academia. If anyone were to take on the challenge it would be either Loewen, Kennedy, or McWhorter, since they are the most courageous scholars of racialism publishing today. And yet each has tiptoed around it as scrupulously as if it were a land mine.
That is because they for some reason analyzed statistics which did not ask how well one group approximated the other. Instead their statistics were designed to measure where the biracial group fell in relation to all other groups, or where they fell in relation to the two component groups.
However, I computed a statistic which was as follows:
(propensity of minorities to marry whites) /
(propensity of whites to marry whites)
Each propensity statistic was calculated as follows:
propensity = % of marriages to whites / proportion of white population.
The idea is that if a minority group's propensity towards white endogamy statistic is close to one, then that group displays white ethnic behavior rather than minority ethnic behavior.
Computing that statistic, low and behold I found:
Blacks: 6%
Mulattos: 54%
Asian/Whites: 88%
Interesting findings yes? Because it shows an effect size about 20% larger than what they found using the other social distance scales in the study. But notice something: my statistic fits perfectly with what is known about actual intermarriage rates. Their statistic makes less sense because it predicts that the mulatto-white marriage rate should be much less than what it is, I think. For some reason that I am not sure of yet, they found what appear to be conflicting results. It makes me wonder if their model makes sense. but I will have to look at it again since the math was rather complicated.
Perhaps I am mistaken and my statistic has a fatal flaw?
Posted: Mon 23 Jun 2008 15:21 Post subject: Re: social distance
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
I wouldn't say that it proves anything about the "one drop" myth since the authors are not asking anyone how they feel about black ancestry in white-identified people.
Sorry. That was an inadvertent violation of rule 3.3 on my part. I should written, "the rule of hypodescent," since I meant definition 3.3.9, not 3.3.10. My point was that the figure shows that, according to their social distance (as measured by endogamy), people who check both "Black" and anything else are Black socially, or at least much closer to Black than to anything else.
Powell wrote:
I know of no study that does, do you?
No. That is the Holy Grail of this site. I am so desperate for solid data on this that If I were rich I would personally fund a study.
In all honesty, A.D., I was once skeptical of your hypothesis, that the ODR is advocated and maintained only by A-As and academics, and that most ordinary Whites could care less. But as the years have gone by, published scholars who have examined the phenomenon seriously have tended agreed with you. (See, for example, Christine Hickman, “The Devil and the One Drop Rule,” Michigan Law Review 95, no. 5 (1997): 1161-1265.). They also believe that the ODR is A Good Thing, and that those who oppose it are racists. Nevertheless, they conclude that only A-As advocate the ODR nowadays, and that most ordinary Whites could care less.
Again, hard data continues nonexistent. I am begining to suspect that serious demographic investigation of ODR advocacy is politically dangerous in academia. If anyone were to take on the challenge it would be either Loewen, Kennedy, or McWhorter, since they are the most courageous scholars of racialism publishing today. And yet each has tiptoed around it as scrupulously as if it were a land mine.
Is that Michigan Law Review article online anywhere, Frank?
This issue is related to my recent dispute with Maya. Lots of people (going black to the "Interracial Voice" days) with African American background get upset when I say that blacks and their most liberal allies are the bulwark of the ODR. I am constantly asked why I don't denounce "whites" in general on an "equal" basis. To do so would mean ignoring evidence.
This issue is related to my recent dispute with Maya.
Not in my view. The problem is not in confirming who is most vocal in their opposition to the category and perceives that they have the most to lose if the country shifts from ODR-based racial classification. The clear answer is African Americans, as subset of the racialized group of "Blacks" in the U.S. The problem comes when one really wants to understand whether (and why/how) US Americans define, experience and propogate a racialized view based on the ODR. I believe Tyrone said in another thread that Whites (and others who become indoctrinated) may support the ODR because they haven't spent one second thinking about the peculiarity of the U.S. racial paradigm they've been socialized within. Just because a group may unconsciously or passively support a construct doesn't mean that they could not or do not uphold the ODR. So my question about why John McCain isn't asked about his position on the ODR, likely because he is a White conservative man, is legitimate. Even the people who make it a point to ascertain where public officials stand on this issue appear to reserve the hard scrutiny for Black American politicians (or just Barack Obama for obvious reasons). I'm not sure why a presidential candidate would not be asked if this single issue is of upmost importance to a constituency?
The interesting groups to study, IMO, are 1)Whites who have a higher level of social interaction with Black Americans (i.e, those who marry or have children with Black Americans) 2) racialist Whites who harbor notions of racial "purity" or 3) non-Black American residents with visible SSA ancestry. But even then you have to ask the right questions and ask companion questions that clarify seemingly obvious opinions. For example:
Question: The biological child of a White parent and a Black parent is:
a) Biracial
b) Black
c) White
Seems straightforward enough except for the baked in assumptions around:
1. Respondents belief in race, and a particular construction of race at that
2. Ways in which ethnicity are known to complicate the issue
3. No consideration of hypodescent (i.e. would it matter if the "White" parent had a "Black" grandparent?)
4. No assessment of appearance, either of the parents or child
5. No consideration of whether they'd support any answer if it was based on self-identity choice
I'd bet money that, depending on how the question was asked and whether 1-5 were varied in some way, most USAmericans would contradict themselves and would appear to be as pro or anti-ODR as one may wish to portray them.
A non-opinion or weak opinion is not exactly a ringing endorsement. If anything it basically indicates satisfaction with the status quo. Put it another way, I may not have a strong opinion on whether we should be funding NASA because I believe that it does not impact me or anything that I care about, but if I believed (or was persuaded to believe) that funding NASA came at the expense of public education or EPA funding I might have a totally different opinion.
Posted: Wed 25 Jun 2008 00:29 Post subject: I agree
Sagascend has a point.
And this is something I have said before as well. It is the reason I don't trust the interpretations of sociological reasearch into the color-line and psychological research into multiracial identity constructs.
They are not asking the right questions because they are conducting their research with preconceived notions which blind them.
The answer is simple - you must infer what people think without directly asking them. Research is focused on labeling and categorizing but this is a mistake because of the diversity in opinion and because of competing definitions and beliefs. A superior idea is to approach attitudes functionally by asking how people believe others should behave. Using this technique one can then infer what the proper lables are.
The answer is simple - you must infer what people think without directly asking them. Research is focused on labeling and categorizing but this is a mistake because of the diversity in opinion and because of competing definitions and beliefs. A superior idea is to approach attitudes functionally by asking how people believe others should behave. Using this technique one can then infer what the proper lables are.
I'm with you and would take it a step further: Experiments would be even better. Similar to the studies that demonstrated a hiring bias simply by varying the names on a resume there has got to be a controlled way to observe the behavior directly. Self-report data is notoriously unreliable, though it depends on the phenomenon under study.
Posted: Fri 27 Jun 2008 23:19 Post subject: Re: social distance
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
I wouldn't say that it proves anything about the "one drop" myth since the authors are not asking anyone how they feel about black ancestry in white-identified people.
Sorry. That was an inadvertent violation of rule 3.3 on my part. I should written, "the rule of hypodescent," since I meant definition 3.3.9, not 3.3.10. My point was that the figure shows that, according to their social distance (as measured by endogamy), people who check both "Black" and anything else are Black socially, or at least much closer to Black than to anything else.
Powell wrote:
I know of no study that does, do you?
No. That is the Holy Grail of this site. I am so desperate for solid data on this that If I were rich I would personally fund a study.
In all honesty, A.D., I was once skeptical of your hypothesis, that the ODR is advocated and maintained only by A-As and academics, and that most ordinary Whites could care less. But as the years have gone by, published scholars who have examined the phenomenon seriously have tended agreed with you. (See, for example, Christine Hickman, “The Devil and the One Drop Rule,” Michigan Law Review 95, no. 5 (1997): 1161-1265.). They also believe that the ODR is A Good Thing, and that those who oppose it are racists. Nevertheless, they conclude that only A-As advocate the ODR nowadays, and that most ordinary Whites could care less.
Again, hard data continues nonexistent. I am begining to suspect that serious demographic investigation of ODR advocacy is politically dangerous in academia. If anyone were to take on the challenge it would be either Loewen, Kennedy, or McWhorter, since they are the most courageous scholars of racialism publishing today. And yet each has tiptoed around it as scrupulously as if it were a land mine.
I''d say places like West Virginia are still examples of where hypodescent is still in play among Whites. Where they won't vote for the Black Candidate. Most other places I doubt if they car how he identifies either way.
Posted: Sat 28 Jun 2008 02:22 Post subject: Re: social distance
Salsassin wrote:
I'd say places like West Virginia are still examples of where hypodescent is still in play among Whites.
I agree, except I would say thay hypodescent is the norm among virtually all Americans, including White ones, not just WV. My last paragraphs (starting "holy grail") were off-topic for the thread. I was not talking about hypodescent in those paragrpaphs.
In my last paragraphs, I talking about the true ODR: the notion that someone of European appearance who rejects a Black self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having “one drop” of known African ancestry, no matter how ancient, and is merely “passing for White.” That idea, in contrast to hypodescent which is ubiquitous, seems relatively rare among Whites today (although WV may be an exception, for all I know).
Posted: Sun 29 Jun 2008 02:16 Post subject: Re: social distance
fwsweet wrote:
Salsassin wrote:
I'd say places like West Virginia are still examples of where hypodescent is still in play among Whites.
I agree, except I would say thay hypodescent is the norm among virtually all Americans, including White ones, not just WV. My last paragraphs (starting "holy grail") were off-topic for the thread. I was not talking about hypodescent in those paragrpaphs.
In my last paragraphs, I talking about the true ODR: the notion that someone of European appearance who rejects a Black self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having “one drop” of known African ancestry, no matter how ancient, and is merely “passing for White.” That idea, in contrast to hypodescent which is ubiquitous, seems relatively rare among Whites today (although WV may be an exception, for all I know).
Since Obama clearly and publicly identifies as "black," we should not use white acceptance of him as "black" as an example of support for hypodescent. If Obama had refused to identify as "black," that would be a case for white support of hypodescent.
I'd like to chime in here. When looking at hypodescent (as opposed to the ODR) we should be looking at who has an investment in the concept as opposed to who supports it. In my experience, whites and blacks believe in and support hypodecent. In some cases, based again on my limited experience, many whites support ODR as well as hypodescent, but blacks on average have more invested in both concepts than whites on average.
For example, probably most white Americans would see Tiger Woods as black without any prior knowledge of his background. But most wouldn't have anything invested in his identification. If he claimed he was "Cablinasian," some white would shrug and see him as black anyway. Others would accept his self-identification, regardless if they were racist or not.
Black folk, on the other hand, are more likely to respond with expressions that range from mild annoyance to outright hostility to people like Woods. Why? Because they have alot invested in the concept of hypodescent and how people like Woods identify.
Black folk, on the other hand, are more likely to respond with expressions that range from mild annoyance to outright hostility to people like Woods. Why? Because they have alot invested in the concept of hypodescent and how people like Woods identify.
I suggest that he means it is part of the ethnic canon of the A-A self-image. In other words it is a ritualistic belief, the factual reality of which is irrelevant; you are embraced by the ethnic community if you accept it and punished if you reject it.
For example #1: If an Irish-American claims publicly that the Zoroastrian religion is evil inspired by Satan, the reaction among other Irish-Americans might favorable, unfavorable, or puzzlement. But no one will question his loyalty to his ethnic community. But if the same Irish-American claims that the Catholic church is evil and inpired by Satan, his loyalty to the ethnic community would be questioned. The punishment from his own group for the latter claim would be much more severe than for the former claim.
For example #2: If an orthodox Jew claims publicly that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away," and preaches to everyone that they should eat apples he may be tolerated, praised, or just considered eccentric. But if the same orthodox Jew claims publicly that "a pork chop a day keeps the doctor away... etc." His very loyalty to the Jewish community would be questioned. The punishment from his own group for the latter claim would be much more severe than for the former claim.
When someone violates a tabu of his/her ethnic group, they are more likely to be punished by the group than for some eccentricity that is irrelevant to group mores. "More invested" in this context is analogous to finance. You have much more to lose.
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