Cite.
What freaking decade are we living in? Don’t approve of it “for the sake of the children”?
Sounds a lot like the arguments against same sex marriage.
Actually, the poll says that 87% approve of interracial marriages. The article seems to draw the conclusion that this means that 13% disapprove, but I suspect that 13% includes a bunch of “don’t know – no opinion” and “no response”.
Still, you’d think the approval rating would be higher than 87%, so it’s still cause for concern.
Actually, I’m pleasantly surprised the approval rating is as high as 87%. But that might be my bias from living in the south my entire life. I imagine there are still plenty of out of the way places, like my hometown, where the numbers might well be reversed.
It takes awhile for the old folks to die off. Per your article, approval was < 50% only 20 years ago. Plus:
So for all the griping we do about “kids these days” and entitlement culture (complaints which have been around for literally millennia), we’re actually doing a good job of teaching them some things the right way, despite our personal examples?
Gives me a rare glimmer of hope for the future.
History is all about recycled arguments. The arguments against legalizing drugs were used for prohibition, the arguments against same-sex marriage were used for inter-racial unions, etc.
Still, the article unfairly assigns views not in evidence about that 13% (and pretty much ignores the tremendous progress cited in the article itself, going from 4% to 87% since the laws changed).
And while you can’t tell people what choices to make, like the judge cited in the article tried to do, the fact remains couples in inter-racial marriages and their children have a tougher row to hoe; it typically means some level of rejection from both communities. The cited Cheerios fiasco shows it’s still an emotionally-charged subject with a lot of Americans.
At least 5-10% of people will take the weird side of ANY poll. If you did a Gallup poll asking “what’s two plus two” you’d get at least 5-10% of people disagreeing that the answer is four, either because they misheard the question or just wanted to be dicks.
Adding on to that the fact that the poll does not clearly indicate that 13% of people are actually opposed to interracial marriage in a substantive way, this is exactly the result I would expect from a progressive, tolerant society. I doubt there is a country on earth where the results would be any better.
I wouldn’t get excited over 13% (and probably less than that) of Americans not accepting interracial marriage.
Not while a third of the public still rejects evolution, and half supposedly believe at least one brain-dead medical conspiracy theory.
Agreed, every poll should establish a “nonsense %” baseline by asking some generic questions like that in order to determine how many respondents are just chain-yanking.
It appears the only options are “approve” or “disapprove”. But yeah, 13% is well below the crazification constant or whatever they call it.
One constant seems to be that despite other complaints (valid or not), the younger generations embrace social progress better than their elders.
It’s because of that crazy music they listen to!!
How many baby boomer (or older) parents would feel comfortable with their kids in an interracial marriage? I suspect that a lot of that 13% are old people. There are people alive today who passed and enforced segregation laws.
Its getting a whole lot better. Lots of older Italians on my side of the family have met my wife (who is black), and don’t have a problem. My parents at least try to have a normal conversation with her. I haven’t been dis-inheritted by anyone, and no one has banned me from their home. Everything is fine with her side of the family. In fact, her late grandmother loved me.
The stares kind of get to me. Living in rural Southern Maryland, we get lots of stares, mostly from the geriatric set, but sometimes from younger folk. Last week we had dinner in a locally owned steakhouse/bar, and there were 2 older couples there that seemed to be trying to burn us with their heat vision.
Of course, this is mild compared to what the pioneers, such as the Lovings, went through. In 15 years of marriage, we have never run into any kind of overt or violent racism, just a kind of uncomfortable feeling from people who are not used to talking to members of other races.
P.S., I also wanted to point out that while the military is somewhat conservative overall, on the subject of inter-racial marriage it has been the most accepting community I have ever dealt with. In the last shop I worked in, out of 15 people who worked there, there were 5 mixed couples. In fact we used to hang out almost exclusively with 3 other mixed families. Have not found a community like that since I retired.
I’m really surprised the percentage is not higher.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the breakdown of that 13% was very racially diverse themselves.
I can say my baby boomer family is fine with it. I married a Mexican woman, my cousin married a Japanese man. My in-laws, who are more conservative than my own parents, are also fine with a gringo in the family.
I wonder if part of that 13% are people with very insular family structure where it’s taboo to marry outside of your culture. I have a friend of a friend who married a Chinese man and her mother in law treats her like garbage simply because she’s not Chinese. “Too dumb, too fat, too lazy” seems to be the complaint levied when their sons date a white girl. It also seems to be a bigger issue with sons than with daughters. For a lot of Filipinos, marrying a white man is seen as a step up.
I for one am very concerned. Very concerned indeed. Somebody better do something or I’m going to keep being concerned.
Per the OP, I was hoping the poll actually asked if people believed in inter-racial marriage. As in, 13% thought it wasn’t real. You know, like astronomy.
Would you like a hug, Drunky Smurf?