The top graph shows a four decade decline in the share of whites who favor a law against black-white marriages (GSS data).
The bottom graph shows how much white attitudes have changed just since I finished high school. In 1990 almost 70 percent of whites would oppose a close relative marrying a black person. (I'm sure if we had data from two decades before, the number against it would be even higher). The number dropped dramatically in the 90s, and even in the past two years fewer whites have a problem with it. In fact, in 2008, more than a quarter of whites can't wait for a family member to cross the racial line. Such enthusiasm! We can consider this question a measure of white racial consciousness; it has gone from the norm to something uncommon.
This has been a self-imposed change in the hearts of white Americans. They've given up their racialism. Most are willing to walk their daughters down the aisle and leave her with a man from a different race.
Whites didn't have to do this, but they did. And what have they gotten for their efforts? The Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the NAACP, La Raza, LULAC, the National Association of Black Journalists, BET, Univision, Georgetown professors calling on all black jurors to send guilty black defendants home, large percentages of NAMs who think of themselves as racialists first and Americans second--need I go on?
As for myself, in the abstract I would answer this question "neutral"--it wouldn't matter to me one way or the other. My ideal is neither racial consciousness or SWPL posturing. My son would be fortunate indeed to marry Sasha Obama. (I would be the unlucky one who would have to put up with all the in-laws' liberal and racialist bullshit).
But I'm not going to close my eyes to the statistics either. I dated a black women who was a fine girl, but there would have been a good chance that our kids would have gotten sucked into her lower-class family's culture and the wider dysfunctional black culture as well. Even middle-class black guys from the suburbs get sucked into black street life. And the thought of my kids or grandkids adopting all that victimhood, fight the power stuff would make me lose me mind.
Some freshman orientation worker will no doubt ask, "Don't you want your kids to be white to save them from all the discrimination they'll face in life?" My answer is, "Ha!! That God would curse us with the burden of black skin!"
The bottom graph shows how much white attitudes have changed just since I finished high school. In 1990 almost 70 percent of whites would oppose a close relative marrying a black person. (I'm sure if we had data from two decades before, the number against it would be even higher). The number dropped dramatically in the 90s, and even in the past two years fewer whites have a problem with it. In fact, in 2008, more than a quarter of whites can't wait for a family member to cross the racial line. Such enthusiasm! We can consider this question a measure of white racial consciousness; it has gone from the norm to something uncommon.
This has been a self-imposed change in the hearts of white Americans. They've given up their racialism. Most are willing to walk their daughters down the aisle and leave her with a man from a different race.
Whites didn't have to do this, but they did. And what have they gotten for their efforts? The Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the NAACP, La Raza, LULAC, the National Association of Black Journalists, BET, Univision, Georgetown professors calling on all black jurors to send guilty black defendants home, large percentages of NAMs who think of themselves as racialists first and Americans second--need I go on?
As for myself, in the abstract I would answer this question "neutral"--it wouldn't matter to me one way or the other. My ideal is neither racial consciousness or SWPL posturing. My son would be fortunate indeed to marry Sasha Obama. (I would be the unlucky one who would have to put up with all the in-laws' liberal and racialist bullshit).
But I'm not going to close my eyes to the statistics either. I dated a black women who was a fine girl, but there would have been a good chance that our kids would have gotten sucked into her lower-class family's culture and the wider dysfunctional black culture as well. Even middle-class black guys from the suburbs get sucked into black street life. And the thought of my kids or grandkids adopting all that victimhood, fight the power stuff would make me lose me mind.
Some freshman orientation worker will no doubt ask, "Don't you want your kids to be white to save them from all the discrimination they'll face in life?" My answer is, "Ha!! That God would curse us with the burden of black skin!"
