"The study finds that 8.4 percent of all current U.S. marriages are interracial, up from 3.2 percent in 1980. While Hispanics and Asians remained the most likely, as in previous decades, to marry someone of a different race, the biggest jump in share since 2008 occurred among blacks, who historically have been the most segregated.
States in the West where Asian and Hispanic immigrants are more numerous, including Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico and California, were among the most likely to have couples who "marry out" - more than 1 in 5. The West was followed by the South, Northeast and Midwest. By state, mostly white Vermont had the lowest rate of intermarriage, at 4 percent.
In all, more than 15 percent of new marriages in 2010 were interracial." NY Daily News
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Good. Race in its sexual dimensions has always lurked in the background as one of the great "dividers" in America. IMO Yankees are actually more uptight about it than Southerners. There used to be a lot of people of mixed Black/White descent in the South, especially in the cities. When I was doing societal research for "Strike the Tent," I frequently saw women who were quite dark looking at records in which there were photographs of light skinned people. When asked they often said that these were their ancestors. The circumstances that led to many mixed race pregnancies died out in the 20th century. Some really light skinned people simply "went white" like Dinah Shore. Others reproduced with darker people and the whole populaton tended to get darker in the African-American world.
Now the tide is running in the other direction. IMO the American of the future is going to look a lot like Soledad O'brien and Harold Ford. Good! pl
