Posted on 08/26/2014 2:50:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
'Some of my best friends are black!' You're probably lying.
Do you have friends of another race? Statistically speaking, probably not.
With so much racial unrest going on in America these days, it can be hard for people to understand the "other" side. Maybe it's because white Americans never walked a mile in a black friend's shoes -- or maybe because they have no black friends to begin with.
Public Religion Research Institute found that whites' social networks are 91 percent white. Even more alarming, 75 percent of whites have a totally white social network.
For a nation that prides itself as a melting pot (or perhaps salad bowl), it's shocking that so many people could have so little racial diversity in their friend group.
Imagine a white person with 300 friends, about the size of a healthy Facebook friends list. Of those, the institute's research shows about 273 friends will be white, three will be black, three Latino, three Asian, three multiracial and three of an "other" race (and nine with an unknown race).
It's not much better for black people. For a black person, that same Facebook friends list would be made up of about 249 black people, 24 whites, six Latinos, nine mixed race, no Asians, three "other" race and 12 unknown.
Public Religion Research Institute's Robert P. Jones decries our tendency to "self-segregate" in a piece for The Atlantic.
"Widespread social separation is the root of divergent reactions along racial lines to events such as the Watts riots, the O.J. Simpson verdict, and, more recently, the shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown," Jones writes. "... If perplexed whites want help understanding the present unrest in Ferguson, nearly all will need to travel well beyond their current social circles."
Whites alone aren't guilty of a monochrome social network. While three-quarters of whites have an all-white network, 64 percent of blacks and 46 percent of Hispanics have social networks made entirely of their own race.
The unrest in Ferguson has poured salt in long-festering wounds in our country. It's often been difficult for the various groups involved to see eye-to-eye.
But we'll never make any lasting changes unless different racial, social and religious groups make a serious, sustained effort to leave their insular communities and forge real relationships. We can't call America the great melting pot if we're not even willing to get close to each other.
That is so true. Blacks and whites in the south are more likely to be friends than in the west and north. There is not as much social segregation. The media makes out like the south is full of racist old white folks when the truth is there is just not as much PC going on south of the Mason-Dixon Line. What people are actually thinking is out in the open.
Nobody of any race can have that many friends. They can have that many coworkers in a large corporation, or that many casual social contacts over a period of time, or go to church with 300 people, but that's not the same as being friends.
Lol, that struck me funny!
You can’t have fewer than zero friends either.
Only around 10% of the population is black.
The vast majority of the black population lives TOGETHER in communities... of black people.
Therefore most of us don’t live near or interact with more than a handful of black people which by mathematical necessity means most of us don’t encounter enough blacks in day to day life for the odds to favor forming a friendship.
Where do people make friends? Work, school, church, sports... all the things people don’t do anymore.
Black people just don’t reach out to me.
My kids are friends with several black/white interracial children, two from school, the other two sibling sets from church.
The interesting observation from the black mother in one family was that she was more accepted among whites than blacks. Blacks hated on people who married outside of the race, whereas whites intermarry so much with hispanics and Asians (and a few white girls have half black kids) that it wasn’t a big deal. And god forbid a black man marries a white woman, for he will receive a firestorm of hate - from blacks. Though plenty of black guys want to at least lay a white woman for bragging rights.
When blacks deride those who try to heal the social divide, you further the division. And it is mostly blacks who are doing so.
The same divisions occur when black kids get condemned for “acting white” by getting straight As and moving into honors classes that are mostly white and Asian.
That was a very brave and good thing for them to do!
It’s hard to do because friends can talk to each other about anything, with some blacks you have to ponder and preview everything you say in order to not “offend”. Walking on eggshells is no way to have a friendship.
At the job I used to have, in the 80’s, at all company gatherings the blacks would all get off to themselves, shunning any whites who tried to include them.
This pendulum swings both ways. Bluebirds don’t hang out with cardinals, but they manage to co-exist in the world.
People of the same race or ethnicity gravitate toward each other.
Here’s a demographic map.
http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer
Heston noticed that during breaks of filming of Planet of the Apes, actors hung out together depending on what type of ape they were portraying.
Some of my best friends are Puerto Rican and that’s close enough...
Idiotic stats...
I think Dunbar’s number is 150.
I’m a Redbird. All my friends and relatives are Redbirds. I don’t hang wit the Bluebirds. Don’t care who likes it or doesn’t like it. Never had a Bluebird express any interest in being my friend.
Its part of human nature and natural and normal for individuals to prefer people who share similar values and sense of life.
I don't see many black people trying to make friends with me. Why didn't he/she/it ask about black people who never walked in a white friend's shoes? How about the black people who have, but still like to marinate in the pity gravy.
I’m in California and have a very good black friend.......for about 25 years now. Of course her Recently deceased husband was a Master Sergeant in the army so they are not typical thug blacks. We laugh about the thugs.
War - Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
I seen you ‘round for a long, long time, yeah
I remembered you when you drink my wine
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
I’ve seen you walkin’ down in Chinatown
I called you but you could not look around
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
I pay my money to the welfare line
I see you standing in it every time
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
The color of your skin don’t matter to me, ow
As long as we can live in harmony
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
I’d kinda like to be the President, yeah
So I can show you how your money’s spent, ooh
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Sometimes I don’t speak bright, alright
But yet I know what I’m talking about
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
I know you’re working for the C.I.A.
They wouldn’t have you in the mafia
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Indeed and where is it written that in all things racial whites have to somehow defer to non whites? Screw that. It works both ways.
Freedom of association is a hate crime! There should be a government agency that assigns relationships to people, and the distribution should be representative of the general population.
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