40 Percent of White Americans Have Only White Friends

A newly released Reuters poll has found that 40 percent of white Americans, and 25 percent of non-white Americans are surrounded exclusively by friends of their own race. 

"Interracial mixing and friendships are most common in the Hispanic community, where only a tenth do not have friends of a different race. About half of Hispanics who have a spouse or partner are in a relationship with non-Hispanics, compared to one tenth of whites and blacks in relationships. Looking at a broader circle of social networks that include coworkers, as well as relatives and friends, 30 percent of Americans are not mixing with others of a different race."

These poll results reflect just how segregated the country continues to be.

Ann Morning, Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University who is quoted in the Reuters article, explains that this is in large part due to historical precedent. "This country has a pretty long history of restriction on inter-racial contact and for whites and blacks, even though it's in the past, there are still echoes of this," she writes. "Hispanics and Asian Americans have traditionally had less strict lines about integrating." 

Poll results were taken from the ongoing Reuters/Ipsos online poll and include the responses of 4,170 Americans between July 24th and August 6th. You can read more about the poll and it's original findings on Reuters.com here, and on Colorlines and Codeswitch on NPR.com as well.

Ann Morning recently spoke about demographic trends, polling, and race at Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations Spring 2013 event - U.S. Census: Rationalizing Race. You can watch an online video of her speech at our event here.

Michael J. Rosenfeld's research on our online exhibit, "Interracial Brooklyn," also reveals that Brooklyn is particularly unique in its history of interracial mixing. Rosenfeld writes, "If marriages in Brooklyn were completely random with respect to race, we might expect about 70% of all Brooklyn marriages to be interracial, instead of the 6% that are actually interracial today."

All photos by Willie Davis and Stephanie Segura for Loving Day 2013.