Why is that most people marry within their own race?

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Geography

Tends to be demographics where the person is from usually from. Though, I am currently dating someone who is half-hispanic and I'm Caucasian.

I guess most people work this one out very quickly.

Positive assortative mating.

Some Afro-American women are quite attractive, see Beyonce for example.

The kinky-haired actress who played at Exit Wounds (2001) Shakira Harper is also quite attractive in my opinion.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0363966/

However I don't usually find the full-blooded black African women attractive as African Americans are not full-blooded black Africans because Afro-Americans are still heavily mixed with white Americans and I think this admixture can be quite noticeable in appearance.

I'd say, and it was said before, demographics. Especially around here, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone non Hispanic.

I was one in New York though, and there were a lot of different races there, although a good explanation could be that people tend to hang out with others of their own race. My cousins in the U.S.A were born there; one of them is married to a second generation italian-american, the second one to a third generation irish-american, and the third one to an... american.

One very intriging event while I was there was at a McDonalds, where I noticed a group consisting solely of black kids in some sort of school trip. Why would a school be like that, instead of being mixed? If they grow up around people of their race, they're bound to get married with someone of that race in the end.

It would be interesting to see how it goes in more integrated environments.

The US and Brazil are still one of the most racist countries on Earth. In the US not too long ago there was racial segregation between whites and blacks and in Brazil slavery and economic discrimination against blacks and mixed race people lasted longer than in even in the US.

Some European countries like Switzerland and Finland are much better than the US and Brazil when it comes to racial tolerance and there is also much less antisemitism in those countries. This is why I consider moving back to Switzerland.

Last edited by Uri on 23 May 2012, 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One of the posters on the first page suggested they would marry in their field of study. I think that was the best answer yet.

The first girl I was ever seriously interested in was not my race. To be honest, I never even knew her race, just that she was a helluva lot darker than me, and really really smart (both mentally and socially). And she said interesting things. And she thought I said interesting things. And she was beautiful. I didn't realize race would ever be a problem. It was. Her parents were hellbent set against her dating a white boy. And she caved into their wishes.

All this to say I think the family's opinion and family reaction and family tradition (even for us white folk) often has an impact on our choices of who to pursue in the serious dating world. Conciously or not. It didn't occur to me that my father would have issue with me dating black (he would have) but I did know my mother would approve of me dating a smart person. Since I considered my father a jackass at that point in my life, and my mother's opinion was (and still is) the only one that ever mattered to me, I was certainly not going against what I saw as 'positive'.

In this case, the reason we never got together was her parents getting huffy.
But in many cases, it might be subconcious "traditional" decisionmaking deep deep inside the screwy human head in an effort to please (or at least not to displease) our families' expectations. Many of our families grew up with segregation. I don't think the next few generations are going to be as picky about race.

Consider that races of people aren't so different from breeds of dogs. Any breed of dog can be bred together, just as any race of human. However, studies show that genetic equity is compromised in breeds of dogs and races of people when they are bred with races/breeds other than their own. When a dog is not purebred you can not get papers on it because it has lost it's genetic equity. I believe we have a responsibility to these vessels we reside in. Each race further refines itself when working within the construct/culture which influenced it's biologic development. A culture is developed as an atmosphere for the growth of a particular form of life/race. Within the atmosphere, that life refines itself through generations of struggle/innovation/celebration until it eventually finds an optimal means of establishing itself as the cultures inspiring value of origin.

To mix the atmospheres/cultures/races is to ask for compromise. Our biology/animal body is aware of this in terms of tribal/pack magnetism. We function as such when our higher mind is in recession. Our instincts tell us where we belong and that means we always go to the crowds who are most like us biologically. Unless there aren't many of our kind, then we assimilate or die. Which is much of what the media teaches us to do today. Pop-culture is like a new religion and if you aren't into it, you don't pass go. You never win. It is the wiping away of our old culture/atmosphere and the precession of the artificial that has been blanketed over us. They wish for us to all just melt together.. as they remain purebred and pure of strength in their own culture on the outskirts while promoting our mass assimilation to ambiguity, the loss of definition is what they push for. They wish us to lose ourselves, to lose our history,... you know that saying, "you don't know what you got, till it's gone"

When we lose what defines us, we will lose much knowledge. Remember that knowledge is power, and with the loss of this power.. we will step down and be ruled over by a people who have campaigned for our destruction through propaganda in entertainment. They will rewrite and are writing our new culture. Their means for controlling slaves. We don't have to accept it. We can study our heritage, be proud of where we came from and appreciate diversity for what it is, DIVERSE! We should all be different and proud of the fact. Willing to stand up for our differences and not be belittled or called racist for simply stating that we have admired certain differences about people of other cultures. The understanding of differences does not have to be gazed upon in a negative light. Just remember tho, new understanding comes with new responsibility and if our biology tells us through science that it is best to breed with our own kind.. who are we to question science or nature for that matter? We should be proud and promote the differences that inspire us all but remain true to our own unique people.

institutionalized racism (including economic factors)
fear/mistrust of the "other"

Probably because they are attracted to familiarity and other factors, but I'm sure there's also a conspiracy and evidence that makes me a racist for being attracted to Caucasians. Its not trust for me because I don't trust anyone period, I've just only found myself attracted to Caucasians. Tried others but feel nothing, so yeah, I think it does boil down to what you prefer. I know a white guy irl for example that only likes black girls, which is fine. I just hate how the other way around makes me some kind of racist.

There's really no stigma with dating the other races now unless you live in the deep, deep south. If anything people applaud you for dating inter-racially now and look down on you and see you as racist if you don't want to date outside your race. I think its great and people should be allowed to be with who they please, just stop trying to tell me its morally wrong if I'm not like you, that my tastes are a product of white privilege and is -x- thing because of what you heard in your sociology class. I'm only complaining because its been done to me before and made me very pissed off and came out of nowhere.

Maybe some of us just have our own preferences and that doesn't make us any inferior or superior to your own tastes. I don't give a s**t about preserving culture or anything, I just know what I like.

I think that a lot of the reasons that people have put forward in this thread are definitely plausible, but here's another possible factor.

One of the most important desires that people have, which controls their behaviour to a great extent, is simply the desire to not get funny looks when they walk down the street. Since a mixed-race couple is unusual, people steer away from being in a mixed-race couple because they don't want to get funny looks. It isn't that the people giving them funny looks would be racists - it's just that people might glance at them for a half-second longer than usual, just as you might glance at a dog for a half-second longer than usual if it was a strange breed.

I think this could well be a big part of the explanation. Not the only force in partner selection, but quite likely an important one........any evidence that it exists?

Did he also say he would go beserk if you marry outside your own family? gotta protect them redneck genes

I think geography has a lot to do with it. If you are in an area that is dominated by 1 race you are more likely to date that race. My wife and I had a concern when we moved for Los Angeles to Colorado Springs that we might feel out of place due to the areas conservative image. What we discovered was there seems to be an even higher presence of interracial relationships here than in LA. The cause of this is quite simple. we are in area that is highly populated by military members and their families. The military is far more diverse than our nation in general and the result seems to be many more interracial relationships.
My wife and I do have a common culture however in that we are both Deaf and part of Deaf Culture. Unique to this culture is we are combined by a common language (ASL) and shared experiences. Love is color blind is really true in our culture as is the acceptance of LGBT etc.

So what are you saying, that marrying outside your race is negative assortative mating? I find that highly offensive.