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Interracial marriages in U.S. hit new high: 1 in 12

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This is good... for all the press Americans get regarding racism things have changed greatly in the last 50 years. When you see random groups of kids on TV they are often well mixed. Of course you see groups of white or black only but its mainly in cities or areas where that race is predominent. Look at music and you often see blacks and whites playing together. Now interracial marriages are on the upswing and I say Great! We're starting to get past it and hopefully it will get better. Not saying racism is gone in the states... it surely still exists but as the older generations and their hardened thinking slowly move on so, hopefully, will our racist past.

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I honestly thought we were a lot farther along than that. But as they said, it's where you come from.

It IS good to see western nations say "we've still got a long way to go," not something I ever here in Japan.

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If everyone was blind, there would be no talk about race.

We are all human and able to reproduce with each other.

We are people.

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Ok, a little correction here. Latino white marriages are not interracial, except if the latinos are Negroes. Most Latinos, like whites, are caucasians. so they maybe inter-ethnic marriages, but not interracial. and secondly, contrary to popular belief, race is not a social construct, but in fact a biological one.

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Latino white marriages are not interracial, except if the latinos are Negroes. Most Latinos, like whites, are caucasians. so they maybe inter-ethnic marriages, but not interracial. and secondly, contrary to popular belief, race is not a social construct, but in fact a biological one.

Reading this makes me very happy to be English; 99% of people couldn't care if you're black, white or green, and we consequently haven't developed the insane, over-elaborate terminology in use in the States.

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I was thinking the same as lucabrasi. How do they know what race marriage partners are, unless someone is keeping tabs?

Weird that there are even statistics available for interracial marriage.

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Would love to see the stats for Japan........

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White-Hispanic couples ..... Whaaaaat?!?!

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Wakarimasen;

In Japan, about 4-5% of marriages incude a non-Japanese partner. Of these, the vast majority (70-80%) involve Japanese men marrying non-Japanese women.

I want to know how the stats are done when a mixed-race person married? My son is a white/Japanese hybrid. Is it a mixed marriage if he marries a white girl? A Japanese? A mixed race girl where one of her races is neither Japanese nor white?

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In Japan 'mixed marriage' refers to marriage between people who hold different nationalities. As far as I know there are no stats on race in marriage as such. So Grouchy, if your son has Japanese nationality and marries in Japan it will be a mixed marriage if he marries a girl with a non-Japanese passport, and a Japanese marriage if he marries a girl with a Japanese passport. If he marries in America it looks like he will be considered mixed and whether it will be a 'mixed' marriage or not will depend on the DNA of his bride, regardless of what nationality passport they each hold.

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1) this shouldn't even be news. It means nothing. People try to construe this as the US being "less racist" or something. People are people, and they marry for different reasons. I have worked with, met, and known people (black, white, asian, indian, latino) who have said they would marry a person of another race for a specific feature (a certain type of butt, boobs, hair, eye shapes). Some of them actually DID. Is it shallow? Yes, but its also just as racist (a preference for one racist over another) of a motivation as someone who bashes other races. I also know people who married within their race for no specific reason except that was the person they loved, which is a totally non-racially motivated decision. So we can conclude that. a) Not everyone who marries someone of their race is automatically a racist; b) Not everyone who marries someone of a different race is automatically a non-racist. Therefore, this statistic is meaningless.

@JapanGal, if everyone was blind we would likely all be dead by now. Oh, and it would make building cities and skyscrapers impossible. So Tokyo, Osaka, etc would not exist. Advocating for universal blindness is sheer lunacy. How about instead of turning our heads and blindly acting like other races and people don't exist, we actually just accept that people of other races are as human as we are. Just respect their humanity and learn to appreciate cultural differences instead of pretending they don't exist. To act like differences don't exist is just as racist as hating them, bc you're failing to acknowledge a part of a person, in affect saying "I can't deal with that part of you, so I'll just pretend I'm blind to it". That's crap.

@Wurthington wow...how much kool-aid would you say you drink per day? Keep sipping.

A) kids have rarely ever hated a person just bc of their color unless their parents taught them to. That's where you get cases of KKK members having a "predisposition" to hate another race (still wrong).

B) Groups of kids on tv...the media (having worked in it) largely gets to choose the shots that make television and sometimes, those shots are basically staged.

C) same applies to music videos. And ps...have you ever heard of The Rat Pack? Blacks and whites have been playing and performing together since at least the 1920s, so 100 years later I dunno if this should impress us or be some kind of indicator or a racist or non- or less racist society. This is ridiculous.

D) Up until 1959 (when minimum wage was enacted), Blacks were employed at a higher rate than whites. The rate of that employment now is typically about 20% under what it was before 1959 and it HAS NEVER RECOVERED! So, while there may have been more overt racism then, the two races knew how to co-exist (if not in an ideal situation) and work together. The older generations "hardened thinking" led to higher employment for both races. I'm sure a man, white or black, would rather have a job that takes care of his family than to hear about how much another dude "likes and accepts him". Yes, we should accept people, but that puts the cart before the horse to a person that can't feed his family. So, hardened thinking may have had its flaws, but it definitely had its benefits for everyone. I'm not proposing we go to the racism part, but there are some lessons to be taken from this "hardened thinking".

@blackpassenger A correction...Latinos can be white, black, asian (Brazil has the highest Japanese population outside of Japan), or anything else.

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Cleo, that7s a good point. For the Japanese, they consider nationality and ethnicity to be one and the same. I wonder if that would be the case if I, for example, were to take Japanese citizenship a la Debito Arudo and then remarry... would MY marriage be considered "mixed", or "unmixed".

I wonder what Obama's case would be- he's a "haafu" too. Is his marriage considered mixed because his wife is black(er) than he is? Would it have been mixed if he had married Halle Berry? Or Taylor Swift? Once the DNA starts minglling, gathering stats on race becomes a bit ridiculous.

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Once the DNA starts minglling, gathering stats on race becomes a bit ridiculous.

Gathering stats on race is ridiculous in the first place.

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When I lived in the US. I could never understand the need for the "race/etnicity" field on pretty much every form you had to fill out.

Depending on mood, I usually entered "Eskimo" or "German Shepherd"

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WOOHOO! Mix and match people....I like hearing the spread of things like this. That way, it can start breaking up the barrier on racism!

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The stats are gathered from the census.

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