Interracial Marriage's Acceptance and What it Means

In recent years there have been incidents in places such as Louisiana and Kentucky in which either a judge or a church refuse to legally acknowledge or accept an interracial couple, either to get married or become members of said church. Usually these stories immediately become national hot topics that spur debate and outcries. To some interracial couples, both married and just dating are seen as the ultimate sign of achieving racial equality. For years there was a legal prohibition on interracial marriage in several states, but now it seems that the opposite situation has occurred, and this change in attitude may have larger implications in regards to the future of race relations in America.

In a recent finding from the Pew Research Center an increasing number of Americans hold a favorable view of interracial marriage. What once was practically a taboo has now become acceptable to many Americans, a significant shift from 1986 in which only a rough third of Americans viewed such unions as acceptable. Now in 2010 about fifteen percent of recent marriages are between two people of different ethnicities. While this may not seem like much this still reflects a major improvement in regards to how people view both their race or ethnicity as well as to how separate or intertwined these should be, if at all.

Now some may look at this and simply believe this shift to be natural, or not significant, or both. However, this increase is very important if one wishes to predict what direction race relations in the US are heading. With an increase of people feeling comfortable enough to date, and even marry someone not of their own ethnicity suggests that the person in particular does not factor race and ethnicity in selecting a potential partner. This also suggests for a large number of these people their family and peers are at least accepting, if not supportive relationship. In 1925 sociologist Emory Bogardus created a scale of judging the social distance that existed between various ethnic groups in the United States. This scale listed a number of social contexts which Borgadus would ask subjects to answer whether or not they would be willing to accept a person of a different ethnicity in that context. At the lower end of the scale was the context which, arguably should have been the easiest to accept and at the other end was the social context that Borgardus believed would have been the most intimate and therefore most difficult for someone to accept a person of a different ethnicity into. For Borgadus that context was having a close family member be married to someone of a different ethnicity. The fact that interracial marriage is on the rise speaks volumes of just how much progress has been made, but we must remember that these relationships are still in the vast minority and therefore leave much greater room for improvement.

You can find the New York Times article here.