Interracial Friendships Research Articles

Alcohol Use Among Black and White Adolescents: Exploring the Influence of Interracial Friendship, the Racial Composition of Peer Groups, and Communities

Black adolescents use less alcohol, on average, than white adolescents. Prior research has struggled to explain the disparity in alcohol use between blacks and whites but not for a lack of potential mediating mechanisms. The current study draws on differential association theory and two waves of panel data (n = 1,016) to examine the influence of interracial friendship, the racial composition of peer groups, and communities on black–white differences in alcohol use. Findings indicate that (1) the racial composition of peer groups and communities influence changes in alcohol use, and (2) racial segregation contributes to racial disparities in alcohol use while interracial friendship reduces these disparities. Results suggest that the socially conservative values of the African-American community are a strong deterrent to adolescent drinking, affecting even those adolescents who are themselves white but associate with black youth.

Racializing Redemption, Reproducing Racism: The Odyssey of Magical Negroes and White Saviors

AbstractRecent research on the intersection of race and media describes a trend of progressive, even antiracist, narratives that showcase close inter‐racial friendships and camaraderie on the silver screen. Films in which one character saves or helps another from some unholy or disastrous plight are common in films like The Green Mile (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Amistad (1997) and The Blind Side (2009). While these films present a stark change from the patently racist and on‐screen segregationist history of Hollywood cinema, these films often trade on racist meanings and expectations. Many of these films are what critics call “Magical Negro” or “White Savior” films – cinema in which implicit and explicit racial stereotypes are employed to structure the inter‐racial interactions where one character labors to redeem another. In comparing these two genres, this article provides an overview for how both cinematic forms reproduce racist messages by naturalizing the supposed cerebral rationality, work ethic, and paternalistic morality of select White characters while normalizing Black characters as primordially connected with nature, spiritually connected to the carnal, and possessive of exotic and magical powers. Together, these films subversively reaffirm the social order and relations of racial domination by reproducing centuries’ old understandings of racial difference.

“Man, This Is Hard”: A Case Study of How Race and Religion Affect Cross-Racial Interaction for Black Students

This study examines how multiple facets of students’ identities affect their experiences with cross-racial interaction. I consider how the intersection between two identity categories—race and religion—affected six Black students’ experiences with cross-racial interaction in a multiracial religious student organization. While the pursuit of common goals (Allport, 1954) facilitated cross-racial interaction and interracial friendship, sharing a common religious background did not subsume tensions and conflict related to race. This study makes an important contribution to the qualitative study of diversity by illuminating how the unequal status of students can hamper efforts to use common goals to bridge racial divides.

Structural Diversity and Close Interracial Relationships in College

Recent legal and political actions have challenged the use of race-conscious college admissions policies. Earlier research offers mixed evidence about the link between an institution’s racial/ethnic composition (i.e., structural diversity) and the formation of close interracial relationships, so the present study examines this topic directly for several racial/ethnic groups. Within a large longitudinal data set, structural diversity is positively related to having close interracial friendships and a different-race romantic partner for White students, and no main effects of structural diversity are apparent for Black and Hispanic students. Moreover, structural diversity has increasingly positive effects at higher levels of campus diversity.

When race and religion collide: The effect of religion on interracial friendship during college.

When race and religion collide: The effect of religion on interracial friendship during college.

Bridging and Bonding in the Academic Melting Pot: Cultural Resources and Network Diversity

Understanding how cultural resources shape the formation of social networks is a methodological challenge as well as a theoretical objective, and both are yet to be met. In this study, sociability on college campuses is modeled as a process in which students’ prior cultural experiences and the current social structure of the student body work together, affecting the likelihood of friendships that take place within or across racial boundaries. Structural and cultural perspectives are surveyed to develop hypotheses concerning the determinants of interracial friendship, and these hypotheses are tested against a sample of 3,392 students from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen. The results suggest that religiosity, political activism, high arts participation, and athletic activities undertaken prior to college affect the diversity of social networks formed in the first year, but work in different directions. The effects of these cultural experiences may be explained by the racial organization of cultural activity on campus.

Psych's Comedic Tale of Black–White Friendship and the Lighthearted Affect of “Post-Race” America

I analyze the popular television comedy Psych to examine the affective dimensions of one type of post-race comedy. Psych, an interracial buddy narrative, adapts the assimilationist situation comedy to rhetorically intensify post-race ideology by encouraging a lighthearted, breezy attitude toward race and racism. Psych reassures audiences of their distance from racism, and confirms the “secular orthodoxy” of interracial friendship, a depoliticizing ideology that views friendship as the antidote to structural and historical injustice. I analyze three distinct modes of racial humor in Psych: witticisms that mock “PC”; comedic framings of blackness; and representations of interracial bonding that conjure post-race fantasies of black–white sameness and interchangeability. I conclude by examining Psych's role in USA Network's character-centric branding identity that frames race and racism as superficialities that we must “see beyond” in our pursuit of a utopian post-race state. This message is problematic because it locates politics in the sphere of friendship and feeling, limiting attention to historical and structural dimensions of racial injustice.

“I've Never Looked at Someone and Thought What Colour They Are”: Contact Theory and Interracial Friendship in New Zealand

Little is known about the micro-level social processes that give rise to the ‘contact effect’, a reduction in levels of prejudice and stereotyping resulting from interpersonal contact between members of different races or ethnic groups. Reporting findings from a qualitative study, this paper challenges the notion that interracial friendships will necessarily lead to empathy and decreased stereotyping. In interviews, Māori and Pakeha (white New Zealanders) describe race as invisible in close friendships, but also as the basis around which a great deal of ‘relationship management’ occurs. Contradictory discourses of trust and closeness on the one hand, and guardedness and self-regulation on the other, point to the complexity of these relationships. The potential for open communication, exchange of knowledge, reductions in anxiety and threat perception, and the development of affection are thus constrained. The findings suggest that the normative social context along with structures of intergroup relations provide an omnirelevant milieu in which interracial friendships occur and are managed, consequently moderating the effects of contact.

Scholars and Knights: W. E. B. Du Bois, J. E. Spingarn, and the NAACP

This essay examines the personal relationship and professional collaboration between African American intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois and Joel Spingarn, the literary critic turned civil rights leader whom Du Bois labeled “my nearest white friend.” Drawing on Du Bois’s autobiographical writings as well as archival sources, it traces the role that their friendship played in the preliminary decades of the NAACP, from their joint endeavors on behalf of the newly formed civil rights association in the 1910s through the 1930s, when Spingarn served as the organization’s first Jewish president. In telling a story about an interracial friendship between an African American and a Jew, this essay explores how the ideal of American pluralism was forged not simply in the contact zone between minorities and the dominant culture, but also in more complex encounters that took place on the margins.

Best Friends Forever? Race and the Stability of Adolescent Friendships

Our research uses two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to analyze the stability of same- and cross-race friendships. We find the following: First, interracial friendships are less stable than same-race friendships, even after controlling for a variety of contextual and dyadic characteristics, such as school racial composition and friends' similarities in attitudes and behaviors. Second, measures of dyadic similarity (aside from race) are weak predictors of friendship stability. Third, measures of reciprocity and closeness are strong predictors of friendship stability and appear to dampen the effects of racial difference. These results indicate that race is of continuing significance in structuring the social lives of American adolescents. They call into question the assumption that the factors that drive friendship formation also drive friendship stability. And, they suggest that more attention should be paid to the quality of interracial friendships, as measured by degree of reciprocity and closeness.

Interracial Friendships in College

We use unique longitudinal data to provide direct evidence about interracial friendships at different stages of college and to provide new evidence about some of the reasons for the observed patterns of interaction. We find that, while much sorting exists at all stages of college, black and white students are, in reality, very compatible as friends; randomly assigned roommates of different races are as likely to become friends as randomly assigned roommates of the same race. Further, we find that, in the long run, being (randomly) assigned a black roommate significantly increases the number of other black friends a white student has.

From strangers to friends: The interpersonal process model of intimacy in developing interracial friendships

We examine the processes involved in the development of interracial friendships. Using Reis and Shaver’s intimacy model, we explore the extent to which disclosure and perceived partner responsiveness influence intimacy levels in developing interracial and intraracial friendships. White and ethnic minority participants completed diary measures of self and partner disclosure and partner responsiveness every two weeks for 10 weeks about an in-group and an out-group person whom they thought they would befriend over time. The results revealed that perceived partner responsiveness mediated the relationships between both self and partner disclosure and intimacy in interracial and intraracial relationships. The implications of these results for intergroup relations are discussed.

Interracial contact and fear of crime

Despite a large literature on public views about crime, the racialization of crime, and the contact hypothesis, surprisingly little is known about how interracial friendships may influence Whites’ fear of crime. At the same time, and perhaps because no counterpart stereotype to that of “Blacks as criminals” exists, there has been little exploration of how such contact may influence Blacks’ fear of crime. To address these research gaps, this study built on prior theory and research and used data from an ABC News and Washington Post poll to test competing hypotheses about the effect of interracial contact on Whites’ and Blacks’ fear of crime, respectively. The analyses revealed that close interracial friendships are associated with increased fear of crime among Whites, decreased fear of crime among lower-income Blacks, and increased fear among higher-income Blacks. The implications for theory and research are discussed.

Increasing positive intergroup contact

We tested an intervention designed to correct negative expectations about inter-racial interactions, increase the positivity of those interactions, and increase inter-racial friendships. In Study 1 (n = 58) White college students watched videotapes depicting an inter-racial friendship and either did or did not write about a similar experience. Participants who wrote about a similar experience expected and actually had a more positive inter-racial interaction. In Study 2 (n = 99) White college students watched videotapes depicting an inter-racial or same-race friendship and either did or did not write about a similar experience. Those who saw the inter-racial video and wrote about a similar experience had a more positive inter-racial interaction and initiated more inter-racial friendships in the following weeks than participants in the other conditions.

On the Move: A Black Family's Western Saga (review)

Reviewed by: On the Move: A Black Family's Western Saga Bruce A. Glasrud On the Move: A Black Family's Western Saga. By S. R. Martin Jr. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. 195 pages, $24.95. S. R. Martin Jr., an African American who resides in the West, became "a black westerner" as he adopted western attributes, attitudes, ideas, and values while "on the move." This adaptation was not by chance, as he relates in his delightful On the Move: A Black Family's Western Saga. Martin's ancestors had earlier moved westward to Texas, settling in places such as Mexia and Palestine before many ended up in Fort Worth. Fort Worth emphasized its particular place with its slogan, "Where the West Begins," and this is where S. R. Martin Jr. and his brother were born. During the late 1930s, some of Martin's extended family began moving further west, to Montana, San Francisco, and the Monterey Bay peninsula, where Martin's parents settled. The author ultimately settled in the state of Washington, where he sought education and employment. On the Move is part of a rich and evolving story; it belongs with other biographical and autobiographical books of and by black westerners. Its recounting of the history and the movement west is similar to the excellent study by Texas A&M University historian Albert S. Broussard, whose African-American Odyssey: The Stewarts, 1853–1963 (1998) traced that family's western movement. Oscar Micheaux in three novels, Era Bell Thompson in America's Daughter (1946), and Taylor Gordon in Born to Be (1929) also describe becoming black westerners. As Martin and the others clearly articulate, race mattered, even if it was not overpowering or overbearing. For Thompson, in North Dakota, everything, including the people, was white as snow. Martin Jr.'s writing is enjoyable, poignant, and easy to read. It is filled with perceptive comments and with pithy, catchy sentences and phrases. He points out the importance of living with whites, of being sensitive to time, place, and conditions such as racial segregation. From each spot along the way, he and his family took and adopted western values and attitudes—an appreciation for the rugged spacious landscape, long distances, family, religion, music, a sense of place. As Martin phrased it, he discovered and enjoyed "wide open spaces, giant mountains, two hundred foot conifers, huge lakes, and rushing rivers" (83). They learned to enjoy the large cities as well as smaller towns such as Cody, Seaside, and Pullman. In the urban centers such as San Francisco, as Martin noted, "the hills, tall buildings, the streetcars, the bustle and business all captured me" (102). To be a black westerner involved a less debilitating racism; it was more spiritual than religious; it meant losing contact with family members back east; and it likely included more interracial friendships. "The threat of being black in a mainly white population disappeared" (83). S. R. Martin Jr. captured the essence of being a black westerner in his must-read book. [End Page 296] Bruce A. Glasrud Seguin, Texas Copyright © 2009 Western Literature Association

Whites’ Concern about Crime: The Effects of Interracial Contact

In recent decades, crime has emerged as a prominent policy focus nationally. Accordingly, a large literature on public views about crime has developed, one strand of which highlights the racialization of crime as a factor central to public opinion and policy discourse. Drawing on this work and studies on the effects of interracial contact, the authors seek to advance theory and research on public opinion about crime.To this end, they draw on data from an ABC News and Washington Post poll to test competing hypotheses about the effects of interracial friendship among Whites on concern about local and national crime. The results suggest that interracial contact increases concern about crime among urban Whites.The authors discuss the implications of these findings for theory, research, and policy.

Influences of Culture on Self-Disclosure as Relationally Situated in Intercultural and Interracial Friendships from a Social Penetration Perspective

Intercultural and interracial relationships face barriers, tensions, and challenges that are absent from intracultural and intraracial relationships. These challenges provide the impetus for this study to examine the influences of individualism-collectivism and relational intimacy on topics and dimensions of self-disclosure in intercultural/interracial friendships from a social penetration perspective. A total of 252 participants responded to the instruments measuring the constructs of interest. This study found: (1) relational intimacy was positively correlated with all six topics and four out of the five dimensions of self-disclosure; (2) individualism was a significant predictor of the five dimensions of self-disclosure as a set; and (3) one mirrors one's intercultural/interracial friend in all six topics and the positive/negative dimension of self-disclosure. These results suggest that relational intimacy has a greater impact on close intercultural and interracial friendships than cultural variability.

Interracial Friendships in the Transition to College: Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together Once They Leave the Nest?

Because of segregation in neighborhoods and schools, college may provide the first opportunity for many young adults to interact closely with members of different racial and ethnic groups. Little research has examined how interracial friendships form during this period. This article investigates changes in the racial composition of friendship networks in the transition from high school to college and how aspects of the college environment are related to such changes. Interracial friendships increase for whites, decrease for blacks, and show little change for Latinos and Asians. The habits of friendship formation that are acquired during adolescence and features of residential and extracurricular college contexts influence the formation of interracial friendships. The race of one's roommate, the degree of interracial contact in residence halls, and participation in various types of extracurricular activities are most strongly related to the formation of interracial friendships.

Psychosocial costs of racism to Whites: Understanding patterns among university students.

This investigation adds to the growing body of scholarship on the psychosocial costs of racism to Whites (PCRW), which refer to consequences of being in the dominant position in an unjust, hierarchical system of societal racism. Extending research that identified 5 distinct constellations of costs of racism (L. B. Spanierman, V. P. Poteat, A. M. Beer, & P. I. Armstrong, 2006), the authors used multinomial logistic regression in the current study to examine what factors related to membership in 1 of the 5 PCRW types during the course of an academic year. Among a sample of White university freshmen (n = 287), the authors found that (a) diversity attitudes (i.e., universal diverse orientation and unawareness of privilege) explained PCRW type at entrance, (b) PCRW type at entrance explained participation in interracial friendships at the end of the year, (c) 45% of participants changed PCRW type during the course of the year, and (d) among those who changed type, particular PCRW types at entrance resulted in greater likelihood of membership in particular PCRW types at the end of the year. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Interracial friendship development and attributional biases

We demonstrated that a self—other attributional bias impedes interracial friendship development. Whites were given the opportunity to become friends with a White or Black participant. Whites indicated how interested they were in becoming friends and how concerned they were about being rejected as a friend. They also indicated how interested they thought the other person was in becoming friends and how concerned they thought the other person was about being rejected as friend. Results revealed that lower-prejudice Whites made divergent explanations for the self and other when the potential friend was Black, whereas higher-prejudice Whites did not. Prejudice level did not influence the type of explanations made when the potential friend was White. Implications for interracial friendship development are considered.