Interracial Marriage Stats

I was wandering through the US Census Bureau stats on race and interracial marriages. A lot of interesting numbers there, but I found it interesting that white men/black women marriages have exploded in the past 15 years. In 1980 (I'm going with raw numbers not percentages here), there were 45,000 white men/black women marriages in the sample size of 49 million. As of 1999, there were 120,000 such marriages in a sample size of 55 million, a three-fold increase.

In the case of Black men/White men interracial marriages, same sample sizes as in earlier paragraph, in 1980 there we 120,000 and in 1999 it was 210,000, which is close to a two fold increase. Clearly, something happened with white men and black women that black men and white women missed. I realize that the white men/black women relationships are just now catching up as far as breaking social taboos. I still do something of a double take with white men/black women couples. I'm just not as used to seeing that.

1993/94 is particularly interesting. In 1993, there's 60,000 white men/black women marriages and then in 1994, that number jumps to 100,000!!! Although, in general, black white intermarriage is at a relatively low percentage for races that have coexisted for centuries. That should tell us something about issues that need to be worked out.

BTW, if you google "interracial," make sure you are not at work or no kids around, the results are downright offensive, until after the first couple of pages.