The Media Disportment Of Reality

Only in a society where race is given primary importance do we even have couples socially constructed as interracial. Still, news reports play up the idea that the numbers of interracial couples are growing, even skyrocketing, and present these unions as so common that interracial relationships barely raise an eyebrow anymore, especially given that America elected Barack Obama, the first black biracial president. Yet according to the latest U.S. Census data in 2000, 94.1 percent of all marriages were between people of the same race, with only 0.6 percent of all marriages between blacks and whites and 0.9 percent of marriages between white men and Asian women. Media attention usually focuses on black-white relationships, even though these unions remain least common, while Asian-white intermarriage is most common, especially between white men and Asian women. If Latinos are separated and counted as a distinct group, interracial marriages between white men and Latinas account for 1.6 percent of all marriages, followed by 1.3 percent of all marriages being between white women and Latino men. Interracial marriages remain a small percentage of all marriages, though media reports may tell us otherwise.

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