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This research effort explores attitudes toward interracial marriage and related behavior patterns in the United States. These patterns are examined longitudinally from the perspective of the general public over a 25-year period. Specifically, responses to whether one favors or opposes laws prohibiting marriages between Blacks and Whites are combined with a measure of social distance (whether one had a member of the opposite race over for dinner in the past year) to produce a hierarchy of responses that include both attitudes and corresponding behaviors, and in essence reflect varying degrees of racial prejudice. These attitudes and behaviors are analyzed using ordinal logistic regression from 1973 through 1996. Through the application of race relations and differential assimilation theories, the impact of racial group membership, age, and socio-economic status on interracial marriage attitudes and behaviors in contemporary American society is assessed. Our findings suggest that while there have been some dramatic shifts in racially patterned attitudes and behaviors across all groups, barriers to assimilation persist, and non-Blacks engage in a greater degree of social closure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reconsiders the genesis and formation of Asian American literature by focusing less on the Chin-Kingston debate and more on the impact of Black radicalism and the genre of antiracist anthologies. I explore Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers and Yardbird Reader 3 to examine the centrality of Black cultural revolution for the rise of Asian American literature, and the works of multiethnic anthologies within cultural nationalisms and emergent multiethnic movements. During the post–civil rights era of racial realignment, Black radical thought is the counterpoint to forced Asian ethnic assimilation; this Asian-Black sensibility had challenged an uncritical complicity with white supremacy, which had suppressed Black revolution and modeled Asian America. In Aiiieeeee!, the editors use the vernacular languages, performance styles, and oppositional consciousness of Black masculinity as a means to expose the contradictions of post–civil rights racial formations that disunite Asian and Black communities. In Yardbird Reader 3, the institutional and homosocial bonds between Ishmael Reed and Frank Chin became a crucial relationship to solidify the Asian American Writing Movement and multiethnic collaborations through Afro-Asian connections. Both works carved a niche in U.S. national culture by conceptualizing new models of multiethnicity and subsequently birthed a germinal literary sensibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study transcends general opinion reports and uses data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to examine responses on attitudinal questions about how Black and White Americans actually feel about their close relative marrying outside their own race. The results show that more than half (54%) of Black Americans are in favor of their close relative marrying a White person compared with nearly one-in-four (26%) White Americans who said they were in favor of their close relative marrying a Black person. Such results suggest that questions about how individuals feel when close relatives engage into Black-White marriage provide better measures of attitude toward racial exogamy. Logistic regression models are analyzed to determine how socio-demographic factors influence Black and White Americans’ views on interracial marriage of their close relatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

American society is undergoing unprecedented cultural changes in the 21st century. This social transformation began with the civil rights movement in the 1960s. As the United States becomes more diverse, both racially and ethnically, equal access to a variety of social institutions and organizations becomes more challenging. With respect to marriage, popular media continually report the blurring of boundaries between racial and ethnic groups. As a result, there has been a tremendous increase in interracial dating and marriage over the past several decades. There are considerable differences between the occurrence of interracial dating and interracial marriage. Data suggest that there is a much higher level of interracial dating in comparison to interracial marriage. This research effort focuses on trends in interracial marriages in the United States between 1980 and 2006. Information from the U.S. Census Bureau was used to analyze changes in the number and frequency of interracial marriages in American society over a 22-year time frame. Differential assimilation is employed for understanding interracial marriage trends and distinguishing important statistical differences between marriages with a Black1 spouse and those interracial marriages not involving a Black spouse. This exploration provides important empirical findings for assessing the progress of assimilation in America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the similarities between Afrocentricity and postmodernism with an eye toward defining their responses to hegemony. The author argues that these ideas share similar platforms, although they may have been derived from different experiences. Clearly, the assault on all forms of prejudice, bigotry, hierarchical arrangements, and class discriminations are at the base of both ideas. By examining the intellectual history and details of the postmodern movement the author seeks to provide its characteristics that relate to the Afrocentric idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the behest of White Americans is a postmodern form of Black oppression via White women as vehicle. In the preferential hiring of White women faculty extended from the women's rights movement in academe is the racist discrimination against Black and other people of color. The history of women's rights evolved in the context of racism apparent in the popularity of the Women's Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). Suffice it to say, that modernistic tradition in the preferential hire of White women is a prerequisite to White supremacy. Thus, in this postmodern era the gap between White women and Black folk hired at prestigious institutions of higher education has introduced a more covert but no less formidable strategy for sustaining Black oppression. Academe must confront this issue to sustain its prestige and credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Race and gender inequalities in Brazil are analyzed in light of international human fights law and standards. The demographic category "blacks" or "African descendants" is new and still controversial in Brazil; it conflicts with the traditional "racial democracy" ideology by grouping together dark-skinned and light-skinned blacks, but official research institutions increasingly employ this methodology. Statistical economic and demographic analysis demonstrates that African descendants' human rights, particularly those of black women, are violated daily in Brazil. Analysis is made of compliance with international standards for the rights to life (life expectancy, mortality rates, quality of life), physical and mental health, work with dignity and equal opportunity, ongoing improvement of living conditions, and protection in childhood. Brazilian society is traditionally authoritarian and inequality is taken for granted. Meaningful economic and social change must address the specific issues of race discrimination and its legacy, which implies deep structural changes in Brazilian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the assimilation of black immigrants into the United States system of racial stratification. Experience of African and Caribbean immigrants and their US-born descendants; Origins of the US racial system; Assignment into `Black,' `Hispanic' and Asian categories.

Focuses on the social construction of race and its impact on assimilation in Brazil and the United States. Concept of race in biology; Concept of race in the social sciences; Race in the speech of the United States and Brazil; Reflections on race.