black-friends-white-friends

According to a study released by the Public Religion Research Institute, whites in America have an average of one black friend compared to blacks having 8 white friends.

From Washington Post:

In a 100-friend scenario, the average white person has 91 white friends; one each of black, Latino, Asian, mixed race, and other races; and three friends of unknown race. The average black person, on the other hand, has 83 black friends, eight white friends, two Latino friends, zero Asian friends, three mixed race friends, one other race friend and four friends of unknown race.

As part of their American Values Survey, PRRI researchers asked respondents to name up to seven people with whom they regularly discussed important matters. They then asked a battery of demographic questions about these people — their relationships to their respondents, as well as their gender, religion and, germane for these purposes, their race. They used these numbers to derive average racial breakdowns of the friend networks of the average black, white and Hispanic survey respondent.

Read more at Washington Post

In essence, the average black person’s friend network is eight percent white, while the average white person’s network is just one percent black.

But while black Americans have ten times as many black friends as whites, white Americans have 91 times as many white friends as black friends.

Thoughts on this study?

What factors do you believe contribute to this?

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