Study Shows Most White Americans Don't Have Black Friends

[FarrenH]

38. Its interesting comparing this to the South African experience

Over here the ethnic proportions are reversed. 9% of the country is white and 80% black. A qualifier: Unlike the USA, most South Africans treat "colored" as a separate ethnicity, because Apartheid separated mixed race people into different physical communities which are now culturally distinct - for example most black South Africans speak an indigenous language at home while most coloreds speak English or Afrikaans, which evolved out of Dutch. The large majority of coloreds self-identify as "colored" and even sub-groups within that, "Cape Malay" being seen as a distinct "Colored" group. so use of the term is not seen as a signal that you're talking to an aging white racist, although a small minority of activists in that community, inspired by US politics, are trying to popularize the collapsing of distinctions between black and colored.

But back to the main point. Despite the ratio of ethnicities being the reverse of the USA, a higher ratio of black people have white friends than the ratio of white people who have black friends. Why the same discrepancy of ratios by ethnic group when ethnic proportions in the population are flipped? I'm sure it's not just about self-segregation or minority status. I'm certain that white South Africans (my community) are still more prejudiced against other ethnicities that black South Africans, two decades after Apartheid. Socioeconomic status, power and ideology must play some role.