Why am I so anal about this distinction? Because Steve Sailer and that ilk are trying to peddle the lie that the outmarrying ratio of AF/AM is either static or even widening, when of course it is anything but - consider the outmarriage statistics of 1.5 gen/US raised versus that of all Asians. (What is more striking than comparing the two, more so than the slow but steady reduction of the gender gap in outmarriage, is the absolute growth of outmarriage rates for both genders.) I’m sorry I don’t have a chart handy, but most Asian American advocacy sites will have one, neatly broken down by particular ethnicity (Vietnamese, Chinese, Pacific Islander, Filipino, etc. etc.).

I mean, I know griping ain’t sexy - thank god for the anonymity of the internet ;) - but as an AM I know what is implied in these discussions.

One sad effect of all this has been a noticeable rift along gender lines in young AA forums and newsgroups, which is a real shame because we must all stand together; ours is a community that really doesn’t need any more excuses to put off asserting our own cultural identity for more temporary acceptance from whitey. (Chinese-American playwright Frank Chin summed it up best when he said that AA’s were the ‘kiss ass’ minority.)

Similarities exist in Black America, in the opposite direction (on this, and perhaps only this, Sailer is correct). Which is why Rachel’s post on past Black intermarriage trends is so important. I’m sure we’ve all met people who, either explicitly or through implication, try to imply that Africans are a naturally ‘masculine’ stock and that thus African and Black American women are less attractive in some objective sense. (In my experience, many, many AM seem to believe this. Just too damn stupid and petty to see the big picture.) That the outmarriage gap didn’t always exist and in fact went in the other way in the past is a serious thorn in the racist side. (In fact, I think I’ll go post there next.)

Asian (American) women are much more likely to BE OUTMARRIED than we Asian males are.

Asian American women were outmarried at a rate of 22% according to the 2000 Census. 77% of these marriages were to white men.

Asian American men were outmarried at a rate of 9% according to the 2000 Census. 67% of these marriages were to white women.

Hispanic American women were outmarried at a rate of 18% according to the 2000 Census.

Hispanic American men were outmarried at a rate of 15% according to the 2000 Census.

Just putting the information out there.

There’s a Law of Conservation of Sexualization of Other Races: it always exists, merely changes form. There’s fetishization, asexualization, and the targets are always shifting. There was a time when black males were seen as sexually inferior to White men, sort of how Asian men are seen today, only they got the added bonuses of Jim Crow, fire hoses, and strange fruit. Now, black males are sexually glorified/fetishized, while black females get burnt at both ends; either they are safely asexualized loud and fat types, or crack whores. And ne’er shall the twain meet.

I know it’s a wildly inaccurate standard, but does anyone know of movies with a black woman as a normal female romantic lead that aren’t exclusively ‘black’ movies? I can think of MI2, Something New… Rent, if you count Rosario Dawson as black. Even that teeny bopper Guess Who, with that fop Ashton Kutcher, has to make this list because nothing else comes to mind.

“Yeah, I don’t have a citation, but it’s true; Asian American women outmarry much more than their male counterparts.”

Parts of that are true. But there’s an important correction to be made here: Asian (American) women are much more likely to BE OUTMARRIED than we Asian males are. That little present perfect tense is the important part because it differentiates between first and second generation Asian Americans, as well as the rest of us from the captive war brides from Vietnam, a special case of first generationers. Given the small statistical size of Asian Americans, the latter is no small distortion. There’s also the case of mail order brides, which I don’t have to tell you skews asymmetrically, rice queens from San Fran notwithstanding.

As a whole, the Asian American community is hard to analyze. It is a tiny segment of the population at about 4%, but growing fast - both of which get in the way of meaningful analysis. The generation gap within the community is huge. Outmarriage rates for Asian Americans as a group are increasing fast - something not quite captured by the static relative comparisons that awkwardly pit AF vs. AM - as if it’s a Get Whitey showdown or something, I don’t know.

Did you misplace your asterisks there, Holly, or do I sense an interesting back story coming?

Holds true in my very limited circle, but again, that’s not data.

I hadn’t thought of the big picture, really. There are two interracial couples in our very close circle, both black men, white women. (Just chance, I guess, anecdotal.) One couple, near our age, would have married 30 years ago or so, which still isn’t 1970; the other couple, the ages of our older children, would have married much more recently.

All this in San Francisco. Interracial marriage haven’t been unusual here for my adult lifetime anyway. Why the decreases in the South I wonder?