Dating Across the Color Line: An Investigation of Race Consciousness and Intergroup Contact among Black Adults

• In Event: Desiring Intimacy

Abstract

Interracial intimacy is often treated as one of the most personal indicators of racial progress. Crossing the color line in dating and partnership is frequently read as evidence of permeable racial boundaries and improved race relations. Yet this interpretation disregards the importance of race consciousness in individuals’ decisions to step across the color line. This study analyzes race consciousness multidimensionally, recognizing that its distinct constructs operate differently across areas of social life. We distinguish among racial capital, Black nationalist tendencies, and linked fate, and examine how each construct associates with Black adults’ histories of interracial dating. In doing so, we move beyond the question of whether race consciousness matters for intimacy and instead ask: which kinds of race consciousness matter, and in what ways? Analyses of a nationally representative sample of Black adults from the Outlook on Life Surveys, 2012, indicate Black adults endorsing racial capital and Black nationalist tendencies were less likely to date non-Black romantic partners. Respondents who felt linked fate were more likely to date non-Black romantic partners. Our findings suggest race consciousness may be compartmentalized and negotiated throughout political and personal settings. This study offers an account of how racial attitudes about the self, the group, and intergroup contact travel from the political sphere into areas of personal intimacy.

Authors

• Quintin Gorman, University at Buffalo, SUNY

• Autumn Raynor, Rice University