Second Loving Day post

Back in 1967, when Loving v. Virginia was decided, the majority of people in the U.S. disapproved of interracial marriages. The first Gallup poll on the subject wasn't until a year later, but in 1968 72% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage, where only 20% approved. And only 17% of whites approved.

It wasn't until 1991 that the Gallup poll showed that more Americans approved of interracial marriages than disapproved, and even then it wasn't necessarily a majority of Americans: 48% approved, while 42% disapproved (the others had no opinion). The whites who disapproved edged out the whites who approved, 45% to 44%. Southerners of course still disapproved, 54% to 33%, as did Protestants, 42% to 49%. I could go on, but I'll just post a page of the poll (and say that the discrepancy in the "Education" category is striking):


However, on June 1 the Pew Report came out with a new poll on the subject, showing that in a scant 16 years approval rates for interracial relationships have skyrocketed: now 83% of Americans agree with the statement "I think it's all right for blacks and whites to date each other", and 51% completely agree (see the full report in PDF here). And what's more,

Pew surveys since 1987 have documented two complementary trends: Each new generation is more tolerant than the one that precedes it. At the same time, members of each generation have become increasingly more tolerant as it ages. Together, these trends help explain the increase in expressions of tolerance toward interracial dating in recent decades.

Nearly two-thirds of all Americans born before 1946 (65%) say it is acceptable for whites to date blacks. In contrast, this tolerant view of interracial dating is shared by more than eight-in-ten Baby Boomers (84%) and members of Generation X (87%), who were born between 1965 and 1976. Among younger people there is even broader acceptance of interracial dating: 94% of those born since 1977 say it is all right for blacks and whites to date.

Which isn't terribly surprising. A lot of young people, I'd be willing to bet, don't even know that interracial marriages were once illegal in many states--perhaps more now, given the prominence of the miscegenation analogy in gay rights arguments. I certainly didn't know that until a few years ago, when my mother mentioned anti-miscegenation laws in passing; I didn't even know what the word "miscegenation" meant. Given that anti-miscegenation statutes lasted longer than most--perhaps all--other forms of de jure racism, and that so much opposition to giving blacks rights was passed on opposition to interracial marriages, it is odd that they are never discussed in schools. At least not in any of the classes I took, and I had a history teacher that placed a special emphasis on teaching black and women's histories.