One point I disagreed with Charles Gallagher about was his view of inter-racial relationships and marriages. He mocked the idea that one would get married solely based on love, and it seemed that he did not think there was a realistic possibility of inter-racial marriages. His reasoning was a valid point, because of geography and residential uniformity there is a better chance of meeting people of one's own race. While a city may be statistically diverse there is a good chance that the neighborhoods are still separate.
He brought up a statistic that "70% of whites generally approve of black/white marriages." Another statistic is that "7% of marriages are inter-racial." He explained the difference by saying that it is easier to say that something is acceptable but not take part in it. I think a very important aspect to explain the difference is the difference of generation's views on this issue. Our grandparents and maybe some parents were more likely to be raised with a view that inter-racial marriages were not accepted. While their views may have come around, it is likely that they are already married, which throws off the statistics.
These factors affect inter-racial relationships but I think that if two people are meant to be together these factors should not prevent from being married. Therefore, the percentage of inter-racial marriages is not very high, but things are changing. I really enjoyed Mr. Gallagher's talk! He is very knowledgeable on this subject and I learned a lot, but I think he is a bit cynical on the subject of inter-racial relationships.
Side note: If you want to see how residentially diverse your city is, Google: Index of Dissimilarity (city name). It is on a scale from 0-90, zero being completely diverse and ninety being most separated. South Bend is about 70, this is something he told us about later that I thought was pretty interesting.
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