As a Jewish man just out of a long-term relationship with a black woman, I think there's definitely a much higher rate of intermarriage between our groups. And at my university (admittedly fairly close to NY), I could pretty much guarantee to you that every biracial student was Jewish.

I suspect it must be related to the reasons that only blacks and Jews seem to make great comedians, though I can't put my finger on it.

Also, I'm sure our socially liberal families have a big impact. When my girlfriend and I broke up, my parents tried to disown me and claim her. No joke. "You're making a huge mistake, son... Is there any amount of humiliating groveling you could do that might be able to get her back?"

Posted by Gimmeliberty | July 22, 2008 1:28 PM

You've definitely been in the Northeast too long. Visit the Twin Cities, Seattle and Portland and the Bay and get back to me on who most commonly intermarries with Blacks.

Posted by Jonathan Gray | July 22, 2008 2:24 PM

People in the upper midwest intermarry? That wasn't my experience as a student in Madison, WI, at least not to the degree that it was growing up in suburban NJ.

The truth is, I don't think it's a Jewish thing per se, but I do think it has to do with some shared cultural affinities, around things like having grown up in America's cities in the 50s and 60s (or having parents who did, and then moved out to the suburbs), being part of a group that's been somewhat excluded from the American mainstrem for a time, etc.

I think you see Blacks marrying the children (and grandchildren) of people who also understood what it was like not to belong, whether that's because of your working-class (vs. middle-class WASP) background, or one's religion (lots of Irish and Italian Catholics intermarry -- racially, I mean, not with each other, tho that used to be a scandal as well!) And obviously with each of these categories, I mean the ones who weren't too terribly racist to begin with!

So it seems to me to be a phenomenon of a particular culture that surrounds the immigrant experience of those who came to America in 1890s-1920s, a period that coincides with a great deal of Black migration to northern urban centers as well.

Posted by Dan Goldman | July 22, 2008 2:43 PM

But the point isn't who does it more, as much as it is proportionality. Like it may be true that among blacks who marry interracial, say, 60 percent of them are married to whites of Italian descent (just throwing out numbers). But my question is about proportionality, i.e. is the percentage of whites who've married African-Americans disproportionate to the percentage of whites who are Jews.

Posted by Ta-Nehisi Coates | July 22, 2008 2:46 PM

If it was the case, I'd say it would largely be the product of living in similar places (urban centers, not in the midwest, etc.)

Posted by Riise | July 22, 2008 4:47 PM

What's the Jeff Ross piece you're referring to?

Posted by NYC | July 22, 2008 6:17 PM

Scroll down and check out the thread instructing white people in how to make fun of black people.

Posted by Ta-Nehisi Coates | July 22, 2008 6:19 PM

I have 3 Bluish friends as my friend Eric Andre calls himself. (promotion, here's Eric on Comedy Central http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bls3Gqs7ho )

Posted by Joel W | July 22, 2008 8:50 PM

Um, no. Because the greatest proportion of black/white intermarriage is black man/white woman -- by far, something like 70/30. And while Jewish men may date and even marry black women, Jewish women, by and large, do not.

Posted by lisalisa | July 23, 2008 1:56 AM

Oops. Sentence should read:

While Jewish men may date and even marry black women, Jewish women, by and large, do not marry black men.

Which is not a judgment, or anything. Just, in my experience, outside of NY, the largest portion of black/white marriages by far is black men married to non-Jewish white women. The one Jewish woman I know married to a black man told me many of her Jewish women friends told her, "You're supposed to date them, not marry them!"

Posted by lisalisa | July 23, 2008 2:01 AM

chere lisa, i don't think that's true. i know lots of interracial couples where it's a jewish woman and black man, i would even have thought that that was more common than the reverse. maybe b/c of civil rights era movements? even now, i was just at an east africa theatre/arts thing in ny and it seemed like 50% of the white women in the audience were jewish. jews are like .1% of the country and 12% of nyc.

on a perso level, my fam is definitely along the lines of the first poster. my parents and especially my aunts would be overjoyed if a married a black man. ie i think they'd want to adopt and be adopted into his family. left wing socialism might be an influence, but i think more than that is cultural- loud, close, dysfunctional but tightly knit families. and personal traits- loud and talkative. i think a lot of americans don't understand how so many jewish immigrants grew up feeling "not white". whatever that means, i know. but i mean, i was raised from age 12 to talk about "white people" as an other, and i've met jewish girlfriends, also first generation, that had the same thing.

for my fam at least, part of it as well seems to be this feeling of not being like the calm quiet composed wasps, and eventually embracing it, the non-waspiness, as well.

Posted by aliza | July 23, 2008 8:25 PM