Friends, Race and Religion

Namaste Jesus

Namaste Jesus

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Excluding family and casual acquaintances, are most of your friends the same race and religion as yourself or different and has that in any way influenced your decision to have them as friends?

Are most of your neighbors the same race and religion as yourself or different and has that in any way influenced your decision to live there?

Ok I'll go 1st. I had to think about this one a little. Turns out, by a narrow margin, most of my friends are of a different race than myself. However, I do believe most are Christian.

Neither race nor religion played a roll in my decision to have them as friends though. I tend to base friendship on strength of character and how an individual conducts themselves.

My neighbors are predominantly black and Hispanic. I think most are Christian, but I'm really not sure. I actually had no idea of the demographics when we moved there. It just seemed like a quiet, well kept community. We've owned our home for going on 8 years now and couldn't be happier in that regard.

How about you guys?
 
First, from wikipedia.
While some researchers use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behaviour, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race often is used in a naive[12] or simplistic way,[18] and argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance by pointing out that all living humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens, and subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[19][20]
Since the second half of the 20th century, the association of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the use of the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts, race has often been replaced by less ambiguous and loaded terms: populations, people(s), ethnic groups, or communities, depending on context.[7][21]
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Second, I seldom hold on to friendships very long so my friends are where I work or study at the time. These are almost exclusively white and non-religious.
Sweden has a comparably small non-white population and residential segregation is still an issue.
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
I seldom hold on to friendships very long so my friends are where I work or study at the time.
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Yeah, I tend to put colleagues and classmates in the category of acquaintance. People that come and go in your life. I think of friend more in terms of someone you've known for a long time and connect with on a personal level. People you like that actually like you back.
 
Yes race, a purely perception construct...especially as Hispanic/Latino of Spanish decent is white, and then we want to add Jews, Arabs, and Persians as something else and they are mostly white.

The census says my zip is 53% white... But I am in a college town surrounded by 20 something's renting...were they counted here or at home I don't know. I can go into my favorite grocery store and be the only white person there, (mostly Asian, Latino, African, and Carribean folk). I go mile one way and it is about 70% black in the store, a mile the other way and it is about 70% white... Same with the movie theaters... The last town I lived was similar...but 90% owner occupied homes where here it is under 50% owner.occupied.

Census by zip... https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml#

The neighborhood is littered with christian churches...I know the location of a couple mosques and synagogues... I rarely see a kippa....more often a hijab, niqab, or burkah...

Personal friends? The ones I camp with, play cards with, go to parties and dances with..have over to the house, sit around a bonfire with... Little less than half white, but we are the majority (not a plurality) and then I'd say it goes Asian, Hispanic, Black...and many in all groups are mixed, but I am dividing the mixed folk mostly by looks...I don't really know their ancestry.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Excluding family and casual acquaintances, are most of your friends the same race and religion as yourself or different and has that in any way influenced your decision to have them as friends?

Are most of your neighbors the same race and religion as yourself or different and has that in any way influenced your decision to live there?
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Tough one there. I mean, the Aboriginals working on our farm are just like family to me. So, if we're excluding family, most of my mates are white Christians. On the other hand, since the Aboriginals are of no blood relation and I put them down as friends, then by comparison very few of my mates are of the same race and religion.

Like you, race and religion has very little to do with whether or not I'll get on with someone. Depends on personality really.

As far as the neighborhood's concerned, hell we are the neighborhood! Our farm is rather expansive. Lot more Abbies than white folks here. I guess you could say that's the reason we're here. If not for them our farm wouldn't exist.
 
Most of my friends are white (60%) and then 25% brown, 10% Asian, and 5% black. I'd say 50% total are Christian and then I'm not sure how the percentages split up for other religions and atheists.

My neighborhood has a small white population. I like the area because it is so diverse from what I knew growing up and it provides a needed contrast to where I work.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Yeah, I tend to put colleagues and classmates in the category of acquaintance. People that come and go in your life. I think of friend more in terms of someone you've known for a long time and connect with on a personal level. People you like that actually like you back.
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I remember reading this and wondering if you thought that I didn't like my friends and they didn't like me back!
To me, acquaintances are the stuff you can make friends with. How do you make friends?
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
I remember reading this and wondering if you thought that I didn't like my friends and they didn't like me back!
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Not really, no. I was just saying, from my own perspective, most relationships like that, the ones that come and go, fall more into the category of passing acquaintance rather than lasting friendship.
A Cup Of Tea said:
To me, acquaintances are the stuff you can make friends with. How do you make friends?
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Oh, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. That's the way it was for Aussie and myself. A chance meeting ended up spawning a lifelong bond. Thing is, there were others sharing the taxi that day as well. People I truly enjoyed conversing with, but none I ever saw again. The same with colleagues and clients I've worked with over the years. There have been many with whom I've enjoyed a great working relationship, but very few that ever progressed passed that level.

For me, making friends is just something that happens and not really something I set out to do. I can honestly say that I get along with just about everyone and for the most part enjoy their company, but not many end up becoming someone I would call my friend.
 
Yeah, workmates, friends, acquaintances, associates, business partners, relatives, of the category of people I know...friends rolls off the tongue easiest in some way, hardest in others. All the other names seem demeaning somehow, even if they are more accurate. Friend is often used quite loosely...

This thread has made me aware of the groups of people I do associate with on a regular basis... And how those groups are demographically divided...most of them are either decidedly integrated as to race....or decidedly one race....it is interesting.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Excluding family and casual acquaintances, are most of your friends the same race and religion as yourself or different and has that in any way influenced your decision to have them as friends?
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Short answer, no and no.
 
wil said:
Yeah, workmates, friends, acquaintances, associates, business partners, relatives, of the category of people I know...friends rolls off the tongue easiest in some way, hardest in others. All the other names seem demeaning somehow, even if they are more accurate. Friend is often used quite loosely...
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Friendship I think, is a multifaceted proposition. Everything from casual acquaintance to soulmate and everything in between. For the purpose of this thread though, I was trying to narrow the 1st question down to the race and religion of those you would consider to be your close friends and whether or not that plays a role in your relationship to them.

Whereas the 2nd question raised in the OP is more general about the racial and religious make up of your own neighborhood and whether or not that plays a role in your decision to live there.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
For the purpose of this thread though, I was trying to narrow the 1st question down to the race and religion of those you would consider to be your close friends and whether or not that plays a role in your relationship to them.
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As I wrote in the first post, this isn't as a diverse country as yours, and my town isn't that big. I don't think I've ever known a muslim before.
But since that post two guys from Pakistan has moved into my spare room and one of my new friends from uni is also muslim. A bit of a boom.
 
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