how many of your friends/'aquaintances' are of races/cultures other than your own?

I kind of have to vote "a few" simply because they're aren't many other races / cultures where I live.

"a ton", unsurprising since just my blood relatives would have me voting "a lot"

im just so interested in other cultures

(obv just cos you have a wide range of friends doesnt mean that youre on some anthropological expedition through life)

(just saying that cos i didnt like the tone)

Somewhere between "several" (though ditto on not liking the tone on that) and "a lot" - thing is, as a perpetual immigrant, I tend to be drawn to people who have had similar experiences to me - i.e. other immigrants. Who tend to be, erm... mixed.

I really thought, after spending my formative years being an alien Brit in the States, that I would move back to the UK, and suddenly come "home." Boy, was I in for a surprise and a second lot of culture shock all over again. So many of my closest friends now tend to be people who are also used to straddling two or more cultures, perpetual emigrants like myself, people of mixed race, people who have lived for long periods in cultures that are not "their own."

Which is, in and of itself, a desire to be around "mine own kind" in a weird mixed-up way.

all but a few

I'm somewhere between 'a lot' and 'a ton', probably because one way or another, most of my friends are part of one diaspora or another.

In other words, welcome to London. Minneapolis, where I grew up (and my suburb in particular) is amongst the most theoretically liberal places in America so I gravitate towards people with those values.

I voted 'several' - I live in Toronto so just by going to work I'd say about 50% of the people in my building are of races/cultures other than my own.

I was unsure how to define 'cultures' though - does my white, Canadian-born, english-speaking friend count because her father is Slovenian and her mother German? Do I have to count literally everyone I know, even if they're white and english-speaking like me, because I'm the only expat kiwi I know here? If so, I probably should have photed 'a ton'.

i have a black friend, and i used to have an egyptian friend

until I moved to London, probably none at all. now I'd say a few and more and more since joining BBC.

i haven't inspected the genetic background of all my friends yet though, obv if I find out more info about some I know already I can treat them differently as a result.

do it for science Local G

I bet many of them think they can "pull the wool over my eyes" regarding distant Polish relatives, but I will leave no stone unturned in exposing these charlatans.

"Mr. White, is it? You don't say. Or is it Mr. Witzcieczynski?"

"Will we have a drink? Perhaps a VODKA would suit you better old 'friend'"

maybe i should have made this races instead of throwing in cultures aswell.

"i haven't inspected the genetic background of all my friends yet though, obv if I find out more info about some I know already I can treat them differently as a result."

hopefully you say things like 'youre _____?! i hadnt noticed!'

Races / cultures, whatever. Race may matter now but some day it will just mean skin color. It's kind of silly. People are like M & Ms to me, they all have different colors. My parents never told me I was "white", I had no idea until I had to fill out some government form.

"what is your bloodline? DON'T LIE TO ME."

all of them because i'm the only latino i know, my friends are all gueros.

but yeah i don't hang with any black or asian people, mainly because there are almost none in the area I come from.

"Races / cultures, whatever. Race may matter now but some day it will just mean skin color. It's kind of silly. People are like M & Ms to me, they all have different colors. My parents never told me I was "white", I had no idea until I had to fill out some government form."

lol.

i only speak to albanians. all other cultures are inferior.

pretty mixed here...i got my bangladeshis, my punjabis, my afro-caribbeans, my regular african peeps, japanese and chinese here and there, loads of iranians, jews of all kinds, mexicans, white folks from all backgrounds...

most of my friends are white, but i'm not white. so what do i put down as my answer?

^^ haha yeah, on the "culture" front my answer was going to be "everyone I'm not related to"

"what do i put down as my answer?"

this isnt a poll only for white people. 'other' can be white too.

sure, i could put down a ton, but it's not like my social circle is the UN

i mean to say my social circle isn't particularly mixed but it doesn't match my culture either

haha "my social circle is the EU"

i was almost going to make that joke

I guess the nearest people for me are just a spread of mostly white with lots and lots of south- and east-Asian and but not a ton of black or Latino -- i.e., looks kinda like grad school? And then if you spread it out to the sort of neighborhood friends you talk to often but don't, like, make plans with, it'd add in a lot more black Americans and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans (and wider age range and class range and so on) ... which feels pretty typical, I guess, for where I'm sitting? It's possible I know more children of immigrants in general, and maybe south-Asian ones in particular, than I would if I were white, but it's hard to say.

"looks kinda like grad school" is meant to mean "looks kinda like the grad school I went to"

where I made friends, honest

i used to have mostly white friends all through primary/junior/secondary school til around university time where i still had a small group of casual white friends but since then its become pretty much just non white: asians (south and east) and black (african and carribean).

Most of the people I went to high school with were white (~85%), but that changed once I went to college and even more when I started going to my Eastern Orthodox church (we have Russians, Iraqis, Mexicans, Ethiopians, Turkmenis, Kyrgyz, etc.) Makes for an interesting potluck.

all my friends are gungans ~_~

There are two black people and one Asian on my cellphone. The rest are white.

Seriously, I feel diverse when I meet another Catholic.

Hello PP, I'm an ex-catholic. *waves* I am ATHEIST.

My reflex was "Maybe one? My cousin who's mixed." But then I remembered that my best friend's Russian/Israeli/Jewish. Then I realized I know quite a few Japanese people. So I guess quite a few. Shit, I never thought/think about it really.

Oh and others but I am too tired to really give it a thought. I guess I know more than I figured at first.

My answer is a lot...

few

I kind of have to vote "a few" simply because they're aren't many other races / cultures where I live.

^ Likewise, though for a while just about the only person I knew in town was the half-black half-Asian barman at a local wine cellar which only had room for about 20 people at once; according to the census there are like 20 non-whites out of a population of 7000 (English village life...), but they all seemed to gravitate to this one bar and hanging out with this guy.

Bar's shut now, and he and most of the people I got talking to there have left town. Oh well.

I guess a lot, in that I'm a boring old Anglo-Saxon and about half of my friends are first-generation kids of various Mediterannean types (Greek, Maltese, Italian, etc). I'm really envious of one friend, whose Sweden-born and raised, but now Australian, and whose father is Aghan and whose mother is Polish. That is waaay more interesting than being a 5th-generation white Australian.

Yeah same here, being in Melbourne its hard *not* to have mostly friends of various cultures or races: I have friends who are 1st or second gen chinese, malay, koori, mediterranean (greek/italian/maltese), Israeli jewish, Torres Strait/Saamoan islander... all sorts.

voted 'several' - I live in near Toronto so just by going to work I'd say about 50% of the people in my building are of races/cultures other than my own.

― franny glass

Oh yes. I took a bus in Antwerp and I think I was the only caucasian (spelling?) on it.

(just saying that cos i didnt like the tone)

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Sunday, 19 July 2009 10:21 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This.

i guess i would like a more diverse pool of friends, but that doesn't seem particularly meaningful if you're all in the same socio-cultural position ("class" etc.) anyway and it seems difficult to be friends with people outside of that context really.

"This"

the little sub headings for the poll were obv not to be taken seriously.

xpost I'll take one Polish, two Japanese, four African-Americans.

(Just kidding!)

This is so anthropocentric...

i have a black friend, and i used to have an egyptian friend

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Sunday, July 19, 2009 9:00 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i forgot, i also have an asian friend, probably chinese

i guess i would like a more diverse pool of friends, but that doesn't seem particularly meaningful if you're all in the same socio-cultural position ("class" etc.) anyway and it seems difficult to be friends with people outside of that context really.

Sort of referenced this earlier, but one of the things I like about New York, versus my experience of living in Chicago, is that the social culture makes it a lot more likely that you'll have real interaction with everyone around your neighborhood, of all sorts -- like actually knowing the old people on the block or the working-class guys you talk to at the bar or whoever. Which is a good slight counterweight to the fact that, yes, friend-groups do normally tend to center one one kind of "socio-cultural position," class and age and background and all.

Ha by NY social culture do you simply mean unavoidable propinquity?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Does being a gentile among Jews count? b/c, if so, that would skew this from "a lot" to "a ton" for me by a commanding margin.

not just propinquity, Abbs, but a general culture where, compared to some other cities, neighborhood streets and establishments can be treated as social spaces where it's non-strange for anyone and everyone to talk your ear off about whatever (which is maybe a function of density/propinquity but still)

I mean, I once lived for a year in a neighborhood in Chicago surrounded by loads of people of my approximate age and background and didn't really know any of them, because we had decent apartments and hung out in them with our own particular friends; whereas where I am now I wind up knowing people from the street, from different businesses, from the park, all the way down to an eight-year-old who'll follow me around telling me stuff about sharks

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Hah nabs, this town is like that and I have no idea why! (OTOH I have been a magnet for random talkers my whole life.)

A lot of them don't speak English, either; they just talk away happily anyway.

Almost none of my best friends are both white + American, but a lot of my expanded social group is. I have a lot of foreigner friends from living abroad and a lot of white-washed minority friends from living in the Bay Area. I guess 'white-washed' is a sorta pejorative term, but whatever the non-pejorative term for that is, pretend I said it. One of my bffs is a buff, lacrosse playing, jesus-loving marine officer who knows more about football than anyone I've ever met - he happens to be 2nd generation Asian and speaks (broken) Chinese w/ his parents, but overall, he's more typically American than most people I know.

titchyschneiderMk2

i used to have mostly white friends all through primary/junior/secondary school til around university time where i still had a small group of casual white friends but since then its become pretty much just non white: asians (south and east) and black (african and carribean).

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Sunday, July 19, 2009 6:42 PM (3 years ago)

casual white friends