How often have we heard that people are increasingly capable of transcending race? Probably so often that it is prosaic. Unfortunately, the reality is far from such an account. This can be seen in the continuing dearth of interracial relationships, the primary reason of which is that people find the obstacles nearly impossible to overcome.
One major obstacle is that we typically do not find people not of our race to be "comfortably" attractive. I add "comfortably," because it is not that we find people of other races to be unattractive. As studies confirm, humans, regardless of race, acknowledge attributes unrelated to the color of one's skin -- such as symmetry and body mass -- to be more important determinants of attractiveness.
However, it is one thing to recognize a person as good-looking. It is another to find that person as having the features that fit one's expectation. A Chinese male may find a white female to be attractive. But he may still find it awkward to let a relationship with her develop because he would find her features "too foreign" and not comforting. Such a disposition is understandable, for our expectations of our future brides and grooms are built from the relationship to which we have constantly been exposed -- the one between our parents.
Another obstacle is the one with which you are most familiar; cultural differences. True, race as it was originally defined is a social construct. However, it still serves the purpose of labeling boundaries among cultures -- boundaries that are not entirely unfounded. Francis Fukuyama, for example, argues that people of certain cultures have a sense of trust that does not extend beyond the familial level. According to the author, the countries of the Chinese civilization have value systems arising primarily from Confucianism, an ethical doctrine legitimized by the father-son relationship that restrict the domain of trust to the family. Critics have attacked his thesis as reliant on generalizations, but a recent paper demonstrated Fukuyama's central assertion to be true. In other words, culture matters and race denote the cultural spectrum.
Anecdotal evidence confirms Fukuyama's anthropological understanding. It is not an accident that most interracial relationships are between two people, at least one of whom is familiar with the other's culture. A white man studying Korean or another East Asian language is more likely to date a Korean- American woman than a white man who has no interest in the Far East. It is not that the exotic studies trigger his interest in her. It is because his love of the subject can only arise from values compatible with hers -- values that facilitate their relationship.
While the betterment of race relations is a myth, polarization among races is not. With strong evidence of worsening socioeconomic mobility that keeps white men at the top and black men in prison, America may be entering another era of instability caused by racial segregation. One troublesome trend is the precipitous declines in civic engagements like labor unions and church activities. As Robert Putnam argues, these activities are critical to societal health, creating opportunities to foster one's ability to trust others or ability to be public-spirited. Trust, therefore, is the social capital that forms group identities without which none of us can live.
With the demise of the "evil empire" that gave many a source of common identity, Americans are seeking another set of values with which to identify themselves. Race may be the emerging definition of our identities, because civic engagements based on class, religion and nation have all but vanished in America. Continuing difficulties with interracial relationships point to this disturbing future.
Tocqueville believed the survivability of American democracy rested upon its ability to contain destabilizing social forces created by its citizens' materialistic zeal. At the time of his writing, he believed in the country's future, as he saw American individualism tempered by democratic institutions that involved people in public affairs. However, with our public-spiritedness waning and sense of alienation mounting as we treat race as a form of identity, I wonder if Tocqueville would speak with the same optimism today.
