75 percent of white Americans don't have a close minority friend

75 percent of white Americans don&#039;t have a close minority friend

(Image credit: iStock)

last updated 8 January 2015

A depressing new study found that most white Americans don't have a single close friend of color.

Robert P. Jones, one of the researchers behind the survey, wrote in The Atlantic that 75 percent of white Americans only have other whites in their immediate social networks. The researchers had asked respondents to tell them about seven people with whom they had discussed important issues in the last six months. These were the key findings:

Overall, the social networks of whites are a remarkable 91 percent white. White American social networks are only one percent black, one percent Hispanic, one percent Asian or Pacific Islander, one percent mixed race, and one percent other race. In fact, fully three-quarters (75 percent) of whites have entirely white social networks without any minority presence. This level of social-network racial homogeneity among whites is significantly higher than among black Americans (65 percent) or Hispanic Americans (46 percent). [The Atlantic]

[Correction: This article originally misreported some findings of the study. It has since been corrected. We regret the errors.]