The Importance of Friendship Diversity; New York Magazine, 9/26/14

Ann Friedman, New Your Magazine; The Importance of Friendship Diversity:

"There are a lot of things about my upbringing that I’ve left behind (tuna casserole leaps to mind). But despite the fact that I now live in a majority-minority city and count several people of color among my closest friends, percentage-wise my social circle has remained pretty damn white. In fact, the Public Religion Research Institute found that the average white person’s friend group is a whopping 91 percent white. We’re all living in our own private Iowa. “It’s not that I don’t think white people are unwilling to cultivate real friendships with black people," writes Rebecca Carroll in The Guardian, “it’s that I don’t believe becoming close friends with black people occurs to them at all.”

But I know for a fact that it occurs to at least some of us."