When it comes to online dating, segregation appears to be alive and well

After analyzing more than one million profiles on a mainstream dating website, researchers at the University of California Berkeley, concluded that whites are highly unlikely to initiate contact with black people. Even when their profiles indicate that they are indifferent about the race or ethnicity of a potential romantic interest. The researchers expected to find homophily, a social science term which means love of the same, in their analysis but they were surprised that the Internet did not play a role in eroding reluctance to date outside ones own race. "When the constraints of segregation are lifted by technology, what do people do? They don't act all that differently," said Gerald Mendelsohn, PhD, one of the professors who worked on the study. "Segregation remains a state of mind as much as it is a physical reality." The study indicates that more than 80% of the communication initiated by whites was to other whites. Only 3% went to blacks. Black members of the same site were more open to dating whites and were ten times more likely to contact whites. Black men were actually slightly more likely to initiate contact with white women than black women. According to the U.C Berkeley research, a collaboration between Professor Mendelsohn, Coye Cheshire, Andrew T. Fiore and Lindsay Shaw Taylor, black women were the least likely group of those discussed in the study, to be contacted on the unnamed dating site. According to a 2009 analysis, black women, on OkCupid.com a dating website that does not charge a subscription fee; get the "cold shoulder" from everyone, including their black male counterparts. The cold shoulder comment was based upon the fact that black women receive the fewest replies on the site, even though they are the most likely to reply. Ron Worthy, a spokesperson for Blackpeoplemeet.com, a subsidiary of Match.com, says that this illustrates the importance and increasing popularity of niche dating sites that cater to specific races or religious affiliations. "What you find is that people want to be in an environment where, not only are they going to find someone that they are looking for, but the person that they are looking for is looking for them too," said Worthy. The U.C. Berkeley research indicates that although black women were much more likely than their white counterparts to contact someone of another race, they still primarily sought to contact black men. The suggestion that black women should prioritize companionship over long held social paradigms and open themselves up to interracial dating has been met with controversy. Worthy, who is also the CEO of his own company, Buzzworthy Media Ventures, LLC, says that in many ways, black women have shouldered an unfair burden when in comes to marriage within the black community. "Black women who are educated are twice as likely to 'marry down' to people who are not at their same education level or income level. [Black women are] willing to marry someone who is not their socioeconomic equal in order to maintain the fact that she is with a black man."