SURVEY RESULTS: 74% of Indigenous Readers ‘OK’ with being in a Romantic Relationship with White People

Posted On 14 Nov 2014

Tag: Aboriginal Magazine, CBC tolerance poll, Race issues, Racism, RezX Editor, RezX Survey, romance Aboriginal people, romance white people, romancing white people

In response to a recent survey published by CBC, which asked Canadians a variety of questions on Aboriginal people and ethnic minorities, RezX decided to do our own and ask our Indigenous readers the same questions, but changed only the word ‘Aboriginal’ to ‘white people’ and after 100 respondents, we now have some surprising results.

Before getting to the results, our intention in doing our own survey was to see if the feeling was mutual when it came to questions like, “Would you feel comfortable being in a Romantic Relationship with a White (Caucasian) Person?” or “How would you feel if a White (Caucasian) family moved next door to me?”

Our goal was to balance out the CBC survey but to also make people think, “why are we asking these questions in the first place?” And it’s not just the CBC poll’s questions, but even our own.

For example, why are we asking what white people or Canadians would think if Aboriginal people moved next door to them, when Aboriginal people or First Nations were living here before them? And why do we even have to ask our Indigenous readers the same question about white neighbours when it is simply not a huge issue? But due to the attention of the original survey, we went ahead and did it anyways.

In comparison, we found that Aboriginal or Indigenous people are more open to being in a romantic relationship with a white (caucasian) person, and more open to having white neighbours, white employers and white in-laws – resulting in an overall 78-percent comfort rating with white people.

When asked about being in a romantic relationship with a white person, 74-percent of respondents answered in the Top 3 comfort levels (5 being “very comfortable” to 3 being “comfortable”) compared to CBC’s poll resulting in only 50-percent of people on the prairies being just “OK” when asked about being in a romantic relationship with an Aboriginal Person (this was based on their Top 2 Comfort rating).

Although, it’s important to note that our rating system was somewhat different than CBC’s poll, as they asked respondents to answer from a rating of 1-5 (with 5 being very comfortable to 1 being very uncomfortable) with no specified “comfortable” option to choose from (except no. 3). RezX asked the same from its respondents but added a specific comfort level rating in between (offering No. 3 as “Comfortable”) which in turn resulted in respondents being able to answer more honest and direct in regards to overall comfort. Also CBC surveyed 1500 Canadians where as RezX only surveyed 100 of our readers with a majority being Indigenous (93 Indigenous/ 7 White/Caucasian).

In the end, the responses from our poll showed a more welcoming attitude from Indigenous people towards their white counterparts and that’s a good thing for race relations overall.

Tell us what you think in the comments below or follow us on twitter or like us on facebook and add your comments there. Our poll is still up and we will continue taking answers and tabulating further results for our next issue that will be released on Dec. 5.

Also thank you to CBC for giving RezX the opportunity (through radio interviews, on-line stories and tv stories) to balance out the other side, much appreciated.

Below are some screen shots from our RezX survey / poll results (using SurveyMonkey.com);