Okay, the Freakonomics blog shouldn't touch race. They're so terrible at it. Also, I guess it's assumed, even though they didn't really state it, that "mixed" means black and white unions.

Well! I agree with the attractive part to an extent.

Freakonmics never met the O'Carroll brothers!

Wow, that's one of the stupidest 'studies'i've ever seen.

So basically, they did this on inner city biracial kids, most with black fathers and white mothers? That seems to be the inference they're making. When parent's age at birth of child, education and income are accounted for, paternal participation and academic achievement aren't going to be as disappointing.

As for the STIs, attractive people get more action.

As far as attractiveness goes, that is really debateabe. As America's current beauty standard is less likely to occur in racially homogenous people, I guess he could have a point. Most of the women who are worshipped by the media today have features that are unlikely in their ethnic group. Angelina Jolie's got big lips. Kim Kardashian's got the ample booty. Jessica Biel, Jessica Simpson and co. get their lip injections while the rest get the bee sting lip gloss. Can you name more than a handful of current A listers who don't spray tan so much that it nearly looks like blackface? Lots of black celebs rock the lace front. Biracial children are more likely to get all of those things: brown skin but not too brown, pouty lips but not too too pouty, hair that is less prone to breakage and easier to get bone straight without causing loads of damage, a nice round booty but not too big. The nose is another issue. It seems like no one actually has the "ideal" nose naturally. Halle, Alicia and Amerie all have nose jobs as do many of their black and white colleagues. The "good" nose appears to be just luck.

How many kids were part of this study?

I can't speak about all biracial/multiracial kids but my little cousins are bad as hell. Telling their mother what they will and will not do, but they don't try that mess with their father (my first-cousin). Still love them though.

Not Sold: So you're saying that mulatto children look better than black kids (and better than white kids for that matter)? Rather than rating mixed kids on an attractiveness scale (which, while subjective, should have nothing to do with race), the authors of this paper should have rated them on a "what's hot now" scale, because I agree that multiethnic is what's hot right now.

the mixed-race kids are much more attractive on average

According to whose scale of beauty ???

In my opinion, people who are ethincally ambiguous are damn sexy. I really do think that people who are biracial have a higher chance of being attractive…

haha. this is amusing

Ilnazhad, I agree, but people who are just black and white aren't really ethnically ambiguous. Nigel Barker is hot and ethnically ambiguous. Boris Kodjoe is hot and not ethnically ambiguous. Both men rank the same in my book, but given a choice, I'd prefer Nigel. The British accent + actual ethnic ambiguity do it.

"Exotic" is always far more desirable so that might be the real draw of the ethnically ambiguous. I'm far more drawn to people who look different in a good way. Think Djimon, Roger Federer, Uma or Alek. A traditionally attractive person who is ethnically ambiguous is automatically "different in a good way." Think Nadia Bjorlin, Amerie, Will Demps or Nigel. Really, take Nadia for example. Keep her away from sunlight and make her blond and you've got every Miss America ever, yet I think she's ridiculously beautiful while the Miss Americas are all beautiful yet completely forgettable.

This is one of those stupid studies academics create to justify the prejudices/preferences. In other words the Freakonomics guys have a thing for brown skin women but are concern about how the children will be affect the mix-race union.

This study is dumb. Im gonna leave it at that.

Lol… I loved the Freakonomics book, but this has to be one of their worst studies. It's pretty biased, one-sided and stereotypical. I'd love to see how/where this "data" was collected.

**STDs are a black problem? I know AIDS may be more common amongst blacks, but dang, is it fair to say that STDs are predominately a black problem??? Personally, I've seen more whites than blacks with STDs.

It goes without say that this "study" is utterly ridiculous, with no scientific basis in reality.
Beauty is subjective, and can't be summed up in a few short questions. Black kids already have so much going against them in this world, but let's bash them some more, by letting them know how much uglier they are than pretty much everyone else on the planet.

The self loathing in some of the posts here is just WOW, but sadly not surprising.

Oh, and this "study" is pathetic.

Also… Freakonomics is fucking overrated.

Bullshit, plain and simple.

Kids, or any people, are not cuter or more attractive based on their race, mixed race or freakin' non race. Beauty is in individual perception. I have seen black kids, white kids, Asian kids, ugly as a bag of rotten tomatoes and I have seen the exact opposite as well. I believe the same holds true with mixed kids.

I'm with Daria at Gorgeous Black Women 110% on the whole topic.

@IKE

You must have missed the big Center for Disease Control study in March that announced shocking rates of STIS like syphillis and chlamydia among black youth especially girls. The study wasn't exactly news to the public health community in urban areas with large black populations, but I think it was the first time a federally funded study had highlighted the discrepancies so efficiently.

So yes, STIS among youth are turning out to be a problem of particular relevance to parts of the black community.

@DLS:

Just looked it up. That's crazy (and gross). But I'm guessin that's more of a problem in the urban areas. But I also have a problem with these stats. Can you really make a conclusion from so few people?:

The analyses included 8,706 survey participants for whom complete STD and HIV data were available–6,257 white and 2,449 black young adults.
http://findarticles.com/p/arti....._n19328790

I don't like this study at all but I will say that I'm sure they judged attractiveness based on European beauty standards.
And after doing a little bit of work in schools previously I'd have to say that the more attractive kids did get away with a lot more than the kids people may consider less attractive. You would hope teachers just treated all children equally but it doesn't happen.

Neenee, I disagree on the beauty standards on which they were judged. I think they judged it based on modern American standards. If they judged it based on European standards, they would rank the white kids the most attractive. Which they didn't/

I do agree that cute kids get away with a lot more. When I worked in a nursery school in my teens, there were several kids who would cry for hours. Literally. All of them were super cute except for one. I have no idea wtf happened there because his parents were good looking and so were his older siblings. I was very impatient with him and when I realized that it's because he wasn't cute, I felt badly. He turned out well though. He grew into his head and eyes plus he no longer has snot constantly bubbling out of his nose.

As a multiracial kid (16) I find this study to be extremely retarded. What the hell are they trying to prove? That mixed kids are just like everyone else except with more issues. For one they are looking at mostly black/white kids, those of us with different racial backgrounds are always forgotten about, maybe they should broaden their study beyond the first five mixed kids they could find. Another reason this study is so stupid is because they are just reinforcing the stereotype that we mixed kids don't know who the hell we are and confused by our racial identity. So in turn we struggle to to find which issues fit into our racial category.

I always love it when people tell me how I should be acting. For my age I should be one bad mofo, coming for a broken home, and apparently being racial mixed, I should be getting high right now. But my parents are very lucky people because it really doesn't get much better than my siblings and I.

As for the attractive part, that's totally true.

If you look at the stats around this study, it's questionable at best. Even the authors of the paper admit to it's shortcomings.

Having said that -

They based attractiveness on BMI, Weight, Height and the opinion of the Interviewer. Now how many non-white interviewers do you think they had?

My daughter has bright skin, light brown eyes and a head full of medium brown spiral curls. When people comment of the cuteness of daughter they more often than not (especially black folks) ask who race her father is (and he says they ask the same about me). It always annoys me that because she's cute - they think she has to be mixed with something.

….I wonder if you look biracial or if you grew up in a biracial household as I did (white step-dad), if these same stats apply.

I think when you look at popular black culture (the post about BET), Video Vixens, Top black Female Actresses and all that good stuff..you always see the light/bright ones at the top. From a previous blog post one can also see that we still have color issues in our own community.

I don't think that it's far fetched in the context of this study for the interviewers to think that the mixed kids are cuter. If you actually look at the numbers in the study there wasn't that big of a statistical variation between cuteness between any of the three groups.

And while that's cool for them - even better for me- cus I prefer a big tall chocolate brother to the exotic any day…more chocolate for me

Qui, I may have not been clear. "Exotic" does exist in all group. There's just a tendency to apply that label automatically to all/most biracial people.

How does one chart attractiveness alongside race? Some "biracial" kids look no different from people who identify as solely black or solely white. You can't always tell who is biracial- were the people involved in the study tipped off, or did they have to guess? No matter how you slice it, it's not objective and so it's bad science.

I am biracial, mixed with black and white, so I have to say I agree with the attractiveness part, only because diversity creates more symmetry and therefore= more attractive. However, actually reading their entire blog I realized that the study was based mostly on stereotypes. I didn't try harder to belong in one group more than another, I just naturally went to one group more than another because it was the group I grew up around. I started off in mostly black neighborhoods and all the mixed kids around me were attractive and they participated in the risky behavior just as much as the white kids around us did. I moved to a upper middle class white neighborhood in the suburbs for high school and I easily started hanging with white kids- I didn't have to try hard or overcompensate. The mixed kids around me didn't participate in the "risky" behavior- because no one really did around where we lived- black or white. Its based more on environment than race. This study should have noticed that instead of basing everything on stereotypes.

Solitaire comment 15- I totally agree.

Daria said:He turned out well though. He grew into his head and eyes plus he no longer has snot constantly bubbling out of his nose.
*looks for a switch for Daria*

you are a friend in my head Daria LOL.

RWS 26-cosign

BS….I have seen some ugly azz bi racial kids. Black babies and kids are normally always cute. White folks have some ugly babies. Bi racial kids with a white daddy tend to be unattractive. Now, if the Daddy is black you with another race mother, then you may have a chance of having a cute kid. As far as the rest of the blog…please. My daughter is 100% black, cute, and in all gifted kids with the second highest SOL test results in her school. What study supports that……nonsense!

BS….I have seen some ugly azz bi racial kids. Black babies and kids are normally always cute. White folks have some ugly babies. Bi racial kids with a white daddy tend to be unattractive. Now, if the Daddy is black with another race mother, then you may have a chance of having a cute kid. As far as the rest of the blog…please. My daughter is 100% black, cute, and in all gifted classes with the second highest SOL test results in her school. What study supports that……nonsense!

this is funny on sooooo many levels.

Interesting. I have a heard time believing this study.

So, Red, are you implying that without the aid of black sperm, Black women "tend" to be incapable of producing attractive children. Is it that you think black women themselves are unattractive or just that black men are so hyper-attractive as to compensate for any shortfall on the part of their partners? Or, in the converse, are you espousing the belief the two "ugly" parents make a cute child– and implying that black male/ other female offspring tend to come from unattractive couplings?

Either way, I fail to agree with your premise as I'm a cute black woman, my husband is a cute white man, and are kids are objectively beautiful.

On another note, I wonder how many of these children were raised in black mother/white father families. I ask because I think that particular pairing often reflects higher incomes/income potential and education levels that the black father/white mother pairing. Of course it's also a lot less pervasive so the sample size for that group couldn't have been that large.

i agree. multiracial kids are pretty but naughty as hell. i know some people with black/asain kids. one looks cambodian, with straight black asain hair. and the other looks black, with a cute curly afro. but they are selfish and loud. and when the little one cries, it's like someone cut off her hand.

ok this is stright up retared i'm mixed race and number 1 i've seen ugly mixed kids stupid mixed kids and i went to school in jamaica and the darker skin kids worked harder than me and they love school more than me its depend on how a child is grown not there race thats y i hate being mixed sometime we try to feel equal but bitchez like u make us feel like a out cast and by the way beautiful ppl come in all races not juss one or mixed race stupid topic juss plain retared

lol the gurl in the pic isnt that all cute and i've seen cuter dark skin kids than her

ok i go to school with mixed kids and FIRST OF ALL THEY THINK THERE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE BUT THE GIRLS ARE MOSTLY SLUTS!!!!!!!!!! AND THE GUYS ARE LOSERS SMOKING WEED ALL THE TIME AND DONT DO THERE HOME WORK AND I'M NOT SAY ALL MIXED KIDS ARE LIKE THIS HELL NO BUT THEY ARE NOT PERFECT AND TO THOSE PPL WHO R SAYING THE ATTRACTIVE PART IS RIGHT GET A LIFE CUZ I'VE SEEN UGLY VERY UGLY MIXED KIDS SO GET A LIFE AND STIP THINKING THAT UR BETTER THAN WHITE KIDS BLACK KIDS AND ETC AND BY THE WAY SOME OF U ALWAYS GO THREW THE PROBLEM OF U DONT KNO WHO THE FUCK U ARE SO DONT FEEL SPECIAL

MIXED KIDS ARE PLAIN ANYOING ALWAYS BITCHING ABOUT PPL DONT ACCEPT THEM AND THEN U TURN AROUND SAYING UR MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN US DROP DEAD MOST OF U

YA WE ARE MOST GOOD LOOKING I FUCK WHITE GIRLS CUZ THERE TRUSH AND I PUT MY FINGER IN THERE PUSSY TO MAKE THEM WET AND THEY SUCK MY DICK VERY HARD.AND FOR THE BLACK GIRLS I FUCKED THEM SO HARD THERE PUSSY BLEEDS AND THEY CUM ALL OVER I GRAB THERE NAPPY HEAD AND RUB MY TOUNGE DOWN THERE BREAST THEY ENJOY THAT AND FOR MIXED GIRLS THERE MY FAV I GRAB THERE HAIR AND FUCK THEM TILL THE CUM AND SUCK OUT THERE TOUNGE GOD!!!! FUCKING THEM IS GOOD MOST GIRLS IN MY SCHOOL LOOSE THERE V TO ME THEY LOOSE IT GOOOD CUZ I DO DOGGY STYLE REAL GOOD AND SUCK THERE PUSSY REAL DEEP MAKING THEM SREAM!!! KILE KILE STOP THEN THAT BITCH SUCKS MY CHESSEIE DICK I DONT EVEN SHOWER AND THEY SUCK IT IT JUSS SHOWS U I'M A GOOD FUCKER CUZ I'M MIXED

mixed kids are juss beautiful i love them the are most good looking better looking than those nappy head hoes