"Is Marriage For White People" by Ralph Richard Banks (featured on ABC Nighline) (702 hits)
The stats for unmarried black and white women are staggering, but I was floored by the 70% stat for professional black women. A male (unmarried) friend of mine asked me, how many of 70% do I think want to be married? I said 80%. Mr. Banks, the author, of "Is marriage For White People?" suggested that black women not limit themselves to only dating black men. He said, that black women should also date outside of their race. Do you agree? Let's talk about this! Men should feel free to comment because they care about this issue too.
Jake, thanks for your comment. There are a number of reasons why 70% of professional black women are unmarried: 1) The number of women (black & white) graduating from college are outpacing the number of guys graduating from college. 2) There is an unequal ratio of available black men to available black women. 3) There is a significant number of would-be eligible brothers who are incarcerated. Additionally, both men and women of all races are getting married later than they did 25 years ago. So when black women get ready for marriage, there is a shortage in the number of available black men. By the way, this is not an exhaustive list.
Thanks again for commenting. I would still suggest you checkout the story and then we can talk more. I believe that you may hold some misconceptions also. It's not always about trying to marry a certain person, but there are certain types of people in your social environment depending on who you socialize with and where you socialize.
Times have changed from the 1920's, but here again people married people who were in close proximity to them. Further, marriage was more of an economic necessity.
Saturday, October 22nd 2011 at 4:08PM
Nona Ogunsula
The whole interview with Mr. Banks is nonsense and I changed the channel because he doesn't know what the h-e-l-l he is talking about. I happen to be a single, never married woman and I feel ONE single women has ABSOLUTLELY NOTHING to do with a women who's bitter and who has a mate. Is she supposed to be mad because another women is unmarried? Ummm...no.
If black women are bitter towards anyone, it should be the people who set up and manifest this reality (if it is reality) instead of their co-victims. Personally, I have never sensed a shortage of black men. Never had a problem finding a stable, decent black man. If this shortage is as severe as white people want us to believe, the fault is theirs. We are to blame to fall for their tricks- but they created the tricks to begin with.
Friday, October 28th 2011 at 8:07PM
Siebra Muhammad
