September 5, 2011 in Dating

The Fracturing of Black Intimacy

Post placeholder image

Thomas Rogers a Stanford University Law Professor has published a controversially titled book: Is Marriage for White People?: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone.

He argues that due to the “fracturing of black intimacy” in America, African Americans have become less likely to have long term, stable and intimate relationships. He lays out some interesting but not surprising statistics. Specifically, the majority of black men are unmarried and so are 2 out of every 3 black women. Furthermore, college educated black women are twice as likely to be unmarried as college educated white women by age 40.

That last statistic hits close to home. I’m a 41 year old college educated, professional and upwardly mobile black woman who have never been married. I also don’t have any children. This has been a conscious choice as I grew up in a single family household and decided that I wanted to defer having babies until I was married.
Perhaps I’ve been a fool! Time is running out and so maybe I should become more feminist in my thinking. I mean, do I really need a man to have raise a child? Maybe! Maybe not! But considering how hard my mother had it, I’d really rather not go through it alone.

Either way, unless I start to look outside of my race (like my BestGuyFriend has been telling me to do for years!), I may end up like so many other successful black women — alone and without offspring. Particularly as successful black men (the type that I’d be most likely interested in) have way too much choice. Thus, they often delay marriage or worse yet, marry outside their race.

Now, I’m not one of those that gets’ hung up on race and thinks that “brothers” who date or marry white women have sold out! I do believe that wherever one finds love, they should embrace it! I just wish there were educated, successful/upwardly mobile black men (the marrying kind) who were interesting in marrying black women.

I know so many successful black women like me who are without partners. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t totally given up on RacquetBallGuy. He’s not perfect but he ticks a lot of the boxes and he’s really making an effort to make things right. So can’t really fault that. Of course, only time will tell.




By browsing this website, you agree to our privacy policy.
I Agree