Black women are reluctantly single (Part 1 of 2)
Properly balancing the reasons why on both macro and micro levels
A few days ago I did something that I haven’t done in a while. I watched a video on Madame Noire’s YouTube channel about black women and relationships. For the last couple of years, for my own mental health, I’ve kept conversations about relationships at bay. Throughout this article, I will explain and/or allude to why I made this decision especially given that for most of my life the top desire of my heart was to be a wife and mother. But here I sit typing this article at the age of 46 having never been married and childless.
Truth be told, one of the reasons I had been steering clear of any relationship chatter is that in my 46 years on this earth, I have heard the same thing over and over again. Same conversation just a different day. It usually stays in the superficial realm which is not only annoying but stagnating. On this particular day, however, I had some time to kill. Plus on this writing journey, I never know where my inspiration may come from.
So I watched and it prompted all kinds of thoughts for me. Some of which I thought before and some of which really brought some clarity for me on the matter. Before I proceed, I want to say that this article is not a critique of the video. Rather perhaps its best to consider this as a continuation of the conversation or my attempt to be circumspect on the topic. I humbly submit this article for your consideration and ask that any response be delivered in the same manner it was submitted: humbly, thoughtfully, and circumspectly.
My ultimate goal with this article is to lower the temperature when it comes to this topic. It is so emotionally charged that it’s hard to break through to any level of healing. Healing starts with accepting what is true. Truth not our feelings. Expressing our feelings frees our hearts up to hear the truth. Though unfortunately when things are so emotionally charged, we become stuck. Our emotions stagnate and that’s all we can identify with. Not to mention we seek to satisfy our egos by insisting that our perspective is always the correct perspective.
One of humanity’s greatest flaws is our arrogant belief that we are always right. We fight and we fight to prove our points. Even when we realize we have been wrong, we will lie just to be right and save face. And while it is great that more of us are educated, many times we become too smart for our own good and end up deceiving ourselves, in my opinion. We get so accustomed to handling complexity that simple solutions don’t even occur to us. How so, you ask? Keep reading.
Are you familiar with the term hypochondria or hypochondriac? It’s a psychiatric term defined as excessive worry about one’s health. We typically consider someone a hypochondriac when they are constantly worrying about whatever symptoms they are experiencing and self-diagnose themselves with the worst possible conditions for what they are experiencing. You’re probably thinking, Johanna, are you calling black women emotional hypochondriacs and think they are overreacting? That’s certainly not my intention. It may be an imperfect analogy but I do believe that on some level with the way this discourse is going, we aren’t helping ourselves and might find ourselves unintentionally on the losing end of an self-fulfilling prophecy. Again, keep reading.
I subtitled this article Properly Balancing the Reasons Why [black women are reluctantly single] on Both Macro and Micro Levels. My subtitle implies that we are out of balance when it comes the macro and micro level reasons. In fact we are often simply incorrect, particularly about the macro reasons and the narratives that are floating around. How so? Again, keep reading as I will share some statistics, discuss how those statistics are often misinterpreted, how those misleading interpretations result in erroneous narratives, how we internalize those narratives, and what we should do to counterbalance it all.
Let’s look at some statistics. According to the Pew Research Center:
In 1967, when interracial marriage became legal in the United States, only 3% of newlyweds were interracial couples.
In 1980, newlywed interracial couples stood at 7%.
In 2015, newlywed interracial couples stood at 17%.
In 1980, 8% of newlywed black men were in interracial marriages compared to 3% of black women.
In 2015, 24% of newlywed black men were in interracial marriages compared to 12% of black women.
According to the latest US Census as reported in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:
Just under 50% of the US population over the age of 15 were married in 2021
Of the above 50%, 54% were white and 31.2% were black
In 2021, 27.5% of the white population had never been married compared to 50% of the black population
In 2021, 34.4% of Black men were married, compared to 28.6% of black women
In 2021, 48+% of black women had never been married, compared to 51.1% of black men
According to the latest US Census and the 2020 American Community Survey as reported by BlackDemographics.com:
African Americans have the lowest percentages of marriages compared to other groups: Whites at 52%; Hispanics at 43%; Asians at 58%; African Americans at 40%
In 2021, 15% of married black men were married to non-black women of which 8% were married to white women and 4% were married to Hispanic women. Only 7% of married black women were married to non-black men of which only 4% were married to white men.
According to The Growing Racial and Ethnic Divide in US Marriage Patterns, published in 2015:
The median age of women overall at first marriage in 2015 was 27; compared to 24 in 1990 and 20 in 1955. The median age of black women at first marriage was 30, in 2015.
In 2013, 8 out of 10 women were or had been married.
61% of black women had been married by their mid 40s compared to 90% of white women, 80% of Hispanic women and 75% of Native American/Native Alaskan women.
Based on the statistics I just shared, it APPEARS that many of our grievances are supported by the numbers. As we like to say, numbers don’t lie. My response to that is
Numbers don’t lie; but people lie about the numbers.
As much as I appreciate scholarly research, I found that scholars wordsmith to fit their preferred narrative just like the media does. There’s all kinds of ways to present data to elicit a particular response. To me that is not only irresponsible but dangerous. Personally, I like to look at raw numbers and raw percentages as much as possible.
For example, the Pew Research Center actually stated that black men were twice as likely to marry outside of their race than black women. While that “twice as likely” rate is mathematically equivalent, I promise you if they simply said 24 out of 100 married black men married outside of their race, compared to 12 out of 100 black women, we probably wouldn’t get riled up. “Twice as likely” gives the impression that out of every black man we encounter he will likely choose to marry outside of his race. That’s not want the raw data implies but that’s the headline put out there that we take and run with. The fact that over 75% of black men are married to black women is completely overlooked or not plainly reported. And as a result of this misleading interpretation we become emotionally ensnared particularly by two erroneous narratives.
Narrative #1: Black men prefer to marry women of other races over black women. I remember sharing with one of my sorors that more black men were indeed married to black women but she refused to be comforted by that. She said that’s not what she sees. Though I was disappointed that she couldn’t receive the truth, I wouldn’t sum her response up as completely irrational. We were having the conversation in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, where she’s lived most of her life. And the overall black population in ALL of Los Angeles is 10% at 385,000. I could appreciate that her experience didn’t align with the stats. Though, one implication of the stats might be perhaps it’s time to look outside of Los Angeles. I’m just saying…
One reason I can readily accept the data is that I am from a predominantly black city. I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana in a two-parent household. Both of my parents are black and in a couple of months, March 23rd to be exact, they will celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary. ALL of the married black men I know personally are married to black women. Of my closest friends, only one is in an interracial marriage and she is married to a white man. I will also say that most of the marriages that I have observed have been fairly healthy marriages. Not perfect, but healthy. I was never left with the impression that marriage was something to avoid
Narrative #2: Black women are most likely to never get married. The data says that both black men and black women are the least likely to marry. Using the term “least likely” gives the impression that a black person getting married is a rarity. Again that is not the case. The headlines may give that impression but the raw numbers do not bear that out. For both black men and women, the number hovers around 50%, for those over the age of 15 by the way, that have never been married. Yes we would like that number to be higher, but it’s not in the gutter and it follows the trend for all marriages. Across all populations, less people are getting married and those that do, marry at later ages.
Thus far, what I have presented are basic statistics that address two of the core concerns of black women. One, black men prefer other races over black women and two, black women are the least likely to marry. I’ve shared how I believe those two erroneous narratives were mistakenly derived from these statistics. Now I’d like to discuss two reasons we believe these narratives to be true.
Reason #1: We notice a “trend” of high profile black men dating and marrying non-black women. It’s not a secret that many celebrities and high profile men are indeed married to non-black women. It’s also not a secret that during the “rags” part of their “rags to riches” journey many of these men were with black women, messed over them, and then moved on to non-black women after the reached their “riches” stage.
The problem with this “reasoning” is that we are only looking at a small subset of black men and then generalizing their behavior to ALL black men. Again, the vast majority of married black men are married to black women. I’m not going to research every individual high profile black man, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of them were actually married to black women. When Barack Obama began his rise to prominence, many were pleasantly surprised that he was married to an undeniably black woman. An undeniably black woman from the south side of Chicago at that. We err when we mistake any percentage for a majority and even if it is statistically significant percentage, it still may not be the majority.
Reason #2: Incessant messaging that black women are of less value and the least desirable. I really don’t need to provide examples of this as it pervades our society. The problem with this “reasoning” is that it is so pervasive that we can’t possibly conceive that not every person ascribes to the messaging that is put out there. Again our marriage stats are not in the gutter. Many men, including black men, love us and will commit to us. It’s also true that each of us are only seeking the love and partnership of ONE person. When we start looking at the broader population of men, we can overwhelm ourselves thinking our job is to convince ALL men of our worthiness. Not so, only one. And even then your goal is not to convince anyone.
More on that in part two of this series (scheduled to drop the evening of January 29, 2024)
Onward to Harmonious Balance,
Johanna
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