New Book Encourages Black Women To Explore Interracial Relationships

 

Harvard professor Ralph Richard Banks may step on some toes with his new book: ‘Is Marriage for White People?’ The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Banks argues that “The percentage of black children born to unwed parents exceeds 70 percent not because single women are getting pregnant more often, but because black women are so much more likely to be single. Unwed childbearing is yet another consequence of the marriage decline.”

Whereas Black men, Asians, and Latinos are more likely to marry outside their race, Banks argues that Black women are not marrying because they are limiting themselves only to a specific race: the Black race.  He adds that Black women face challenges to finding a partner which include “high male incarceration rates, interracial marriage, which limits the pool of eligible men for middle-class, college-educated black women, and economic trends that have benefited women more than men (and that are much more pronounced among African-Americans).”

Although the pressure to marry within one’s race is diminishing, Banks said “Black women are seen as having a special responsibility to black men and to restore the black family, but those efforts are counterproductive and have been unsuccessful.” Of Black women Banks said: “They end up not marrying out but within the race.  A majority of college-educated black women who do marry, marry a less-educated man.”  He also states that less-educated Black women are less likely to marry.  He added: “At the core of the problem is that nearly twice as many black women as black men graduate from college.  So what are educated black women going to do when there are only half as many black men in their college classrooms or professional environment?”

Banks said if he had a daughter, he would encourage her to date interracially.  Speaking about the book, he said:  ”Part of the reason I wanted to write the book was to change the conversation – to enrich and deepen it.  It is a sad commentary that if it were written by a [white person] it would not be so well received.”

“The same forces that undermine marriage for African-Americans are actually in operation throughout American society and are reshaping or undermining marriage for everyone” Banks added. “One of those forces is that men are doing less well relative to women, and we see it starkly among African-Americans but also among whites. . . The economy has disproportionately hurt men.”

Banks also talks about the positive example set by the Obamas.  He said: “As African-Americans, they are extraordinary in the most ordinary way: They are a married couple raising their children together.”  The book raises a unique question about Black women and marriage.  Banks said his goal is to help “give black women the freedom to make decisions that are right for them.  That will often entail crossing the race lines.”

Shani K. Collins is a freelance writer.  You may visit her at www.shanicollins.com