Stanford Law Professor Ralph Richard Banks Encourages Black Women to Explore Interracial Relationships

Stanford University law professor Ralph Richard Banks' just published book, "Is Marriage for White People?" encourages black women to cross race lines more to find a husband.

From the Toronto Sun: Richard Banks' just published book, "Is Marriage for White People?: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone," is sure to spark controversy through its suggestion that black women would benefit both themselves and the black race if they crossed class lines less and race lines more.

In his just-published book, Stanford University law professor Ralph Richard Banks says black women are more than three times as likely as white women never to marry. And when they do marry, they are more likely than any other group of women to marry a man who is less educated or earns less than they do. Banks also says that African-Americans have become the most unmarried people in the US.  

"We are the least likely to marry and the most likely to divorce; we maintain fewer committed and enduring relationships than any other group," he writes. "Not since slavery have black men and women been as unpartnered as we are now. Although the African-American marriage decline is especially pronounced among the poor, it is apparent as well among the affluent: doctors, lawyers, corporate professionals."  

The book also confronts some uncomfortable truths about relationships between black men and women. Banks says he has discovered that many black women have become bitter because they face a relationship market with too few black men who are stable and employed. "More than 1 in 10 black men in their 20s or early 30s is behind bars and a black man's lifetime likelihood of losing his freedom is 1 in 4," he writes. "And however much they understand the social circumstances that lead black men to criminal activity, most black women, like women of all races, don't want an ex-convict as a husband." Source: Toronto Sun

Personally, I see nothing wrong with interracial relationships. If the person you fall in love with is white or Asian, then go for it and stop settling for a black man just because he's black. Love knows no color. At least, it shouldn't.

High-Achieving Black Women Find Marriage Elusive, Many Remain Childless, According to New Research

I came across this article on MSNBC's website last week and it piqued my interest. High achieving, educated black women find marriage and a family elusive, according to a recent study presented at the American Sociological Society's annual meeting. It seems that First Lady Michelle Obama -- lawyer, married to the President of the United States and the mother of two children -- is the exception and not the rule. The reality for other black women with similar educational and professional background is quite different.

They face a series of challenges in navigating education, career, marriage and child-bearing, dilemmas that often leave them single and childless even when they’d prefer marriage and family, according to a research study recently presented at the American Sociological Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

Yale researchers Natalie Nitsche and Hannah Brueckner argued that “marriage chances for highly educated black women have declined over time relative to white women.” Women of both races with postgraduate educations “face particularly hard choices between career and motherhood,” they said, “but especially in the absence of a reliable partner.”

And there’s the rub. As noted in a recent Sexploration column, contrary to old media reports, most educated, professional women who want to marry can and do marry. But the picture is less bright for high-achieving black women because “marriage markets” for them have deteriorated to the point that many remain unmarried, the researchers found. Since these women also feel pressured not to become single mothers, they often go childless as well, the researchers found. In the study, Nitsche and Brueckner used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey of 50,000 households dating back to the 1970s to tease out data points on race, gender, education, marriage and  fertility.

Among black women with postgraduate educations born between 1956 and 1960, the median age at which they gave birth for the first time was 34 years old. This was about the same as it was for white women in the same demographic. But once white women reached their 30s, many more of them did give birth, often more than once. Many black women did not. The rate of childlessness among this group of black women rose from 30 percent for those born between 1950 and 1955, to 45 percent for those born between 1956 and 1960.

The rate of childlessness does moderate somewhat in highly educated black women born between 1961 and 1970. In this group, 38 percent have remained childless. Beyond the personal interests of individual women, the trend is significant because “in terms of American society, this is one additional obstacle” to the broadening of the black middle class, Brueckner said. Fewer highly educated black people having children means that they cannot pass on those advantages and knowledge.”

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.