This new book by law professor Ralph Richard Banks is likely the first public "concession" by a prominent African American and academician that (1) "black marriage" in America is dead, and that (2) we shouldn't try to resurrect it (directly).
His necessarily provocative contention appears to be that black middle class women have been, as he stated, "taking one for the team" and going without what they deserve from the institution of marriage (due to a chronic undersupply of eligible middle class black males) for far too long and that they should now specifically look beyond race for spouses.
A WSJ article on the story was reportedly the most clicked on story for WSJ readers (who are hardly a demographic obsessed with a topic like the marital state of affairs of middle class black women) over a weekend that included an historic debt downgrade.
He's already angered others with comments like this:
"It's time for black women to stop being held hostage to the deficiencies of black men."
I've read not a page yet, but applaud people who dare to credibly put on the table a practical, and genuinely new and overdue discussion and who try starting the most relevant and inconvenient conversations about race, gender, class, politics, economics and other topics of real consequence for the human experience.  He has not gotten black people's permission to think these thoughts or write this book which may be a main reason it is ultimately found to hold some real value. So good for him, I say. And us.
recommend
Facebook
Twitter
bookmark 
print
Comments: 30
There are many Black men that do not fit this stereotypical profile. My husband is one. My friends are many more. This had to be written for the dolla!
I think/know that many are upset. However, many women---black middle class---have a different view and experience. The professor is not exactly poor. He didn't need to research a topic like this to make some money. I accept the fact that he has concern for his two sisters (as one of the articles mentioned) and that he has put a long overdue conversation on the table.
I also think too often that we overead our own experience: the bottom line isn't how wonderful some individual black husband is, it is the fact that 70% of the people enrolled in Morehouse School of Medicine (a school named for a black man's college) are female.
1 in 12 students at many a black college are male.
Zero AA males were in the entering class of one of my grad programs.
These are my real experiences and those of many black women---but more to the point they are a collective of experiences of others.
I get emails from black female friends "venting" about how they are tired (after only 2-3 years) of their unambitious black husbands who appear content to live off of their 6-figure salaries. This is real.
And I think the idea that somebody in larger society is just "afraid" of black males doesn't hold water. They hate Obama it's true. But the idea that they are afraid of the average black man who is in prison of his own accord or not otherwise available to major relationships I don't think is logical.
If there is any reason for the decline of marriage , no matter what race someone is... I would guess, it would be welfare... where you can pop out kids and still collect a check, but many dont know who the father is... This is with all races...
I agree with you Crystal... I wish people would stop trying to divide the races..
The book is concerned with promoting consideration of interracial marriage. How is that dividing the races?
Oh that too is well documented (as is the opposite case of white women living off of white men). In fact there's a relative shortage of white men entering college and achieving graduate degrees compared to white females. Facts are facts. But that fact does not change the truth of the extreme numbers for the black case. I don't have any agenda to pick a side to listen to and make it "win"--it's not a "race" to me. I'm interested in the truth. The truth is all men are shrinking from academia and professionalism, none more extremely than blacks. A white woman, Hannah Rosin did a whole TED talk on it and she was hardly focused on black folks.
Crystal Harris Sep 5, 2011, 1:39pm EDT
"Peter is correcct...This is a stereo typical post. It does not reflect real numbers nor does it reflect Black Colleges today at all... I am I agree with vivian...WTH?"
Peter has not cited numbers; nor have you in your replies. Â Numbers were cited in the links above which gave this:
(1) "One in four black men will end up in jail."
(2) "Fewer than half [of black males] graduate from high school."
Here's analysis done by a black male on the ratios of black females and males in college---a key driver of who resides or doesn't reside in the middle class. Perhaps you conclude he is "stereotyping" or "exaggerating" when he reports how black females outnumber black males in every single mixed gender undergraduate HBCU example.  He cites this quote: "Black women earn nearly two thirds of all bachelor's degrees awarded to African Americans. This dominance by black women is now reflected in scientific disciplines as well."
There are black middle class matrimony-material numbers widely available like these (which I'm surprised one would debate here, or characterize as "stereotypical"):
(1) "The Amazing Vanishing black male is playing at a college campus near you." --From the MSNBC article "Number of black men in college dwindle--
Only 35% graduated within six years from college"
"The graduation rate of black men is lower than that of any group. Only 35 percent of black males enrollees graduated within six years from N.C.A.A. Division I colleges in 1996, compared with 59 percent of white males... and 45 percent of the black women who entered the same year."
(2) "Only 56.9 percent of black men over 20 were working, compared with 68.1 percent of white men."
(3) "Fewer than 8% of young African American men have graduated from college compared to 17% of whites and 35% of Asians."---The Kaiser Family Foundation
(4) In 1994, this NYTimes article reported what Professor Banks is addressing (and the NYT is hardly considered a beacon of conservatism), in this short article Black Women Graduates Outpace Male Counterparts that: Â "While the gains by black women confirm the value of a college degree and the availability of jobs, some experts say that gain could discourage marriage within the black middle class because women often hesitate to marry men who earn less."
(5) "The percentage of young African American men in prison is nearly ... seven times that of white men (Fig. 4). "---The Kaiser Family Foundation
(6) From author Michelle Alexander: "More African-American men [846,000 estimated in 2008 by US Bureau of Justice] are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began."
I say Peter is incorrect. Â I say you are incorrect.
Not Dr. Cosby; not Dr. Poussaint; not Dr. Johnnetta Cole; not Ruth Simmons; not any black college president. And as someone who once called in to the Al Sharpton show to discuss a similar topic, I'd say in light of his comments, not Al Sharpton who has criticized hip-hop and other things "most blacks" readily defend at all costs. So imagine what you need to.
And you're highly likely to "follow suit" as you say because you have no way to logically rebut what I've posted. That's typical of frustrated blacks faced with indefensible inconvenient statistics that they largely created themselves.
There's nothing intellectually analytical in a thing you've said. You're debating cold settled stats--like how many inches of rain Vermont got last summer. It's irrational.
Fisk University---72% female, 28% male
Tuskegee University---60% female, 40% male
Clark Atlanta University---72% female, 26% male
Hampton University--60% female, 40% male
Florida A&M University---56% female, 44% male
St. Paul's College--63% female, 37% male
Virginia State University---58% female, 42% male
Virginia Union University---58% female, 42% male
North Carolina Central University--63% female, 37% male
North Carolina A&T University---51% female, 49% male
St. Augustine's College---58% female, 42% male
Bethune Cookman College--57% female, 43% male
Lincoln University--57% female, 43% male
Dillard University--78% female, 28% male
Xavier University---71% female, 29% male
Howard University---63% female, 37% male
Central State University---57% female, 43% male
South Carolina State University---58% female, 42% male
Voorhees College---65% female, 35% male
Bowie State University---62% female, 38% male
Morgan State University---59% female, 41% male
University of Maryland at Eastern Shore---58% female,
42% male
Alcorn State University---60% female, 40% male
Jackson State University---59% female, 41% male
Rust College---58% female, 42% male
Toogaloo College---68% female, 32% male
Grambling State University---55% female, 45% male
Shaw University---63% female, 37% male
Winston-Salem State University---66% female, 33% male
LeMoyne-Owens---68% female, 32% male
Alabama State University---55% female, 45% male
Miles College---56% females, 44% male
Stillman College--66% female, 34% male
Southern University---67% female, 33% male
Elizabeth City State University--63% female, 37% male
this comment just blows me away..."And economics are at the heart of African Americans' problems. Not addressing it--and honestly--strikes me as negligence on the part of black intellectuals" (a.,2011)... WOW...You must read more teri. Blacks are very involved in economics... By the way I am black and trade....so do millions of Blacks..
I was not talking about "trading". I was talking about the high economic value of marriage (home ownership; efficiencies in acquiring property and childrearing; family order and affirmation; being responsible to somebody other than yourself that makes you work harder on a daily basis; mental wellbeing that reinforces productivity at work; shared retirement and Social Security benefits; healthcare) ---not stocks and bond markets.
I have cited (in part):
MSNBC ("liberal")
The New York Times ("liberal")
The Kaiser Family Foundation ("liberal")
Isaac Black, CEO of BlackExcel (black male dedicated to higher ed)
Ralph Banks (black male dedicated to higher ed)
The US Bureau of Justice Statistics (federal government)
There are lots of economic reasons why it's difficult for black women and other poor women to have sound marriages. If we were to fix the economic side, things would not be perfect by any means but they would be lots better.
I suggest reading my novel "Invisible Hand" to see what could be done instead.
"Authors like Steve Harvey and Hill Harper and particularly filmmaker Tyler Perry promote this notion that black women who lack good relationships are victims of their own elitism and snobbery. That they should open their eyes to the virtues of working-class black men and focus on their long-term potential. These kinds of messages tell a black female lawyer, for instance, that she should be enthusiastic about dating a carpenter or a plumber — and if she's not, then she is the one with the problem. It pressures black women to give up certain kinds of life experiences (for the sake of a man) when white women are taught to cultivate them. This is simply bad advice that can lead these women into disastrous relationships."---Ralph Banks
I think I'm too sleepy, and need to go to bed. Will come back and re-read the whole thing again.