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An Interracial Fix for Black Marriage
WSJ ^ | 6 August 2011 | RALPH RICHARD BANKS

Posted on 08/06/2011 12:05:55 AM PDT by oblomov

"At this point in my life," says Audrey, age 39, "I thought I'd be married with children." A native of southeast Washington, D.C., and the child of parents who are approaching their 50th wedding anniversary, Audrey seems like the proverbial "good catch"—smart, funny, well-educated, attractive.

Audrey earns a good living, too, with an income from management consulting that far surpasses what her parents ever made. Her social life is busy as well, filled with family, friends and church.

Only about one in 20 black women is interracially married; they are much less likely than black men to cross the race line.

What Audrey lacks is a husband. As she told me, sitting at a restaurant in the fashionable Dupont Circle neighborhood of the nation's capital, "I'm trying to get to a point where I accept that marriage may never happen for me."

Audrey belongs to the most unmarried group of people in the U.S.: black women. Nearly 70% of black women are unmarried, and the racial gap in marriage spans the socioeconomic spectrum, from the urban poor to well-off suburban professionals. Three in 10 college-educated black women haven't married by age 40; their white peers are less than half as likely to have remained unwed.

What explains this marriage gap? As a black man, my interest in the issue is more than academic. I've looked at all the studies—the history, the social science, the government data—and I've spent a year traveling the country interviewing scores of professional black women. In exchange for my promise to conceal their identities (in part by using pseudonyms, as I've done here), they shared with me their most personal experiences and desires in relation to marriage and family.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: blacks; interracial; marriage; race; racemixing
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Back in my single days, I was always open to dating women of other ethnic backgrounds. I don't think that there is anything wrong with so-called interracial marriage. I grew up in Southern Indiana, and remember people staring and pointing at interracial couples when I was young. It struck me as odd that people would do this.

Interestingly, a friend of mine who is a single liberal refuses to date women of other races, despite there being some very attractive, eligible black and Asian women in our social circle. I didn't hesitate to use this against him when he implied that the Tea Party was racist.

1 posted on 08/06/2011 12:05:57 AM PDT by oblomov
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To: oblomov

Like it or not, Obama has set race relations in the US back thirty years or more.


2 posted on 08/06/2011 12:10:40 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: oblomov

i believe Thomas Sowell said that in the 1950’s, the marriage rate for blacks was higher than whites, and the unmarried birthrate was lower for blacks than whites.

The Civil rights act destroyed the black family, just as that government study by Moynihan said it would.


3 posted on 08/06/2011 12:13:24 AM PDT by Elendur (It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: Elendur

>>The Civil rights act destroyed the black family, just as that government study by Moynihan said it would.

I assume you mean the Great Society programs such as SNAP (food stamps) and the expansion of AFDC. Yes, Moynihan & Glazer were prescient. I’m not sure the Civil Rights Act hurt the black family, but the Nixon Administration’s interpretation of it (Affirmative Action) has definitely hurt the US economy and culture.


4 posted on 08/06/2011 12:23:43 AM PDT by oblomov
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To: oblomov

There is a more primal reason why black woman don’t date outside their race, they often can’t.

Many black males have a problem with it are not above beating the crap out of a nonblack who would dare date their women.


5 posted on 08/06/2011 12:28:14 AM PDT by Jonty30
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To: oblomov

As people have pointed out here on FR, the nanny state turned black men into sex toys for their women (and has done the same to white men - note our drop in marriages as well). I didn’t get married until I met a girl from the same situation as me (not ethnic, but cultural); if either of us ever went back to our families and said it didn’t work out, they would have no choice but to “honor kill” us - and we’re Christians.

15+ years, several children, and still going ... even if half the family doesn’t speak English. Yankee women lost any standing when we could marry anyone from 100+ countries, right here in NJ. They can keep burning their bras, but nobody’s watching. Don’t worry, we’ll tend to their pet cemeteries for them when they’ve gone the way of the dodo. Adios!


6 posted on 08/06/2011 12:29:40 AM PDT by kearnyirish2
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To: Jonty30

In a different economic environment (I mean manufacturing, not slavery), these families worked. After that, it was black women who couldn’t stomach the idea of “their” men dating white women. As we’ve moved away from manufacturing, now the black women (like white women, or brown women) see themselves as the breadwinner (even if it is artificially imposed by government hiring/racial-or-gender quotas, whatever); the man beating them to death is just a reminder of physics & frustration. There is reason why women don’t play in the NFL; for all the “equality” crap, there is no doubt that God made us differently.


7 posted on 08/06/2011 12:50:23 AM PDT by kearnyirish2
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To: oblomov
The explanation for why Black women remain unmarried in large numbers, in respect to the population, is that black men won't marry them. The women, for the most part, sleep around and have 2 or 3 baby daddies and no husband. The other type of black woman, such as the one the article is about, are stuck with the BS social status that the other type of black woman has stuck them with. It has nothing to do with whitey and everything to do with the "black culture" as it is in today's world.

I was engaged to a black woman once, her sister had 3 kids and 3 different fathers for them, and that was typical of her acquaintances and other female relatives. I finally broke the engagement because I couldn't take the belligerent attitude of all of her male relatives.

The problem with blacks is their culture as a whole, pure and simple. Some get out of it, most of them don't make it free and don't want to.

8 posted on 08/06/2011 12:52:45 AM PDT by calex59
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To: Elendur
i believe Thomas Sowell said that in the 1950’s, the marriage rate for blacks was higher than whites, and the unmarried birthrate was lower for blacks than whites.

It may I have been a bit earlier than that, I remember the story and the research behind it. HS graduation rates were higher as well. The comparison was that all immigrant groups to this country started as an isolated section of American society and thus had a greater cohesion of values leading to stronger society values like strength of family. Blacks fit into this trend if you counted post-reconstruction as their actual immigration into this society.

Immigrant groups would then fall in line with mainstream society except at that point, blacks got screwed by the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society.

9 posted on 08/06/2011 1:08:38 AM PDT by Ophiucus
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To: Jack Hammer
For the simple reason that Obama has highlighted and brought to face the blatant race oriented world view of much of Black America that regardless of issue, positions on issues, experience, qualifications, or results stand by a “black man,” who they see as their own.

Blacks in America have no one to blame other than themselves.

10 posted on 08/06/2011 1:20:31 AM PDT by Red6
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To: calex59

Whites are increasingly showing the same behavioral patterns as northeastern urban blacks; that is why they had to limit welfare to 5 years. As whites discovered they could live the same life (if you would call it that) with food stamps, welfare, rent subsidies/gubmint housing, etc., the government realized the cat was out of the bag. They could tolerate 10% of the population doing that; they couldn’t deal with 50% of them doing it.


11 posted on 08/06/2011 1:30:28 AM PDT by kearnyirish2
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To: Jack Hammer

I’ll date any race as long as they don’t think like an Obama.


12 posted on 08/06/2011 1:56:07 AM PDT by Bullish (Recovery won't begin until Obama loses HIS job.)
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To: kearnyirish2
Yankee women lost any standing when we could marry anyone from 100+ countries, right here in NJ.

It's pure unstoppable capitalism, in all of its glory. I absolutely love it. "Declining marriage"? LOL, that's just a market correction. An entitlement attitude isn't going to get anyone anywhere if they're a crappy product in a competitive market. The decent gals get what they want, and the others whine and collect cats.

They can keep burning their bras, but nobody’s watching. Don’t worry, we’ll tend to their pet cemeteries for them when they’ve gone the way of the dodo. Adios!

Amen, brother!

13 posted on 08/06/2011 2:00:16 AM PDT by SIDENET ("If that's your best, your best won't do." -Dee Snider)
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To: oblomov
With biracial children, she feared that she might be mistaken for the nanny. Many black women share her anxiety about having a biracial child.

"Many"?

Like how many?

Data, or it's BS.

This article is a total whinefest.

14 posted on 08/06/2011 2:07:14 AM PDT by SIDENET ("If that's your best, your best won't do." -Dee Snider)
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To: Red6
Blacks in America have no one to blame other than themselves.

You are 1000% correct. That's right, 1000%.


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15 posted on 08/06/2011 3:17:14 AM PDT by rdb3 (The mouth is the exhaust pipe of the heart.)
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To: oblomov
Ultimately, for the great American melting pot to continue functioning, interracial marriages need to happen in order to get away from the Democrat designed Balkanization of American society.

American blacks as a group look distinctly different from their African cousins due to the centuries of hybridization that has taken place in America.

For the most part, American whites who think they are English, French, German, etc really aren't and a visit to those nations will show that they aren't. American whites who have been in the U.S. for multiple generations are a hybrid of Europeans with a touch of African and American Indian thrown in.

16 posted on 08/06/2011 3:40:02 AM PDT by fso301
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To: Elendur
Thomas Sowell said that in the 1950’s, the marriage rate for blacks was higher than whites, and the unmarried birthrate was lower for blacks than whites.

Iirc, it was the former, but not the latter. The higher illegitimacy rate for blacks has a long history, but it was far from the norm 60 years ago.

The employment rate for blacks was also higher than for whites, when the government wasn't "helping."

17 posted on 08/06/2011 4:07:18 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Do you know why I love reptiles? It's because they don't play guitars.)
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To: Bullish

And how many of those are there in the US, do you think?


18 posted on 08/06/2011 4:25:13 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: oblomov

Affirmative action originated under the Johnson administration as implementation of 82-352 (also passed in 1964) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

The term “affirmative action” ... first appeared in Executive Order 10925, which was signed by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961, and it was used to refer to measures to achieve non-discrimination. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 which required federal contractors to take “affirmative action” to hire without regard to race, religion and national origin. In 1968, gender was added to the anti-discrimination list.[2] Matching procedures in other countries are also known as reservation in India, positive discrimination in the United Kingdom, and employment equity in Canada.


19 posted on 08/06/2011 4:30:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: calex59

Exactly so. Here are some other factors. The vast majority of black women that I’ve seen over 30 are quite obese. They wear ridiculous clothes, have outlandish hairstyles dyed goofy colors and they have big mouths. One can hear them having a conversation from one hundred yards away. Very unattractive.
The black men, on the otherhand, are usually much more quiet spoken, have manners, dress reasonably well, and appear to keep themselves in shape.
In short, were I a black man I wouldn’t want to marry a black woman, either.


20 posted on 08/06/2011 4:34:39 AM PDT by Scotsman will be Free (11C - Indirect fire, infantry - High angle hell - We will bring you, FIRE)
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