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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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To: oblomov
Article: What Audrey lacks is a husband.

I'll bet Audrey is one of the generation who learned that "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Talk about chickens coming home to roost...

oblomov: I didn't hesitate to use this against him when he implied that the Tea Party was racist.

Day-yum! I really admire you for that! Good job.
21 posted on 08/06/2011 4:54:21 AM PDT by Peet (Cogito ergo dubito.)
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To: Tax-chick
Entrepanurship among blacks was higher in the 50’s than in the 70’s. Read that in Sowell I believe.
22 posted on 08/06/2011 5:05:26 AM PDT by TalBlack ( Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: oblomov
....the Nixon Administration’s interpretation of it (Affirmative Action) has definitely hurt the US economy and culture.

For the younger Freepers here, in those days "affirmative action" meant putting help wanted ads in the newspapers read by Negroes. (Yes, that was the correct racial designation at the time.) The quota stuff didn't come until later.

I remember when we tried to hire the "best-qualified". When was the last time you heard that term?

23 posted on 08/06/2011 5:11:32 AM PDT by Cracker Jack (If it weren't for the democrats, republicans would be the worst thing in Washington.)
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To: TalBlack

Yes, I think so, too. In those days, blacks were more likely to start their own businesses than to look for government positions. Currently, per Dr. Sowell or Walter Williams or both ;-), the most likely employer of a college-educated black person is the government at some level.


24 posted on 08/06/2011 5:13:09 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: Jonty30

Never been beaten up for marrying my black wife.


25 posted on 08/06/2011 5:14:54 AM PDT by dis.kevin (Dry white toast)
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To: kearnyirish2

In a nutshell, ‘If you can’t become famous, then become infamous.”

Because black males are, at the moment, unable to compete, they feel the need to dominate through brutality.


26 posted on 08/06/2011 5:18:42 AM PDT by Jonty30
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To: Ophiucus

“1950’s, the marriage rate for blacks was higher than whites”

Poor women were more likely to have a child out of wedlock and blacks tended to be poor. One of the arguments for Jim Crow was the illegitimacy rates in the black community where it was more accepted.


27 posted on 08/06/2011 5:20:21 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: Jack Hammer

Indeed. I was raised not to be racist, and that’s the way I am.

What these communists using race as their cover have succeeded in doing is making millions of good, patriotic Americans look twice at every black they meet, making them think, “Are you one of those who hates me because I’m white, just waiting for the opportunity to kick me into a coma?”


28 posted on 08/06/2011 5:30:38 AM PDT by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

To: dis.kevin

I know that there are basically two kinds of black culture in the states. Productive and cultured, and ghetto.

The ones with culture are no different from most other Americans. Then you have ghetto, which causes most of the troubles we read about here.

Something tells me that you didn’t marry ghetto.


30 posted on 08/06/2011 5:39:06 AM PDT by Jonty30
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To: Scotsman will be Free

Spot on, except that my survey sample would put the fat sweathog average age at about 22 to 24, you just think they are 30 because they don’t take care of themselves and they’ve usually popped out 3 or 4 kids. In some of these government sponsored ghettos they’re called grandma at 30.


31 posted on 08/06/2011 5:40:50 AM PDT by amishman
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To: fso301

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can guarantee you that I am 100% European(mostly english) and so is my wife, and if I have anything to say about it, my grandchildren will be also.


32 posted on 08/06/2011 5:44:54 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama = Epic Fail)
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To: rdb3

I saw this in one of your posts earlier, and decided this time to check it out. You’re right. It IS beautiful!


33 posted on 08/06/2011 5:52:24 AM PDT by MagnoliaMS ("Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!")
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To: SIDENET
Many black women share her anxiety about having a biracial child.

"Many"? Like how many? Data, or it's BS.

This appears to be a "media meme." There was an article by a hispanic CNN producer not too long ago, complaining that she was always assumed to be her child's babysitter.

34 posted on 08/06/2011 5:57:28 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: Tax-chick

I guess when all you go by are “surface issues”, which includes skin color, then even natural affection for your own offspring will be at risk.

All 3 of my beautiful interracial children are deeply loved and prized by their mother. No shame, no fear, no worry, no uncertainty. She is their mother and darned proud of it!

(Now, why they don’t look more like their father is another issue...)


35 posted on 08/06/2011 6:03:46 AM PDT by MarDav
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To: MarDav

One of the standout points in this article is how shallow the interviewees appear to be, in spite of their educations ... but the point about not wanting lighter-skinned children really takes the cake.

It’s common in Latin American families for the spouses to have different skin shades, and for the children to be different from one another and different from either or both parents in various ethnic characteristics.

It doesn’t seem to be an issue for anyone, although I wonder if they’re pushed to label themselves in American public schools.


36 posted on 08/06/2011 6:31:10 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: SIDENET

“The decent gals get what they want, and the others whine and collect cats.”

Too funny; the Yankee women I work with have either a cat or a dog, while all the other women (black, Hispanic, Asian) have children...


37 posted on 08/06/2011 7:23:41 AM PDT by kearnyirish2
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To: Jonty30

We have blacks here in NJ, but these incidents would only happen in their neighborhoods. The police in other areas would face a lot of pressure to deal with it (this is where our former governor posed frisking a black male against a state police car), and all incumbents would lose their jobs in upcoming elections that didn’t react swiftly to incidents like this.


38 posted on 08/06/2011 7:26:41 AM PDT by kearnyirish2
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To: fso301
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.

My mother once told me, before the PC era, that all old southern-families had a “touch of the tar brush.” I asked her if that included her family, and she changed the subject. Later, viewing some ancestral tintypes, I concluded it was true.

My blond blue-eyed wife is part Cherokee. Her blond blue-eyed children by a previous marriage are registered in the Delaware tribal roll.
39 posted on 08/06/2011 7:30:23 AM PDT by Hiddigeigei ("Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish," said Dionysus - Euripides)
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To: kearnyirish2

Once you have children, you tend to accumulate pets, too.


40 posted on 08/06/2011 7:37:30 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Do you know why I love reptiles? It's because they don't play guitars.)
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