:: It goes back to the 1960s, when so many black guys got educations and then married white women, leaving their pasts and their black women behind. ::
Great topic.
Why was it that black men started marrying white women and discarding their cultural ties to black women?
I have heard a lot of bad things about black women from black men
At the same time, I have heard a lot of bad things about black men from black women
I notice back women marrying white men too
It was a topic those of us with a philosophical/intellectual interest often discussed in college. Part of it was that a lot of white women my age had conflict-relationships with our moms. Our moms were raised in the depression, worked in factories during WW2, then after that stayed home and raised us spoiled brats. My mom was not the only one who resented us "daddy's little girls" getting everything and going to college. Those resentments made us at times pretty irritating, and a black or Jewish boyfriend would get our mom's hostilities going crazy. Not every girl was like that, but enough were. The other aspect was our faux worldliness. It was easier for a less-than-popular not A-list girl to find a black mate and be perceived as avant-garde cool for doing so.
In my circles, we didn't date black guys, not out of prejudice, but because we "got it" that black men should bring their advantages back to their communities.
I like to think and hypothesize, not research and go through the hoops. But if I were to do a doctoral thing, this would be a great topic...."The Abandonment of their Neighborhoods by Upwardly Mobile Black Men in the 1960s"