I’m from the UK so perhaps I am able to look at things more objectively i.e. study the statistics presented by US govt census data. Truth be told, this ‘African American marriage crunch’ has got a lot of coverage over the last year or so- one only has to type in black relationships in google or youtube and there are a multitude of forums and videos discussing the issue at length. One common argument for why it has been reported that 70% of African American women are single is that there are no eligible good black men. Now lets set some basic standards for what qualifies as an ‘eligible’ african american man:
- The man must be of heterosexual orientation
- The man must not be incarcerated in any prison or detention centres
- The man cannot be dating EXCLUSIVELY outside his race i.e. an AA man who dates only other races, excluding African american women
I’m using these three main realities as what I would conclude AA women would look for as prerequisites or at the VERY LEAST when deciding to date a black man.
Now the main argument is that the majority of black men are the OPPOSITE of these realities i.e. ‘downlow’/outright homosexual in persuasion, are incarcerated or dating exclusively outside of their race. Fair enough, that may be the case in some instances. But I looked at the figures of AA men who were participating in such activities and this is what I found:
Less than 7% (7% being generous and worst case scenario as well!) of of the 18.4 million black men in the US are married interracially
Around 2% are registered as being of homosexual orientation (even those who are ‘downlow’ cannot count for a significant percentage as to distort the statistics significantly)
under 2% are currently incarcerated (Official figures say that just over 500000 of the 18.4 million African American men are currently in prison systems)
Which leaves African american women with less than 10% who are classified as ‘ineligible’ for dating and marriage. That’s less than one in 10 AA men they meet will not be worth pursuing a relationship with- pretty favourable odds if you aks me…
So why does the all too familiar party line ‘there are no good black men available’ prevail so dominatly among some african american women? I don’t know, but from looking at this debate factually and scientifically, the statistics may state otherwise…
Perhaps a lot of AA women have been drinking the communal kool aid
It’s what society has been telling black women forever, and particularly over the past 25 years.
However, there are black women who can and DO find good men (of all races) all the time…but no one ever talks about that. Doesn’t sell magazines or boost ratings on talk shows, does it?
Time for us sistas to believe in ourselves and stop believing the hype that holds us back!