Stanford Law Professor Argues Black Women Should Cross Race Barrier for Marriage Partners

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A provocative new book by Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks examines why black women are so unlikely to marry–and proposes a solution that is arousing controversy in the African-American community: Cross the color line.

“Don’t marry down. Marry out,” says Banks in his campus office, busy with phone calls, emails and preparation for the new semester. The shared experience that once bound blacks together–segregation–is gone, he asserts. “So it all coalesces around this . . . : whether black women will continue to be held hostage to the failings of black men.”

Particularly in California, where only 6.2 percent of the population is black, “conditions are very conducive to interracial relationships,” he says. “African-Americans are a very small group here. And everyone’s moved away from home, so they’re more likely to form nontraditional bonds.”

Some welcome his book, “Is Marriage for White People?” because it has started an uncomfortable conversation they say is long overdue.

But others contend that he denigrates men and dispirits women, calling him a profiteer, a “racial pimp” and other names he says “that I can’t repeat.”

He speaks from a position that seems rarer every day: a black male who is highly educated (bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford, ’87, and one from Harvard Law, cum laude, ’94), professional (14 years at Stanford Law School), married to a black woman (Stanford social psychology professor Jennifer Eberhardt, whom he calls “the most brilliant and beautiful woman I have ever met”).

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But most black women face a big problem, he asserts. High rates of incarceration and job-market discrimination against black men have created a gender imbalance. Then women confront the venerable economic model of supply and demand–scarcity creates excess demand for black grooms, tilting the terms of courtship to men’s favor. Many simply sidestep commitment.

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He speaks from personal experience; two of Banks’ three sisters–“intelligent, beautiful and educated”–are unmarried. In fact, black women are the most unmarried group of people in our nation. They’re only half as likely as white women to be married, and more than three times as likely as white women never to marry, according to his analyses.

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It wasn’t always so. Through the middle of the 20th century, about nine out of 10 black women married. Now black women are about half as likely to be married as their 1950s counterparts. White adults are also more likely to be single today than in the past. But marriage has diminished more among African-Americans than among any other Americans.

And when they do marry, black women are more likely to marry men with substantially less education or less income, Banks says.

His message to black women: Stop settling for less than you deserve. Forget race loyalty. Quit thinking that white, Asian and Latino men don’t find you attractive; it’s not true. {snip}

He writes with a tone of encouragement, not blame or finger-pointing. Think Oprah, not Dr. Laura.

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Oakland-based L. Jeanine Phillips, 28, who has a bachelor’s degree in biology, a passion for reading and a rewarding career as an operations manager for an upscale firm, says Banks’ analysis rings true.

“I have dated and even married a black man in the past,” says Phillips, vice president of the Bay Area chapter of the Sistas Book Club. “After endless bad relationships–all seeming to stem from black men’s egos and inability to keep their penis in their pants, also coming from broken homes–I have decided to go on hiatus from black men and only date out of my race.

“And thus far it has been a success. I am currently dating a great white man” with a degree from UC-Davis, she says, “who seems to appreciate me, respect me, and we match equally educationally and culturally. We have the same religious beliefs. And it’s a major bonus that we share the same family values.”

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Banks’ solution was also challenged by African-American scholars in a “virtual symposium” held by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Council on Contemporary Families.

There, Professor Micere Keels of the University of Chicago argued that black women don’t rule out nonblack partners. Rather, studies show they receive fewer advances from whites, Latinos or Asians.

“The only viable solution for black women’s low likelihood of marriage is to correct society’s failure to educate all our boys,” she concluded.

Similarly, Kansas University professor Shirley Hill said in the same symposium that “dealing with structural issues”–such as high unemployment and incarceration of black men–“gets us closer to the root of the problem.”

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