Posted on April 4, 2022

Why More Black Women Should Consider Marrying White Men

Ralph Richard Banks, New York Post, April 1, 2022

Two of the most powerful positions in the United States government will soon be held — for the first time — by black women: Kamala Harris and Ketanji Brown-Jackson. Harris, as we all know, is the vice president of the United States and Brown-Jackson could soon become a Supreme Court justice.

But Harris and Brown-Jackson also share a personal attribute that is equally noteworthy: Each has a white husband.

This fact is significant. The effects of racism have left well-educated black women with a paucity of black male partners: According to Brookings Institute data, black men are less likely than black women to have completed high school and 50 percent less likely to have attained a four-year college degree. Yet despite the shortage of suitable black partners, black women have also been the least likely of any minority group to marry outside of their race, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

Rather than partner with men of other races, many heterosexual black women either don’t marry or marry black men with whom they are not especially well matched. {snip}

A bit more than a decade ago I published a book, “Is Marriage for White People?” that examined the decline in marriage across American society and especially among African-Americans, and focused in particular on the predicament of black women. The book raises the possibility that black women — like Harris and Brown-Jackson — would do well to open themselves to partnering with men who are not black. After all, black men appear to have no problem marrying out: That same Pew report revealed they are twice as likely as black women to have a non-black spouse.

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I explained in the book why black women should not be pressured to sacrifice their own chances for happiness out of some misplaced loyalty to black men. Nor should black women feel beholden to black men under the guise of advancing the race. If the price of racial solidarity is a bad intimate relationship, then the cost is too high. {snip}

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