Not married to or looking to marry black? Shut up about Black Marriage.
This is a post in response to this piece here …I typically don’t enjoy promoting articles I think suck. I really don’t like to do it, because I feel like if something is so terrible, why even suggest anyone else read it, you know? But I can’t let this one sit. First, I want to say I respect the author in *some* ways. She is the champion of the “No Wedding, No Womb” movement, and while I think the movement has very serious, very judgmental, accusative branches, at the core, its heart was in the right place. I also am not IN LOVE with her book, and don’t necessarily enthusiastically ride the “hey black girls, black men ain’t shit so let’s learn how to mingle with the white man” train, but I ALSO read my cousin Ralph Richard Banks’ novel ‘Is Marriage for White People’ (a book for which my father was interviewed, whoop whoop!) and I get the statistic and environmental push for interracial marriage, in order to ALSO encourage black men and women to marry more often. So, even though I don’t necessarily LOVE her message, I can say I sort of can see where Christelyn D. Karazin is coming from. I just think she should have kept her hand out of this particular cookie jar.
When I first read this post on the BlogHer site, I immediately took to twitter to rant:
“I have a SERIOUSLY FN BAD ATTITUDE about that last RT. If you are in an interracial relationship, I am about to throw out a wide net, but I swear I don’t hate any of you…BUT I AM SO DAMN SICK AND TIRED OF BLACK PEOPLE WHO HAVE MARRIED WHITE PEOPLE COMMENTING NEGATIVELY ON THE DISMAL STATE OF BLACK AFFAIRS. Sick sick sick sickity fucking sick of it. It reeks of “look at me, whitey saved me, now what’s wrong with y’all?” to me, for one, but even though THAT may just be my opinion creeping in, what say do you have on the state of black marriage when your ass isn’t even IN ONE? Don’t sit here and admonish black women who get pregnant out of wedlock, black moms who encourage black sons not to marry the women they’ve impregnated, or the black community as a whole for not being fucking married when you didn’t even marry a damn black person yourself. You are OFFICIALLY a part of the gotdamn problem. You’re writing the dang article, as if you’re somehow unaware that you’re a contributing fucking factor. “My Captain-Save-A-Sperm ass white fiancé was sure to use condoms because he didn’t want me pregnant dishonestly. Look at this GOOD white boy and his GOOD white family that MADE HIM MARRY that poor black girl” I could spit fucking fire right now. What kills me about these married-to-perfect-whitey folks is that they don’t ask their spouses questions like: “Hey Todd, babe, why are white people responsible for the utter demise of the black family?” NO articles called “White People FUNDAMENTALLY FUCKING UP the Black Family Structure Via Systematic Enslavement & Its Grave Aftereffects.” Nope. Wouldn’t touch that with a stick, because their good white spouse married them all the way up. But it’s totally cool to talk about why Keisha & Tyrone are lesser NOW.”
I am going to try to convey a less angry, less cursy message here. Maybe I am missing her point among all of the white praise she does in the piece. Maybe, somewhere amongst all the muck about how the nice white Grandparents wouldn’t allow their grandchild to be brought into the world without married parents, or her valiant white fiancé turned husband wouldn’t stop using a condom, because he wanted her motherhood to be honest and good…maybe somewhere there’s a message. Or a cohesive thought, outside of criticism of black people and praise of their white counterparts. Maybe I missed that, because I am just so blinded by her blatant glorification of “the whites” despite the fact that the grandparents had to “get over” their son marrying a black woman. Considering that uncomfortable white parents were a part of her perfect cookie cutter experience too, perhaps she didn’t see that as an issue…
But, you know what? Mostly I am upset because I don’t think a person with a white husband has any room to discuss the dismal state of Black Marriage, because, hell, she’s contributing to it. She was very quick to point out the huge disparity between unwed births among the races, but not so quick to point toward numbers which show how many black men who DO actually marry…aren’t marrying black women. And how a growing number of black women, is in fact, doing the same thing. That would be too much to look into because of course; those things are ok as a part of the agenda she’s pushing.
Buy this book. Its by someone related to me.
I also find it HILARIOUS that people continue to ask these “what’s wrong with the black community” questions, but NEVER ask the tough, hard hitting questions like…”Why is it so hard for the white community to recognize the fundamental damage slavery, segregation, war, classism and drug use did to the black community, AND HOW CAN THEY HELP FIX IT?”. Of course that won’t ever get asked, because we need to just get over it. I mean, it’s been over a hundred years since slavery, it’s been decades since segregation, and it’s been at least most baby boomers youngest children’s life cycles since the Regan Administration, right? So why aren’t you all educated, off drugs, mentally sound, and nurturing perfect families by now? C’mon (black) guys, get it together!
I am not giving complacency a pass. I think the black community glorifies Evelyn Lozada who admits to eating her fiancés ass & inviting multiple women into the bedroom “to keep things fresh” instead of healthy communication, seeking a mate beyond superficial reasons, spiritual connection and dating for compatibility instead of the promise of sex. I think we have a lot of work to do as mothers, fathers and children to contribute to a better future for ourselves, and I do think the responsibility lies solely within our community, as no one else will clean up any messes that were made. I just think that if you aren’t necessarily pro-black family, and you’re out in the streets writing books about how its more beneficial to date outside of the race anyway, what could you possibly have to offer a discussion pertaining to Black Marriage? I mean…besides the obvious white praise and negativity that everyone else has ALREADY added…
Did you read the article? What do YOU think?
Tags: Black Marriage, Interracial, Marriage, People, White
I think its the type of piece designed to make people mad but drive traffic to both Blog Her and Chris’s site. Like you I have some respect for Chris, so much so that early on I thought the No wedding, no womb thing was okay until it turned into a bash brothers fest or make sistas efeel inferior movement. The reasons why “we” don’t marry are larger than simply “bad” choices, in many ways it’s systemic. Lest we not forget at one point historically we weren’t allowed to marry. Anyway I like what you said, might blog on it myself.
I have come to agree with that. I think the post was for views/responses more than depth and correctness. Please do blog on the topic, I think a better, more expanded dialogue is neessary.
Agreed! Funny, in my interracial relationship, I’m the one always asking or ranting about what Whitey has done to ___ community. I haven’t heard/read much on the idea that partnering interracially is good for XYZ reasons. We certainly didn’t make that choice for those reasons, we simply liked each other & both didn’t care what other people thought + were willing to take on whatever might come our way because of it.
Does your Uncle’s book make the argument, “Interracial relationships encourage Black people to marry”? That’s what it seems you implied but I’m not certain. Do you agree? If so, does it only encourage them to marry interracially or just as often w/a Black partner? Do you think the encouragement happens because they’re around peers who are marrying (so the norm is established), or because there is a perceived advantage to marrying a White person?
As for Black people and the state of marriage within their community, I have little to legitimately add other than the observation that I know just as many – actually, probably more – Black people who are married than not, and 90% of them have Black partners.
I think that’s the best way relationships start. It bothers me that there is a ‘movement’ to encourage interracial dating within the black female community. I feel like we shouldn’t have to insert ourselves into situations that encourage marriage. What happened to just meeting, liking and falling in love with folks organically? That bugs me, that we have to read books to re-socialize ourselves so that we can adapt and “fit in” to other cultures and with other men so that we make ourselves more marketable. I think it perpetuates the idea that we, as is, aren’t enough and we have to make changes to be enough for ALL kinds of men and not just black men, and then I think it incites panic, which is why we have posts like this.
My cousins book argues that if more women weren’t concerned about being with a black man, and married outside of their race, that would offer a push for more black marriage because it would level the playing field. Currently, more black men who are married are married to women outside of their race than black women. If black women follow suit, it would decrease the pool of black women, and encourage black men who are single and eligible for marriage to settle down, because they have more limited options. While it seems sound, its just a theory. I actually take it for exactly what it is, which is a theory. I don’t know, once again, if the solution for the black family is encouraging us to seek out other options.
That’s also interesting to ME. Being that I was raised in a middle class home, I was born to married parents, and even though they divorced, they both remarried and are still in those marriages. In addition, this summer we have something like 6 or 7 black on black marriages, and every time I turn around, someone new I know is marrying someone else. And they are all black. I actually only personally know TWO interracial couples out of ALL the couples I do know. While statistics/numbers don’t lie, its also a lot about perspective. Had there been no articles every five seconds on the matter, I wouldn’t have given a lot of thought to a black marriage crisis as its not necessarily my reality.
if i’m wrong but the vast majority of black men who marry are married to black women – over 85% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States
[...] the strange race-baiting, good-white-man-glorifying aspects of Karazin’s piece have also already been discussed, I’m not going to spend much time belaboring either of those [...]
First I would like to say I love your Blog and I’m from Cleveland. Secondly that article was so condescending , one sided and totally berated Black men and women. Nor did it offer any helpful solutions or guidelines. Then she goes on to gloss over her in-laws obvious disappointment with their son marrying a Black woman. Has if it was just a simple misunderstanding. The whole thing felt like I was a child being chastised. Clearly someone who is so out of touch with their own racial identity.
Thank you for reading Kat. I totally agree, the article WAS condescending and one sided. And that DID burn me up. Not only did it not offer solutions or guidelines, it didn’t even open up the floor for discussion very well, IMO. Thanks again for reading, and come back again!
Wow. You don’t have one clue as to what you are talking about. White people didn’t destroy Black Marriage, WE DID, and ARE. It’s well documented that 1960, a majority of black women were married. It was in the 1970s, after Integration when that changed. The Sexual Revolution was one of the dominant themes in white America and we followed them blindly. Slavery didn’t destroy Black Marriage, hello we ‘Jumped the Broom’ until we legally could get married. Even when we were considered property, we started our own tradition to honor our unions so I call BS on the idea that white people destroyed Black marriage. White people did/do a lot of things but this is one we can’t put on them. We need to look at why we pattern ourselves after them, even now when we’re worse off now than before Integration but that’s for another discussion.
Second, just because someone marries interracially doesn’t mean they don’t support the Black family. I would think someone promoting Ralph Richard Banks book would see that since he argues more black women marrying across racial lines will help black marriage because if there are less black women around for black men to choose from, it might spark more initiative on their part to actually date, find a woman they like and marry her, rather than date women in rotation. He theorizes Black marriage rates will actually INCREASE if more Black women marry interracially.
Third, have you considered that there are black women who would love to marry a black man but end up crossing color lines because the black men they encounter can’t or won’t give them what they want (be a good marriage partner, good father, good provider etc.) and a man who isn’t black can/will?
Fourth, I take issue with Christelyn too but her main idea is that black women should not limit themselves by race and that I respect. There’s no reason a Black woman should deny herself what might be her highest happiness because a loud minority takes issue with it. You clearly have some personal issue with Christelyn. I don’t know why. That’s for you to deal with.
Fifth, this whole article is one huge generalization. Some Black women aren’t necessarily looking to marry a non-Black man but if the man who makes us happy ends up being non-Black, so be it. Some women (like myself) are looking for a man to love them, respect them, be a good father and husband. If he ends up being black, great, if not, that’s cool too. We’re looking for a person, not a race.
Sixth, THERE ARE OTHER MEN OUT THERE BESIDES BLACK OR WHITE!!!!!! WHAT ABOUT HISPANIC, ASIAN, LATIN AMERICAN MEN???!!!!
I have read and re-read your response. First I tried to reply, because I thought…well maybe she didn’t READ what I wrote, so I went into a diatribe, correcting your errors. Then I actually attempted to address that ‘personal issues with Christelyn’ thing…like dear Lord. Personal issues? I don’t know the woman. I disagree with something she wrote, but that equals personal issues? Ok.
This post isn’t about my feelings on interracial marriage. I think women who find a man who loves them and cares for them and is a good partner, that is AWESOME. What I won’t do, is listen to a woman with a white husband, who pushes a non-black husband AGENDA complain about black men & women, while praising racist white people and their “ideals”.
If you disagree with me in your six point response, or think I am so totally wrong and have so many issues, stop skimming through my pieces (which you HAD to do, because I said the *exact* same thing you did about the Banks novel) and don’t reply to me. Further, your response reads to ME like YOU might be that hopeless black woman looking to marry whoever loves her, who has maybe stopped holding out for a black man, and you don’t want to be painted into an “I don’t support the black family” corner. That’s cool, we don’t know each other, so I guarantee my opinion won’t haunt you and your (insert race here) husband for life. Good luck!
[...] since the strange race-baiting, good-white-man-glorifying aspects of Karazin’s piece have also already been discussed, I’m not going to spend much time belaboring either of those [...]