42.5% of black women will not marry (in USA)

[spokette]

I was watching this film on DVd (fantastic film btw) and this was one of the stats used to underpin the discussions of the lead character with her girlfriends. In particular, well qualified black women are suffering from a paucity of available comparable black men and many are actively taking the decision to date outside their race (a major thing in the USA).

I was wondering if the similar situation exists here. I'm black and married to a white man as are 3 of my best friends who are also black. One Asian girlfriend dates African men much to the chagrin of her family and that is why she is still unmarried at age 39yo. Two other Asian girlfriends married other Asian guys but of differernt religions (bengali muslim/indian hindu).

So if black women in USA want to stay real (as they put it) and marry only black men, 42.5% will never marry. I find that staggering.

hmm... do the stats take cohabitation into account?

Mind you, as a black woman in the UK the number of never married women in my family are quite high...

As a black woman in the UK, I 'm finding lack of a suitable black potential partners here. So I have taken my search for a mate to the USA. I have encountered several suitable men, however , have come to realise I am suffering from 'the pursuit of perfection is a curse'disorder!

why is this such an issue with black women, who does these surveys?? You wont hear a survey of 'white' women etc................
Im a 'white' woman (hate the terminoligy) married to a black man, and of course get the looks from black women. I just dont get it!!! Why is there an obsession with race, just marry the person you love for god sake!!!!

I wonder if the figures you found are reliable or if they are from the same House of Bollocks as the old 'if you are over 35 you have more chance of being kidnapped by terrorists than getting married' a piece of 'news' which quite pleased those of us who would rather be kidnapped by terrorists than get married but which was utter rubbish with crap methodology and massaged figures.
But surveys like this are always about criticising women: for being too 'fussy' (ie they don't want relationships with men who beat them up/leech off them for money/cannot be relied on for anything) or too 'selfish' (women insist on being treated with kindness and courtesy and on having lives of their own) or for feminism having Gone Too Far (ie men cannot just expect their wishes and needs to take priority over womens because they have dicks). WOmen are far better off remaining unmarried than marrying horrible men just because they are told that to be unmarried is to have failed. ANd marrying nice men just in order to be married is not going to work, and is unethical.

3timer and Madamez, This issue is widely discussed by African-American women because it is their reality. Just read books by authors like Terry McMillan (Waiting to exhale and How Stella Got her groove back) to gain a insight into the pyche of these women. Oprah Winfrey has also covered this topic countless of times.

It is easy to be dimissive about something for which you have no empathy but it is their reality.

A similar issue also exists with American-Asian men because many Asian women (mainly those of Oriental origin) end up marrying Caucasian men.

The interracial gender gap for both black women and Asian men was confirmed by the 2000 census.

SPokette: I may have misunderstood your original post: is the problem that there are far more African-American women than there are African-American men, or that too many of the men are not worth having?

Madamez, it is the latter unfortunately.

My friends were discussing this last night and one of our favourite films is Disappearing Acts (based on book by Terry McMillan). That film typifies the dilemma faced by many professional black women. If they want a black man, the pool from which to choose is not very big unfortunately because once you remove those who prefer white women or black women with light skin and caucasian features, those who are gay, the pool of suitable men becomes tiny for the numbers of black women seeking their preference.

Do you remember the film Jungle Fever and Queen Latifah's waitress giving Wesley Snipe's character angst for dating a white woman? It is a major issue in the USA. The film I saw recently, Something New, addressed interracial dating and thankfully, it demonstrated that ultimately, love comes from the heart and not skin colour.

I'm a mixed-race woman who has married a white man. In the circles I've mixed in from university and beyond, I've never come into contact with black men who have the same ideals and "life-plan" as I do, so have never entered into relationships with any.

Saying that though, there are plenty of white/asian/etc men who I ALSO haven't had anything in common with!

I now live out in the US and would say I've come into contact with more "decent" black men here (decent isn't the right word, but I can't think what is) than I ever did in the UK.

There are definitely less inter-racial couples here that in the UK though.