Original url link posted on blog, "Black Women ARE Getting Married!" by Janet A. Jackson who is a member of the Black Women Connect site.
...For the last few years, I have been hearing from every source imaginable that the vast majority of black women will never marry. This never made sense to me because so many black women I know are married. And indeed, eventually, most black women do marry.
A look at recent census data will tell you that the 70 percent we keep hearing about has been misconstrued. According to 2009 data from the Census Bureau, 70.5 percent of black women in the United States had never been married — but those were women between the ages of 25 and 29. Black women marry later, but they do marry. By age 55 and above, those numbers showed, only 13 percent of black women had never been married. In fact, people who have never married in their lifetimes are in the clear minority, regardless of race.
With all the attention on black women, I had assumed that black men must be marrying in droves; otherwise they would be the focus of similar scrutiny. Not the case. Census numbers show that 73.1 percent of black men between the ages of 25 and 29 have never been married. That is actually higher than the numbers associated with black women.
Without warrant, black women have been the main focus of the “marriage crisis.” Marriage as the norm in the United States has been on the decline for decades; married couples now make up less than half of American households.
So why all of the negative attention on black women?
It is part of a persistent historical and present-day attack on black people in America, with black men made into deviants and black women into problems.
As Pearl Cleage writes in “Deals With the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot,” it’s a no-win competition. “We’re all in terrible shape because of the presence of racism and s*xism in our lives. ... s*xism is still not a word that gets used much in the black community, even though it describes a form of oppression that affects the majority population of the community — women! — and is no less virulent and deadly than racism."
The marriage crisis is the just the latest example.
There are logical reasons for black women to marry in their late 30s through their 40s, compared with women of other races who are more likely to marry in their late 20s and early 30s. Significantly more black women than black men are earning college degrees. That means significantly fewer black men are on college campuses, and thus in their 20s are not in the same arenas physically, educationally or professionally, making it more difficult to find black partners of equal footing — and the reality is that a lot of black women still prefer black men as partners. With age, the numbers of unmarried black women and men become significantly lower, suggesting that both find themselves at places in their lives where they are ready and able to commit.
Where are those black men who might be in college? The drug war has swept millions of poor people of color, a disproportionate number of whom are black men, into the criminal justice system. Generally, those men entering the system tend to be in their 20s, the age at which many women embark on their educational and career aspirations. These men have significantly reduced employment and economic opportunities and are sometimes viewed as less viable partners. ...
Read More....
http://tinyurl.com/73eualr Read Janet A. Jackson's Blog and comment on the much heated debate there!!!
"Black Women ARE Getting Married!"
http://blackwomenconnect.com/content/22381...
Posted By: Jen Fad
Friday, December 16th 2011 at 11:24AM
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