Commentary: The Furor Over Black Marriage

Depending on the day, my attitude toward traditional heterosexual marriage ranges from agnostic to pretty cynical, so perhaps what I say should be taken with a grain of salt. But the current obsession with the relatively low rates of marriage among African-Americans is starting to get on my nerves.

It's no easy thing to go against the pro-marriage tide, since the Crisis of the Black Family has been an established theme for damn near 50 years (if the notorious Moynihan Report of 1965 can be marked as its beginning). Moreover, our community's obsession with the issue does reflect some genuine yearning for the kind of haven in a heartless world that present conditions too often deny us. And who can deny the advantages of two stable, resourceful, mutually committed people (of opposite sex or not) working together to manage a household and raise children?

Therein lies problem with this one-sided discussion: the benefits of marriage are so relentlessly hyped that it's hard to believe that Black people haven't gotten the message by now. Whenever we come in for a public scolding on programs like CNN's "Black in America" series, it seems that the gathered Black talking heads never offer more than the most token resistance to the "fact" that heterosexual marriage should be the desired state for all Black people. Then we have contrived events such as the proudly heteronormative "National Black Marriage Day"--which, though undoubtedly well-meaning, gives off more than a whiff of Black insecurity, the kind that would make a besieged people say, "See, White America? We're worried about this problem too!"


Don't get me wrong: marriage is a legitimate aspiration for those for whom marriage makes sense, and its absence does correlate with a host of social problems, such as high dropout rates, drug addiction, and criminal involvement. But correlation is not causation, and by now you would think that the Black intelligentsia would have had enough of people characterizing our issues in sensationalizing ways that totally muddle cause and effect, not to mention obscuring important differences among Black people.

And some have. One is Melissa Harris-Perry, who took ABC's Nightline to task in a Nation column a year ago:

This time it was neither BET nor TV One spewing the oft repeated statistic that 43% of black women have never been married. This time it was the more surprising venue of ABC News’ Nightline insisting that a crisis exists because 70% of professional black women are without husbands. The conversation itself was far more dismal than these figures. The serious, interesting and sensitive social and personal issues embedded in these statistics were hijacked by superficial, cartoonish dialogue that relied heavily on personal anecdotes and baseless personal impressions while perpetuating damaging sexism.

And because we're talking about the evergreen subject of marriage, where there is no shortage of simplistic advice proffered by self-help gurus and hucksters, the perceived need to shore up Black America's commitment to the institution creates an opening for those with "expertise" to sell. Prof. Harris-Perry skewers comedian-turned-author Steve Harvey for his risible contribution to the whole sad genre:

Steve Harvey, Hill Harper and Jimi Izrael have all written books on the black marriage/partnership crisis. To varying levels, all of these texts frame the issue as a black female problem rather than a community issue, offering advice that encourages women to mold themselves into a more sanitized definition of femininity that doesn’t compete with socially sanctioned definitions of masculinity.

As Harris-Perry points out, none of the above authors can claim a successful marriage to one Black woman. Harvey, who is on his third marriage, is especially patronizing with his advice to professional Black women, cheerfully hectoring them about their unreasonable expectations, their lack of femininity, their castrating ways. In his book "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man" and his numerous TV and radio appearances, Harvey is full
of platitudinous wisdom about what sisters must do to snag a man, any man.

Renee Martin, writing for the blog Womanist Musings, has this to say about the monster Harvey and is ilk are feeding:

The White run media has made constant referral to the Black Bridgette Jones phenomenon, and this is based specifically in an understanding that the Black woman is the un-woman of the world. We are constructed as decidedly unfeminine, over sexualized beasts, while White femininity is uplifted. These stereotypes function to uplift both patriarchy and White supremacy, and this is specifically why they have become so pervasive.

Nice phrase, "the un-woman of the world." And I think she's exactly right. For Black women, obstacles to blissful coupledom can be everything from their ball-busting ambition and sexual uptightness, to their unresolved Daddy issues and even their religiosity. For those in our community who are unmarried and lamenting that fact, I suppose some amount of soul-searching on the subject can be useful. But the sexist tropes that are being advanced by the relentless pro-marriage drumbeat, in particular the insinuation that Black women need tutoring on the very basics of womanhood, is insulting to Black women and condescending to Black men (typically cast as the hapless victims of Black female craziness).

When the social causes of low Black marriage rates (high Black male unemployment, for example) are mentioned, they're typically treated as old news and glossed over. But it can't be said enough: in general, people get married because they have achieved a modest plateau of educational or career success, or have every reason to believe they will.

This was certainly the case for my youngest brother and his wife. She was on the fast track to a career as a physician, he was well on his way to becoming a successful computer engineer. They met in high school and have been joined at the hip ever since. They had every reason to see a future of successful partnership and middle-class stability. 

My point is that marriage can seem either more or less achievable depending on one's situation. Although half-hearted praise for Black single mothers often accompanies the pro-marriage alarmism, it's clear that single mothers who already struggle to be accepted as real mothers and women are ill-served by a discourse that positions them as having failed their children in the first instance, by not being married to their "baby daddies."

Poor Black men have their own problems, including drug addiction, homelessness, chronic joblessness and involvement in the criminal justice system. Of course, institutional racism is implicated in all of these. Within this group there are some who might make decent husbands and fathers if they could get their acts together. But wouldn't it be more constructive to work with Black men on strategies for them to become a positive presence in the community and in the lives of their children, even when marriage (or even cordial relations) with the mothers of their children is not in the cards?

Any discourse is defined by who it excludes. The single-minded focus on men vs. women disappears gay and lesbian Blacks, those with alternative lifestyles and sexualities, and those who have found interracial love while still doing good work in the community. Whenever gay Black men are mentioned at all, it's either in reference to the much-hyped "down low" phenomenon or as one more reason why "a good Black man is hard to find." Gays and lesbians are literally objectified as an expensive deviation at best, an insidious threat at worst.

It's hard to ask that people not be alarmed by the statistics, seeing as how marriage remains our most precious symbol of bourgeois striving and personal maturity. But as with other of our so-called "pathologies", I don't think it's unfair to ask for a little bit of humility in talking about the complex problems of a complex people.