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Even with an African American couple in the White House, the fate of the black family in America has never so precarious. It seems that the black community have dispensed with marriage.
The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, they have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. And especially for those African American women, it is said about 70 percent of black women are unmarried (meaning either having never been married, divorced, separated or widowed now), compared to 45 percent of unmarried white women. It seems that Michelle Obama appears to have it all-- law career, strong marriage, happy children, but marriage and family eludes many black women in reality.
Professor Ralph Richard Banks have studied about this crisis in African American women in his book Is Marriage for White People? : How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone. However, he put the perspective only on the high educated black women. He indicated that “Jumping the Broom” has become less and less popular not only among ghetto- dwelling blacks but also among the middle and upper-classes. This crisis in the black “relationship market”, as Mr. Banks call it, starts with a “man shortage”. This is not just meaning the number of marriageable is less and less (since that about one in ten black in their early thirties are in prison.), but also mean that black women are they outnumber men in education group: two black women graduate from college for ever black man, and as a group, black men have also fallen behind in education and income just as black women have surged ahead. Many black women rise into the middle class, but the black men still stay in the lower class.
In a word, in an era of black men on the “down low , the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the decline of the stable blue-collar jobs that black men used to hold, linking one’s fate to a black man makes marriage a risky business for a black woman. That is why so many black women chose to be single, of the others; many are forced into “man-sharing”. But still, many black women respond by “marrying down”, as Mr. Banks puts it. As a result, that makes bad marriages. Two out of every three black marriage fail, about twice the rate of white marriage. (The most interesting thing is Michael Obama married with President Obama when he was just a student, but she has been a successful lawyer. In a certain degree, Michael Obama “married down” to President Obama. )
How to solve this problem? Professor Ralph Richard Banks offers a surprising solution to the burgeoning problem, which makes his book be a controversial opus. In his book, he says only about 9 percent of black women are married to men of a different race—compare that to 41percent of Hispanic women, 48 percent of Asian women and 58 percent of Native American women in the United States. So he encourages those black women getting out of their comfort zone and entering more romantic relationship with Caucasian, Asians and Latinos-----to “marry out”.
Banks’ basic thesis is that because black females are generally better-educated and make more money than brothers, it is silly for them to restrict themselves to a dating pool of just black men. Besides, he says black males tend to take them for granted, and to think nothing of sleeping with more than one woman at once. That is the truth, unlikely from the black women, highly educated or rich black men tend to “out marry” at a higher rate. Those black men in America have too many options, “If you have for quality women you’re dating and they‘re in a rotation, who’s going to rush into a marriage?”, as one black men told Professor Banks.
However, the suggestion of Professor Banks arouses waves of abuse. Black men accused him of advocating genocide. And some black women still regard intermarriage as tantamount to betraying the race. “My black heart,” says one black woman as she contemplates marring out, “I would need to turn it in.” “We know it is struggle.” says another,” but we women got to stand by the black man. If we don’t who will?”
However, the reality is that the problem is not as simple as Professor Banks describe or try to solve. At least it is not just “to save the middle class African American women from the sadness of being single “which is almost the aim of Professor Banks’ book.
For this problem there are two groups of black women we should consider more. One is a certain kind of group who are single but with one or more than one out-of-wedlock babies. Those women and children are the real victims of this marriage crisis in American black community. The other one is the black women who are not well-educated or in the middle class, but who are still struggling with the poverty.( At least these highly educated black women can have a comfortable life, can give their children a good education.) I think these two groups of black have some inner connection and some African American women are even in both groups. I also insist they the reason of why we research African American women’s marriage.
Forty years ago, a government report on the state of the black family in America warned that almost one out of four black children were born to unmarried mothers. Recent figures suggest that now, almost 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. Many people may say
As of 2010, the poverty rate among non-Hispanic whites was 9.9%, whereas the poverty rate among African Americans was 27.4%.
Long term poverty is rare for whites. Almost 9 out of 10 long-term poor children are African American and more than 6 out of long-term poor children have spent time in single-parent families. Poverty in a child's most formative years is critical to shaping a child's future attainments in terms of test scores, schooling, fertility choices, labor market outcomes and incomes. Research has shown that parents who devote all of their time to meeting consumption needs have little time, money, and energy left to improve their own lives and their children's education and skills. Because lower and middle-class African Americans attend lower quality schools, have less formalized forms of social control, fewer job networks, and fewer good role models, this causes many African Americans to turn to teen gangs and crime. The parental associations between disadvantage and material deprivation may also reproduce itself intergenerationally through harsh, inconsistent parenting styles and a failure to provide an emotional and cognitive environment conducive to healthy growth. Although middle-class African Americans may earn more than their lower-class African American counterparts, research shows that disadvantage is not just related to income itself, but the disadvantages associated with race, discrimination, and intergenerational deprivation. Race is a proxy for a historical disadvantage which is being reproduced despite income and material gains for the Black middle class.
In 2009, 72% of black babies were born out of wedlock, compared with 28% of white women.[17]
Empirical evidence demonstrates that blacks have less upward mobility than whites. A report done by the Pew Research Center in 2007 says that of the sons and daughters of the black middle class, 45% of black children end up "near poor", and the comparable rate for white families is 16%.[16] The trend of downward mobility has caused the overall majority of middle-class-black children to end up with lower incomes than their parents. While 68% of white children earn incomes above their parents, 31% of black children earn incomes more than their parents did.[16] The lower rate of upward mobility could be caused by the lack of married blacks, and the number of blacks born out of wedlock. In 2009, 72% of black babies were born out of wedlock, compared with 28% of white women.[17]
Research shows children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of social and emotional problems.
Copyright © 2005 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
ED GORDON, host:
More than four decades ago, a controversial report was released by the government that warned the black family was in danger. It stated that one out of four black children were born out of wedlock. Recent figures suggest that now almost 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. Commentator Clarence Page gives us his take on the realities behind these numbers and the state of black marriage as he sees it.
CLARENCE PAGE:
Forty years ago, a blockbuster leaked out of the White House. It wasn't a national security leak or a high-level scandal, although some people treated it like one. It was a confidential memo to President Johnson titled, in the language of those times, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." The author was an assistant Labor secretary named Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The Moynihan report on the black family warned that almost one out of four black children were born to unmarried parents, more than twice the rate for whites. The unraveling of the black family, Moynihan wrote, caused a tangle of pathology, including high rates of delinquency, joblessness and school failure.
Reaction to the Moynihan report was heated and harsh. Its timing didn't help. Someone leaked it to the press in August only a few days before the Watts section of Los Angeles exploded in race riots. Black leaders and social scientists in particular were offended that the Johnson administration might be blaming the victims for the problems of poverty, discrimination and injustice that led to riots in black neighborhoods. They weren't. Quite the contrary. Lyndon Johnson successfully pushed more civil rights, antipoverty and other bills than any president before him, but the decline of black marriage continued. By 1980, more than half of black births were out of wedlock. Today, it's more than two-thirds. And here's something Moynihan did not anticipate. Marriage has declined among white parents, too. White out-of-wedlock births have increased to a rate higher than the one in four that black births reached 40 years ago. I have yet to hear anyone talk about a tangle of white pathology.
Most folks concede that marriage is down all around. Few agree on what can or should be done about it. Get people off welfare? We've done that. The drastic welfare reform Newt Gingrich proposed and President Clinton signed nine years ago has succeeded beyond expectations. More welfare mothers are working. Fewer black children live in poverty. Yet while black child poverty has declined, black marriage has not increased. Part of the problem? Black men continued to leave the job market despite welfare reform and the '90s economic boom. Welfare reform has done a good job of putting welfare mothers to work. But 40 years after Moynihan dared to ask in his memo, the question lingers: What about the fathers?
GORDON: Clarence Page is a nationally syndicated columnist for The Chicago Tribune.
This is NPR News.
More children are now being born outside of marriage, according to a new study by the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values.
The report focuses on what it calls "middle-America," the nearly 60 percent of Americans who complete high school but not college.
Among that group, 44 percent of children are now born outside of marriage. That's up from 13 percent in the 1980s.
How does growing up with parents who are not married impact a child? Dr. Linda Mintle, family therapist and author of Raising Healthy Kids in an Unhealthy World, explains.
"Marriage in middle America is at a tipping point, with unwed childbearing threatening to become a new norm," study co-author Brad Wilcox said.
Research shows children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of social and emotional problems.
"The retreat from marriage is both a cause and a consequence of increasing inequality in America," report co-author David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, said.
Report lead author Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, called the nation's leaders to step up to the plate.
"The president and all our nation's leaders must confront the marriage challenge in Middle America with the urgency and compassion it deserves," she said.
The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, they have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. And especially for those African American women, it is said about 70 percent of black women are unmarried (meaning either having never been married, divorced, separated or widowed now), compared to 45 percent of unmarried white women. It seems that Michelle Obama appears to have it all-- law career, strong marriage, happy children, but marriage and family eludes many black women in reality.
Professor Ralph Richard Banks have studied about this crisis in African American women in his book Is Marriage for White People? : How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone. However, he put the perspective only on the high educated black women. He indicated that “Jumping the Broom” has become less and less popular not only among ghetto- dwelling blacks but also among the middle and upper-classes. This crisis in the black “relationship market”, as Mr. Banks call it, starts with a “man shortage”. This is not just meaning the number of marriageable is less and less (since that about one in ten black in their early thirties are in prison.), but also mean that black women are they outnumber men in education group: two black women graduate from college for ever black man, and as a group, black men have also fallen behind in education and income just as black women have surged ahead. Many black women rise into the middle class, but the black men still stay in the lower class.
In a word, in an era of black men on the “down low , the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the decline of the stable blue-collar jobs that black men used to hold, linking one’s fate to a black man makes marriage a risky business for a black woman. That is why so many black women chose to be single, of the others; many are forced into “man-sharing”. But still, many black women respond by “marrying down”, as Mr. Banks puts it. As a result, that makes bad marriages. Two out of every three black marriage fail, about twice the rate of white marriage. (The most interesting thing is Michael Obama married with President Obama when he was just a student, but she has been a successful lawyer. In a certain degree, Michael Obama “married down” to President Obama. )
How to solve this problem? Professor Ralph Richard Banks offers a surprising solution to the burgeoning problem, which makes his book be a controversial opus. In his book, he says only about 9 percent of black women are married to men of a different race—compare that to 41percent of Hispanic women, 48 percent of Asian women and 58 percent of Native American women in the United States. So he encourages those black women getting out of their comfort zone and entering more romantic relationship with Caucasian, Asians and Latinos-----to “marry out”.
Banks’ basic thesis is that because black females are generally better-educated and make more money than brothers, it is silly for them to restrict themselves to a dating pool of just black men. Besides, he says black males tend to take them for granted, and to think nothing of sleeping with more than one woman at once. That is the truth, unlikely from the black women, highly educated or rich black men tend to “out marry” at a higher rate. Those black men in America have too many options, “If you have for quality women you’re dating and they‘re in a rotation, who’s going to rush into a marriage?”, as one black men told Professor Banks.
However, the suggestion of Professor Banks arouses waves of abuse. Black men accused him of advocating genocide. And some black women still regard intermarriage as tantamount to betraying the race. “My black heart,” says one black woman as she contemplates marring out, “I would need to turn it in.” “We know it is struggle.” says another,” but we women got to stand by the black man. If we don’t who will?”
However, the reality is that the problem is not as simple as Professor Banks describe or try to solve. At least it is not just “to save the middle class African American women from the sadness of being single “which is almost the aim of Professor Banks’ book.
For this problem there are two groups of black women we should consider more. One is a certain kind of group who are single but with one or more than one out-of-wedlock babies. Those women and children are the real victims of this marriage crisis in American black community. The other one is the black women who are not well-educated or in the middle class, but who are still struggling with the poverty.( At least these highly educated black women can have a comfortable life, can give their children a good education.) I think these two groups of black have some inner connection and some African American women are even in both groups. I also insist they the reason of why we research African American women’s marriage.
Forty years ago, a government report on the state of the black family in America warned that almost one out of four black children were born to unmarried mothers. Recent figures suggest that now, almost 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. Many people may say
As of 2010, the poverty rate among non-Hispanic whites was 9.9%, whereas the poverty rate among African Americans was 27.4%.
Long term poverty is rare for whites. Almost 9 out of 10 long-term poor children are African American and more than 6 out of long-term poor children have spent time in single-parent families. Poverty in a child's most formative years is critical to shaping a child's future attainments in terms of test scores, schooling, fertility choices, labor market outcomes and incomes. Research has shown that parents who devote all of their time to meeting consumption needs have little time, money, and energy left to improve their own lives and their children's education and skills. Because lower and middle-class African Americans attend lower quality schools, have less formalized forms of social control, fewer job networks, and fewer good role models, this causes many African Americans to turn to teen gangs and crime. The parental associations between disadvantage and material deprivation may also reproduce itself intergenerationally through harsh, inconsistent parenting styles and a failure to provide an emotional and cognitive environment conducive to healthy growth. Although middle-class African Americans may earn more than their lower-class African American counterparts, research shows that disadvantage is not just related to income itself, but the disadvantages associated with race, discrimination, and intergenerational deprivation. Race is a proxy for a historical disadvantage which is being reproduced despite income and material gains for the Black middle class.
In 2009, 72% of black babies were born out of wedlock, compared with 28% of white women.[17]
Empirical evidence demonstrates that blacks have less upward mobility than whites. A report done by the Pew Research Center in 2007 says that of the sons and daughters of the black middle class, 45% of black children end up "near poor", and the comparable rate for white families is 16%.[16] The trend of downward mobility has caused the overall majority of middle-class-black children to end up with lower incomes than their parents. While 68% of white children earn incomes above their parents, 31% of black children earn incomes more than their parents did.[16] The lower rate of upward mobility could be caused by the lack of married blacks, and the number of blacks born out of wedlock. In 2009, 72% of black babies were born out of wedlock, compared with 28% of white women.[17]
Research shows children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of social and emotional problems.
Copyright © 2005 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
ED GORDON, host:
More than four decades ago, a controversial report was released by the government that warned the black family was in danger. It stated that one out of four black children were born out of wedlock. Recent figures suggest that now almost 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. Commentator Clarence Page gives us his take on the realities behind these numbers and the state of black marriage as he sees it.
CLARENCE PAGE:
Forty years ago, a blockbuster leaked out of the White House. It wasn't a national security leak or a high-level scandal, although some people treated it like one. It was a confidential memo to President Johnson titled, in the language of those times, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." The author was an assistant Labor secretary named Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The Moynihan report on the black family warned that almost one out of four black children were born to unmarried parents, more than twice the rate for whites. The unraveling of the black family, Moynihan wrote, caused a tangle of pathology, including high rates of delinquency, joblessness and school failure.
Reaction to the Moynihan report was heated and harsh. Its timing didn't help. Someone leaked it to the press in August only a few days before the Watts section of Los Angeles exploded in race riots. Black leaders and social scientists in particular were offended that the Johnson administration might be blaming the victims for the problems of poverty, discrimination and injustice that led to riots in black neighborhoods. They weren't. Quite the contrary. Lyndon Johnson successfully pushed more civil rights, antipoverty and other bills than any president before him, but the decline of black marriage continued. By 1980, more than half of black births were out of wedlock. Today, it's more than two-thirds. And here's something Moynihan did not anticipate. Marriage has declined among white parents, too. White out-of-wedlock births have increased to a rate higher than the one in four that black births reached 40 years ago. I have yet to hear anyone talk about a tangle of white pathology.
Most folks concede that marriage is down all around. Few agree on what can or should be done about it. Get people off welfare? We've done that. The drastic welfare reform Newt Gingrich proposed and President Clinton signed nine years ago has succeeded beyond expectations. More welfare mothers are working. Fewer black children live in poverty. Yet while black child poverty has declined, black marriage has not increased. Part of the problem? Black men continued to leave the job market despite welfare reform and the '90s economic boom. Welfare reform has done a good job of putting welfare mothers to work. But 40 years after Moynihan dared to ask in his memo, the question lingers: What about the fathers?
GORDON: Clarence Page is a nationally syndicated columnist for The Chicago Tribune.
This is NPR News.
More children are now being born outside of marriage, according to a new study by the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values.
The report focuses on what it calls "middle-America," the nearly 60 percent of Americans who complete high school but not college.
Among that group, 44 percent of children are now born outside of marriage. That's up from 13 percent in the 1980s.
How does growing up with parents who are not married impact a child? Dr. Linda Mintle, family therapist and author of Raising Healthy Kids in an Unhealthy World, explains.
"Marriage in middle America is at a tipping point, with unwed childbearing threatening to become a new norm," study co-author Brad Wilcox said.
Research shows children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of social and emotional problems.
"The retreat from marriage is both a cause and a consequence of increasing inequality in America," report co-author David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, said.
Report lead author Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, called the nation's leaders to step up to the plate.
"The president and all our nation's leaders must confront the marriage challenge in Middle America with the urgency and compassion it deserves," she said.
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