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On a community level, explained Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks in his book , black women often face a type of pressure to marry within the race that white simply women do not experience.
“There is still enormous social pressure on black women to only marry black men—to ‘sustain’ the race and build strong black families,” Banks told me in an interview in 2011.
“In short, no matter the personal cost,” Banks said, “black women are encouraged to marry ‘down’ before they marry ‘out.'” So far, Obama’s kiss is been met with relatively little backlash.
This decorum, however, is likely to fade if Obama continues to date—and ultimately marry—outside her race.
Due to a host of societal conditions—from early death to mass incarceration—twice as many black women attend college as black men.
Among all demographics, African American women are the least likely to date outside their race—with barely 12% marrying non-black spouses.
Women, particularly Black women, are an easy target for a patriarchal industry.
It’s when one of our own joins rank with the establishment that we’ve got to really ask ourselves “What the hell is going on?
Forgive me for saying this, but I have a hard time stomaching this trend.
Unless you’re without access to the internet and broadband cable, by now you’ve heard that Black marriage rates are down and that Black women are more likely to be hit by lightning than to marry (I like to call this theory “The Black Female Thunderbolt Phenomenon”).
What began as a murmur of Black women’s character defects, sociologically based theory and statistical data has grown into a steady roar about our supposed lack of desirability.
Yet despite the shortage of black male peers, black women do not marry men of other races.
Black women marry across class lines, but not race lines.