Once Again; Successful Single Black Women Without a Man; Is it Because of Their Numerous Choices or Ours as Black Men that They Are Single Though?

At least I should give ABC some credit for bringing attention to the dilemmas that Black women go through. The last time I referenced one of their articles we were talking about how so many of our Black women were coming down with HIV. This time around Nightline decided to take on why Black women aren't married.

The usual statistics were thrown around; the amount of Black women that are going through interracial relationships have doubled; only 54% of Black Men are eligible to marry Black women anyway, because so many of us do not have a high school diploma, do not have a job, or are incarcerated. Did I forget the fact that 42% of Black women have never been married (more than twice as many as White women)? This is the thing; when they want to get a Black man's perspective on this they turn to Steve Harvey, of all people. Now he is a relationship guru, which is interesting because he makes a lot of money making fun of his own people on the radio everyday.

They talk about the "Black girl's curse", and the fact that their White counterparts are married and that they have lowered the bar by dating shorter men. The same issues come up though; Black women are always having to lower their standards, and admittedly, one of the Black women on the segment stated that White men never ask for her number. I can agree with Steve Harvey on the idea that his generation hasn't taught the generation following them on how to be a man, but Nightline appears to show us successful Black women we can safely assume are having trouble finding a man that makes as much money as they do.

I never understood it myself, and I'm sure we all know someone personally in this situation. A successful Black woman, that is leaving her thirties and entering into her forties that has never been married, and in some cases, has never even been proposed to. Black men that aren't successful at all, not even remotely, that marry another Black woman who isn't successful either at a young age, like 25. So this is what I want to know; because poor women, of all cultures, races, and creeds, do not seem to have any trouble getting married. From what I've gathered the only successful women in this world that have trouble getting, keeping, and maintaining a relationship that one day leads into marriage are Black women; what is wrong with this picture?

Perhaps I am a bit clueless, but being successful means that you have to be smart, talented, or at least have some modicum of dumb luck at something in this world. Why is it that these same women aren't smart, talented, or have some modicum of dumb luck when it comes to their relationships; that sounds cold, but you have to wonder. I mean I see a lot of other Black women in the measly administrative positions I often find myself working in, and they seem happy; they are outgoing, the life of the party, can talk a lot of interesting s* and are fun to be around, so why isn't anyone taking them seriously when it comes to a relationship? I am not talking about the hoodrats or the grimy girls from the slums that most Black men complain about I am talking about women that at least appear to be upwardly mobile and want something out of life, but clearly, they are no where near the level of success of the women in the Nightline segment, they are somewhere in-between. I wonder how many of them are married. I just have to wonder if there are some fundamental mistakes, over analysis, or other ill-fated decisions that these women are making that other successful women aren't making. I know I sound like an a*hole talking about this but you have to wonder because on the surface these women seem to have everything going on and if I were single I'd make a shot at it; I mean the worst that can happen is that you suffer rejection right?

Honestly, if I had the amount of money these women were bringing in, and I wasn't in a relationship and I was out on the dating scene I would be looking for another successful Black woman to share it with. A lot of Black men are infatuated with the idea that they can now date those Ivy League White women that never paid them any attention before, or rich Scandinavian women, or Jewish women, old money, or the latest Hollywood sensation another Kardashian or whatever have you, and that doesn't mean a lot to me because it is not all that it is cracked up to be. Most of these women, it is only because of the money, and you seem different enough to be exciting but safe enough otherwise, they have issues about societal taboos, whatever, a lot of times it is just a distraction. There are some cool women out there but that shouldn't be your main objective it should be whomever it is you truly find yourself genuinely attracted to. It is Black men, but it isn't, because I know I'm not the only one that thinks like this.

There are always more men than women, in general, why doesn't the mainstream media tell us this? If 21% of White women have never been married why is that exactly? The New York Times tells us that 51% of women are living without a spouse, which tells us that the majority of women are not married and that if anything, Black women are falling into the status quo, as opposed to becoming the exception. How many people do you know, of any race, that are living together, as opposed to getting married? According to the article, if anyone is getting married it is Asian women.

That was back in 2007. This brings us back to the same point though; we don't get married for any number of reasons the first being that as far as men are concerned, there is an abundance of women and because of the way that society has changed there is no clear reason to get married. It isn't as though anyone is marrying for sex these days clearly if your only reason to get married is for that reason there is something you aren't doing right there are plenty of women, of any race, that are willing to do that with you without getting married. The reason that I bring that up, is because the church sells that as one of the reasons why a relationship would not work and never lead into marriage. There are some statistics to back up that claim, if you want to look them up, but generally people who have experienced, for the most part, every aspect of an interpersonal relationship are not going to get married, at least to that individual they are in the relationship with, that is just the cold reality of the situation.

Another aspect is that the novelty of how sacred marriage should be is lost upon us. A lot of us have the idea that if the marriage does not work out we can get a divorce, and on some level that prevents you from ever getting married because an institution that is so easy to get out of is one that there is no rush to get into. There is a perception that marriage is simply a natural extension of the relationship, when in all actuality it is the true test of the commitment itself; there is nothing keeping you from cheating or acting outside of the relationship when you two are just dating. Seriously there isn't people get self-righteous and talk a good game but when you aren't married there is nothing that truly bonds you to that other person other than your own conscious. Your guilt may prevent you from going outside of that relationship, but society could care less. On the other hand, once you are married the guilt and shame of being caught with your hand in someone else's cookie jar, and the financial and spiritual repercussions of having done so, will keep you in line. A lot of people just do not want to shoulder that responsibility so they never make that next step.

There should be no correlation at all whatsoever as to how successful a Black woman is and whether or not she ever gets married, or if she can stay married once she does. If anything it is a testament to the isolating and polarizing aspects of what happens to us in relationships when options are presented to us. When we are poor and we have nothing, we don't have any trouble staying with each other at all but when we have a little bit of money, we either do not want to get married to each other or are more interested in going outside of the box to see what else is out there. At the same time, when are we going to graduate to the point where money is something that we take for granted and it does not have as much bearing in our lives, not just on our relationships, but with us in general. Marriage is about options just as sex is; on some levels those options are a bit more complex and in many ways they are the same. If Black women with money are in a candy store and cannot make up their mind on any one thing, because they have too many options or more options than a Black woman without anything that is one issue. If the Black men they encounter are those with that same indecision that is yet another thing but none of this defeats the perception that these women have the luxury of just putting things off yet another day, and another, and yet still another, until they are of the age where people may not want them anymore. Are these women victims of their own enlightenment, or do men simply take them for granted because there is always another Black woman that they can get what they want from?