Oh Lord, Black Love Will Keep You Broke

[LunadeMiel]

I don’t know what the answer is collectively but I just don’t entertain bm that don’t make a certain amount because I have my offspring to think about..and unpopular opinion but there’s a bigger pool of men with means if you’re not fixated on your local AA men that may or may not have much, you don’t have to date down, equal or be single forever.

Right, there's a larger pool of marriageable black men if women want to enlarge their pool. I've been trying to marry off my mon konpe for a while now. I'm afraid a colonizer is going to get him

 

[TCatt86]

I agree with you. Life is a series of choices and trade offs, particularly if you're black. We want easy solutions to societal problems but there aren't any. We can make better choices in our individual lives and do better than we have been but as you said, some stuff just comes with the territory of living in racist America. The sooner we realize this the better.

It goes back to a previous thread where you said we need to stop using white people as the barometer of success. We are using them as the barometer so of course we are losing because we're comparing ourselves to people that have set it up for us to fail.

 

[Black Ambrosia]

I’m not even mad at Tameka and Keith. Making that kind of money it’s more surprising that he’s not a SAHD.

 

[Femmefatal1981]

I’m not even mad at Tameka and Keith. Making that kind of money it’s more surprising that he’s not a SAHD.

He’d have to be because retail hours aren’t family friendly

 

[TCatt86]

I am on the Pink Pill mailing list and I saw she sent out an e-mail last night referencing this article and basically like yelling fire in a movie theater. This will be fodder for all the wrong debates, I am sure of it.

That's never too far off from these type of findings

 

[BEAUTYU2U]

Right, there's a larger pool of marriageable black men if women want to enlarge their pool. I've been trying to marry off my mon konpe for a while now. I'm afraid a colonizer is going to get him

Just to be clear, you're recommending mobility for finding more marriageable BM? Or different nationalities, ethnicities of BM?

 

[UmSumayyah]

When you think about it, this isn't REALLY new news.

BW have been observing since at least the 80s that there aren't as many upwardly mobile bm as black women.

BW have known since at least the nineties that there aren't as many bm as there are bw, period.

BW have been observing since at least the 80s that bm are more likely to marry out, especially the upwardly mobile ones.

BW responded to that by a)doubling down and competing to be chosen by those upper income bm who would date and possibly marry them, b)marrying down and c)choosing to remain single. Some of those women remained single and childless and some of those took the consolation prize of at least having a child

BW have watched their never-married status and their oow rate rise precipitously over the past few decades with relatively little fuss. (Made a huge stink about that baby-carrier packaging though)

The obvious result is that
a) bw have a lower household income than if they had a partner at or above their level, and this means that higher-earning bw do not reap the same benefits of personal advancement that other women do
b) this is compounded if they must also support children on this income.
b.1 multiply the issue if they must support children the bm brings to the marriage/relationship (Jill Scott)
c) given how often bw support extended family members, the income must further stretch, leaving less for her own children, household expenses, savings etc.


Conclusion: BW who make the class jump are (overall) held back when they partner (marriage or not) with bm.

BW overall have decided that it's better to mate with bm for decades. I really don't see how this one study, which simply distills what we already know, would or could change that.

 

[Layluh]

 

[Southernbella.]

When you think about it, this isn't REALLY new news.

BW have been observing since at least the 80s that there aren't as many upwardly mobile bm as black women.

BW have known since at least the nineties that there aren't as many bm as there are bw, period.

BW have been observing since at least the 80s that bm are more likely to marry out, especially the upwardly mobile ones.

BW responded to that by a)doubling down and competing to be chosen by those upper income bm who would date and possibly marry them, b)marrying down and c)choosing to remain single. Some of those women remained single and childless and some of those took the consolation prize of at least having a child

BW have watched their never-married status and their oow rate rise precipitously over the past few decades with relatively little fuss. (Made a huge stink about that baby-carrier packaging though)

The obvious result is that
a) bw have a lower household income than if they had a partner at or above their level, and this means that higher-earning bw do not reap the same benefits of personal advancement that other women do
b) this is compounded if they must also support children on this income.
b.1 multiply the issue if they must support children the bm brings to the marriage/relationship (Jill Scott)
c) given how often bw support extended family members, the income must further stretch, leaving less for her own children, household expenses, savings etc.


Conclusion: BW who make the class jump are (overall) held back when they partner (marriage or not) with bm.

BW overall have decided that it's better to mate with bm for decades. I really don't see how this one study, which simply distills what we already know, would or could change that.

But according to their model, the gap remains even for black women who DON'T marry down.

 

[Southernbella.]

Sorry, I meant to highlight the portion regarding what the "average black man" was supposed to do about income equality. My answer is that the same thing that the average black woman is doing - whatever they can do. We do not give black women an out when it comes to clawing out an existence in a racially oppressive society and now that I have been proved wrong by the study that says that black women are just as likely to receive aggressive treatment from the police as black men including getting shot, the ounce of sympathy that I had for black male oppression is gone.

Every single racial group in America is a patriarchy. Some productive, some not. Black men gotta figure out how to make theirs both productive and profitable.


I have no doubt that the reason for these surveys is to get money for funding for interventions that will be implemented by white people who will have to overcome their own instilled racism in order to be effective. Since I don't have a whole lot of faith in that resulting in more of the same old issues, I gotta keep at what black people can do to make their own luck.

We love hustle culture in our entertainment and we look the other way when it comes to crime in our neighborhoods and then we expect black boys to look at their grown up mirror images and do something different. Remember the definition of insanity here. Something in that equation has to change and it's not going to be black women that are going to be able to change it. The research shows that bw are doing everything that we are supposed to with the exception of regulating our wombs to the highest bidders. If we want to play the womb regulation game then a whole lot of ya'll ain't getting black grandkids.

The average black woman hasn't solved income inequality though. There's still a wage gap.

 

[Southernbella.]

It goes back to a previous thread where you said we need to stop using white people as the barometer of success. We are using them as the barometer so of course we are losing because we're comparing ourselves to people that have set it up for us to fail.

And let's be honest... the logical conclusion for the solutions!!! people can only be one thing...marry white. Given the findings of this study, that's the only way to close the gap and catch up with or surpass white women without waiting for policy to catch up, racism to end, or bm to overcome inequality.

Realistically, that's gonna have to happen anyway to some degree given the ratio of bw to bm. But I'm not interested in catching up to white folks if it means having to live in their neighborhoods, marry them, etc. Is that really winning just because the stats say so? I don't know...

 

[UmSumayyah]

But according to their model, the gap remains even for black women who DON'T marry down.

I looked at the article again, didn't see that. I saw this:

"This result is probably driven by the fact that black women tend to create families with black men who do poorly on both counts and thus bring down the family income results for black women."

and this:

We set out to model the impact of household formation by artificially equalizing the marriage rates of black women and white women. The results will of course depend not just on whether they marry, but also on whom they marry. In our simulation, we assume that the additional women who are married have a husband with the same economic characteristics as their brother (see the Technical Paper for our detailed methods). The intuition here is that most people are likely to marry someone with a broadly similar background as themselves, and siblings, by definition, have an almost identical one. The results of this equal-marriage-rate simulation are as follows:
While there is a drop in the rates of poverty persistence for black women, it is a modest one (from 62 percent to 56 percent). Given the big race gaps in family formation, we expected to see a bigger change for black women.

 

[Southernbella.]

I looked at the article again, didn't see that. I saw this:

"This result is probably driven by the fact that black women tend to create families with black men who do poorly on both counts and thus bring down the family income results for black women."

and this:

We set out to model the impact of household formation by artificially equalizing the marriage rates of black women and white women. The results will of course depend not just on whether they marry, but also on whom they marry. In our simulation, we assume that the additional women who are married have a husband with the same economic characteristics as their brother (see the Technical Paper for our detailed methods). The intuition here is that most people are likely to marry someone with a broadly similar background as themselves, and siblings, by definition, have an almost identical one. The results of this equal-marriage-rate simulation are as follows:
While there is a drop in the rates of poverty persistence for black women, it is a modest one (from 62 percent to 56 percent). Given the big race gaps in family formation, we expected to see a bigger change for black women.

That's what I was referring to. In the technical paper, black men's median incomes were slightly higher than black women's incomes in the simulation.

 

[Femmefatal1981]

Right, there's a larger pool of marriageable black men if women want to enlarge their pool.

And they are all paid less than their white counterparts...

 

[FemmeFatale]

And they are all paid less than their white counterparts...

There’s a lot of gray being dismissed here..if a black woman is single with no children is earning $65K and she finds and marries a black man that is single with no children making $90K, how is she losing? And let’s say he has good credit and minimal debt (under $10K)

Yeah her bm may be earning less than his white colleague, but how is this woman losing?

 

[UmSumayyah]

That's what I was referring to. In the technical paper, black men's median incomes were slightly higher than black women's incomes in the simulation.

Well, I defer to your broad education in this field of study, as well as the fact that you looked at the actual paper.

What could be pulling them down? I could see if they were discussing wealth, but they were looking at income only. What could be the confounding factors? The only thing I can think of is prior obligations that diminish a check before it hits your bank account (student loans, child support, etc.)

 

[LunadeMiel]

There’s a lot of gray being dismissed here..if a black woman is single with no children is earning $65K and she marries finds and married a black man that is single with no children making $90K, how is she losing? And let’s say he has good credit and minimal debt (under $10K)

Yeah her bm may be earning less than his white colleague, but how is this woman losing?

right,
If the argument is that there's a limited pool of black men for educated black women to choose from, I challenge that and say open up to other black men. I recognize that their white counterparts are probably paid more but you have the chance of finding higher earner if you cast your net wider.

One of my friends is a PA, makes roughly 100K, her DH is in Finance makes 150K get annual bonuses of around 50k. Yes his white couterpart may be making 160 or 170 but I don't think my girlfriend is losing at all.

 

[shelli4018]

Wouldn’t entrepreneurialism fix some of this? I think we’d be better off investing in our own businesses/economy versus depending on white folk and their institutions. I just don’t see them ever getting over racism since it benefits them greatly.

 

[Crackers Phinn]

...................

 

[TCatt86]

right,
If the argument is that there's a limited pool of black men for educated black women to choose from, I challenge that and say open up to other black men. I recognize that their white counterparts are probably paid more but you have the chance of finding higher earner if you cast your net wider.

One of my friends is a PA, makes roughly 100K, her DH is in Finance makes 150K get annual bonuses of around 50k. Yes his white couterpart may be making 160 or 170 but I don't think my girlfriend is losing at all.

Again this is about defining winning on our terms and not in comparison to pur white counterparts. Of course thighlighting these issues is important because it can drive some policy changes to reduce economic disparity. However that's reliant on white folks and how they are feeling. But Let's not allow these articles to be more than what they should be and turn into some sort of black women are screwed if they continue to marry black thing.

 

[Southernbella.]

Well, I defer to your broad education in this field of study, as well as the fact that you looked at the actual paper.

What could be pulling them down? I could see if they were discussing wealth, but they were looking at income only. What could be the confounding factors? The only thing I can think of is prior obligations that diminish a check before it hits your bank account (student loans, child support, etc.)

I need to read the original paper because so far the article and technical paper don't give the full picture. I suspect it's as you said, that the info isn't new but perhaps some of their models are new so they're able to present it in a different way. We know black men's incomes aren't on par with white men's at any level but the way this is framed is interesting.

 

[Crackers Phinn]

...................

 

[Southernbella.]

She makes advances which is the most that can be expected. The average white woman hasn't solved income inequality either and it's her father, uncles and brothers that she's seeking equality which should be a sign that women of any other race will not be the ones closing the wage gap anytime soon.

There's only one group who has not only closed but surpassed the income gap and it is Asian men who function within an entrepreneurial structure which circumvents the dependency on white men to pay them a "fair" wage. Even married to the highest earners, Asian women still earn less than Asian men and white men. If you see a pattern, it's called patriarchy.

I can already e-hear people telling me why black men can't. Well, I don't have an answer for closing a wage gap in a patriarchal society without the men of your group making it happen.

I don't disagree although I would argue that it depends on which Asian American men you're talking about because they aren't all excelling. But generally speaking, I would assume it could help some if bm had the capital and opportunity and were able to turn a profit (I would love to see some simulations on that). But black men starting businesses is just about as out of bw's control as white folks paying reparations.

 

[Femmefatal1981]

There’s a lot of gray being dismissed here..if a black woman is single with no children is earning $65K and she marries finds and married a black man that is single with no children making $90K, how is she losing? And let’s say he has good credit and minimal debt (under $10K)

Yeah her bm may be earning less than his white colleague, but how is this woman losing?

I didn’t say she was losing, but that’s the entire point of the op though. You can’t dismiss that.

 

[LunadeMiel]

What do "other black men" have to say about this tho, especially when their cultural imperative is to marry their own? Are "other" black women going to sit back and donate their meal tickets to the cause?

Besides, I'm fairly positive that AA women are not outchea turning away non AA black men on a large scale. There's a whole lot of half-rican/ half-ribean babies that tell a different story.

I want to answer you questions honestly but given the climate I cannot. Stereotypes and cultural differences on both ends are often roadblocks.

 

[UmSumayyah]

Again this is about defining winning on our terms and not in comparison to pur white counterparts. Of course thighlighting these issues is important because it can drive some policy changes to reduce economic disparity. However that's reliant on white folks and how they are feeling. But Let's not allow these articles to be more than what they should be and turn into some sort of black women are screwed if they continue to marry black thing.

"This is because black women continue to have substantially lower levels of household income than white women, both because they are less likely to be married and because black men earn less than white men.”

The article indicates bw being less likely to be married as a causative factor for lower income. As we all know, bw are also more likely to have children on top of it. More marriage to bm would definitely help the household income, especially if the rates of previous children were reduced.

Household income being lower (which everybody knows anyway) does not automatically mean bw are "screwed".

 

[FelaShrine]

I want to answer you questions honestly but given the climate I cannot. Stereotypes and cultural differences on both ends are often roadblocks.

There's also religious difference since people wanna pretend.

Many cultures expect teh woman to convert before marriage is even considered, to act like only WI or African cultures are about them marrying one another is bs

There’s a lot of gray being dismissed here..if a black woman is single with no children is earning $65K and she marries finds and married a black man that is single with no children making $90K, how is she losing? And let’s say he has good credit and minimal debt (under $10K)

Yeah her bm may be earning less than his white colleague, but how is this woman losing?

Dude is still black therefore issa loss.

 

[BEAUTYU2U]

Dude is still black therefore issa loss.

CTFU

 

[NICOLETHENUMBERONE]

I truly believe that a group with an agenda plants these stories to further break down black households. Everyone and I mean everyone I know has husbands whose income helps a lot and they are lower middle, middle class and upper middle class blacks. This is meant to further divide and pit bm against bw. Don’t fall for the okie dokie! We need to encourage these bm who work hard and want to live and do right by their families. There are plenty of them out there!

Exactly! And I was reading through the thread on the other site (LSA) and most of the "black women" seem to think white men are the answer. If you want to swirl, good for you but don't throw black men under the bus in the process.

 

[NICOLETHENUMBERONE]

And let's be honest... the logical conclusion for the solutions!!! people can only be one thing...marry white. Given the findings of this study, that's the only way to close the gap and catch up with or surpass white women without waiting for policy to catch up, racism to end, or bm to overcome inequality.

Realistically, that's gonna have to happen anyway to some degree given the ratio of bw to bm. But I'm not interested in catching up to white folks if it means having to live in their neighborhoods, marry them, etc. Is that really winning just because the stats say so? I don't know...

And also having non-black children for those black women who may marry white and not have children from a previous union. I don't know how many black women would be okay with as another website put it, severely diluting their blood line and possibly being the last black person in their bloodline.