Who gets married these days?

March 26, 2006 11:47 PM

"Marriage is for white people."
posted by Marky (71 comments total)

"He's right. At least statistically. The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States." - What's "race" ? Any Mefites out there care to define what that might be ?

Ethnicity.... aye, I might buy that term. "Race" though.......
posted by troutfishing at 12:04 AM on March 27, 2006

What's "race"?

A meaningless term designed to keep statisticians employed.
posted by spazzm at 12:12 AM on March 27, 2006

Hmm, well im really not sure I have the right perspective on this one (being a white guy, in his twenties, from the UK), but anyway.

I would have liked to have known how this relates to other racial groups; hispanics, chinese, indian.

I don't really see her point with: "Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families." What lesson do we learn from this?

"In the past, marriage was primarily just such a business deal. Among wealthy families, it solidified political alliances or expanded land holdings. For poorer people, it was a means of managing the farm or operating a household."

So when in history was marriage about love and companionship?

"Why should well-salaried women marry?" asked black feminist and author Alice Dunbar-Nelson as early as 1895.... "Women now say, 'Providing is not enough. I need more partnership.' "

God knows what little i understand about women - but shouldn't they have been asking for that all along?

The turning point in my own thinking about marriage came when a longtime friend proposed about five years ago.... But -- if we had married... I would have had to become a stepmother and, although I felt an easy camaraderie with his son, stepmotherhood is usually a bumpy ride.

First off, it's no surprise she didn't want to marry a 'friend' - people generally want to marry someone they love and secondly I get on with my stepmother very well.. I think shes being a bit unfair to stepmotherhood...

A black male acquaintance had a different prediction. "I don't believe marriage is going to be extinct, but I think you'll see fewer people married," he said. "It's a bad thing. I believe it takes the traditional family -- a man and a woman -- to raise kids."

What about the homosexuals? Gay marriage is here in the UK and coming to a registry office near soon.

if marriage is to flourish -- in black or white America -- it will have to offer an individual woman something more than a business alliance, a panacea for what ails the community, or an incubator for rearing children

Shouldn't it have been this all along?
posted by Meccabilly at 12:20 AM on March 27, 2006

Anyone care to define "marriage"?

I'm not married, but I do live in a monogamous relationship with the mother of my child. That's good enough for me and I'm ethnically "white" (hate that label). In my mind, my commitment to my family is separate and above any religious institution or secular tax status.
posted by oncogenesis at 12:23 AM on March 27, 2006

"If Jesus Christ bought me an engagement ring, I wouldn't take it," a separated thirty-something friend told me. "I'd tell Jesus we could date, but we couldn't marry."
posted by Kwantsar at 12:24 AM on March 27, 2006

I see that the liberal boilerplate responses are taken care of.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:26 AM on March 27, 2006

I don't think Jesus would be up for the humping, doesn't seem his style.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:27 AM on March 27, 2006

It depends on what you mean by 'is'.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:06 AM on March 27, 2006

Its the fault of Poof Daddy and Scoot Catt.
posted by lilburne at 1:28 AM on March 27, 2006

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
posted by hypersloth at 1:44 AM on March 27, 2006

Anyone care to define "marriage"?

I could swear I've seen threads before in which that point came up... Oh, right.

Interesting read. Quite a few of my friends (black, white, asian, hispanic, male, female) have stated that they have no desire to get married, for similar reasons outlined here.
posted by honeydew at 1:47 AM on March 27, 2006

Love ain't nothin but 2 people feelin sorry for each other
then hittin divorce court to pay child support to your baby's mother
Here comes the sheriff knockin at my front door
with a warrant for my arrest cause I refuse to pay a hoe
Sheeet, ain't no pussy good enough for me to split half my shit
I wouldn't give a squirt of piss to save a broke bitch
Gimme this, gimme that, do you got, can I have,
that's all I hear... bitch I'll beat your ass
I betta never hear a bitch say she's broke
as long as she's got some pussy with some ass and a deep-throat
And Oooo-eeee
ain't a bitch breathing today that can do me
She use to be a sweet taste in my mouth
But now I want to knock her motherfucking ass out
I ain't ready to fuck I stick my dick in your throat
Pay me and pay me no attention bitch cause I'ma keep the growth
Fuck that girlfriend bitch you need a nasty hoe
So she work that cunt until she can't no mo'
Yeah, hey DJ Quik beat this shit, back
I got a brand new back flap that'll park her like a Cadillac
Now be a man nigga check that bitch
and if you smell something stankin that's me cause I'm the shit
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 2:14 AM on March 27, 2006

"marriage" doesn't care about black people?
posted by lenny70 at 3:24 AM on March 27, 2006

I simply cannot understand why this many people would want to have children on their own with the fathers far and infrequently around.

I'm the father of a 2 year old and it is so much work that while I could certainly do it all myself I can't imagine wanting to. Sounds to me that there are a lot of extended family members in these situations that are pulling heavy weight.
posted by n9 at 3:42 AM on March 27, 2006

The article is confusing. First the author suggests that blacks differ from whites today as concerns marriage but cites Genevese (a fine marxian scholar on slavery) in an anecdotal manner to suggest that under slavery marriage was a thrinving thing for blacks. It was not. It was merely a way to make more slaves and then to sell them off, when desireable.

Then the author suggests that marriage for whites is vanishing and well it might for the needs are taken care of by single people without marriage.

Then the piece concludes on what will be needed if marriage is to thrive once more.
Read The Color of Water for a nice introduction to the extended family (a white woman has two marriages with black men and raises some 8 children who become distinguished)...Whites may go the way of blacks as far as marriage stats are concerned but there is no cultural meme of the extended family at present, and there is a sufficient cause of extended families among blacks.

In sum, history provides more clues to this arguement than the author makes here.
posted by Postroad at 4:00 AM on March 27, 2006

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

yeah, it's a shame only 27.65% of people know that.
posted by tnai at 4:04 AM on March 27, 2006

And there was me thinking people got married for love, not in order to share a house/friendship/relationship/baby-raising duties. Silly me.

I don't think "love" even gets mentioned once in the linked-to article.
posted by badlydubbedboy at 4:09 AM on March 27, 2006

Meccabilly: I would have liked to have known how this relates to other racial groups; hispanics, chinese, indian.

"Hispanic" isn't a race.
posted by CRM114 at 4:31 AM on March 27, 2006

So when in history was marriage about love and companionship?

I blame Western Europeans for digging up that centuries-old notion of courtly love and then actually going out and believing it as something other than an idealized narrative convention fashioned to entertain bored aristocrats. And I blame Hallmark for Valentine's and De Beers for existing at all.

Oh, if only they had warned me that having studied literature would make me grouse.
posted by DaShiv at 4:45 AM on March 27, 2006

"Marriage for Love" is a rotten method for determining a mate when 50+% end in outright failure. It also occurs to me that, of the remaining 49+%, a large portion stay together when they can't stand each other for one reason or another, which really makes the whole concept suspect. Perhaps that is why they refer to it as the "institution" of marriage ... you have to be crazy to do it in the first place. God knows I was 34 years ago when I did the deed.

When the viewpoint as expressed so eloquently in post by GooseOnThe Loose above is marketed to young blacks and whites alike as "popular music" and the term "my baby's daddy" replaces "husband", where is the role model for people to follow?

I wonder if there is a correlation between the "I'm not getting married" crowd and the increasingly long period that young men are playing at being boys instead of growing up, a trend those fires are fanned by advertisers to keep them buying toys and beer instead of concentraing their energies (and disposable income) on raising a family.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:06 AM on March 27, 2006

Enron Hubbard:

That is a totally fucking cool as shit awesome username.

That is all.
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:13 AM on March 27, 2006

I don't think "love" even gets mentioned once in the linked-to article.

Sure she does, right next to a slam on men who have sex with men:

Sex, love and childbearing have become a la carte choices rather than a package deal that comes with marriage. Moreover, in an era of brothers 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 man makes marriage a risky business for a black woman.

Maybe I'm misreading and she's only slamming men who make a marriage commitment and don't follow through (by having sex with dirty diseased men).
posted by sohcahtoa at 5:13 AM on March 27, 2006

Maybe she should marry a white guy.
posted by thirteenkiller at 5:15 AM on March 27, 2006

I wonder if there is a correlation between the "I'm not getting married" crowd and the increasingly long period that young men are playing at being boys instead of growing up, a trend those fires are fanned by advertisers to keep them buying toys and beer instead of concentraing their energies (and disposable income) on raising a family.

Why does anyone care? Thank bog we live in a world now where people don't have to conform to the stereotypical idea of "adulthood" where they wake up at 50 with a spouse they don't love, kids they didn't want, wondering where their life went. Ick. I find this attitude that people need to "grow up" and by that you mean "start procreating" bizarre. In case you hadn't noticed, we're not exactly short on people around this planet.
posted by biscotti at 5:19 AM on March 27, 2006

This line pretty much summed up the article for me:

He believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant.


An article full of generalizations, stereotypes, and double-talk.
posted by matty at 5:31 AM on March 27, 2006

I would have liked to have known how this relates to other racial groups; hispanics, chinese, indian.

The dead-tree edition of this article did in fact have a little graph comparing marriage rates among ethnic/racial/insert correct term here groups. I believe it showed percentages of unmarried males and females among groups; whites were the lowest, blacks the highest, and Hispanics and Asians somewhere in the middle.
posted by heydanno at 5:40 AM on March 27, 2006

I love the sentence that starts: Moreover, in an era of brothers on the "down low,"

Anyway, it's true, marriage is certain an interesting creature now that we seem to have become more open about it.
posted by blacklite at 5:44 AM on March 27, 2006

It would be more useful to see the marriage rate broken down by other criteria than race, eg. by income level and by urban/suburban/rural habitat. Whilst I am aware that these factors are somewhat correlated, I have a feeling that the marriage rates would be lower in white NYC residents than in white folks from rural upstate NY, for instance.
Whilst the terms 'urban' and 'black' are often conflated in popular culture, people trying to sound intelligent on these subjects should aspire to higher standards.

--Todd Lokken, white, unmarried, Bronx, NY.
posted by nowonmai at 5:55 AM on March 27, 2006

Maybe she should marry a white guy.

Beat me to it! And if she looks like the girl in the picture, it won't be too much of a problem.

To paraphrase Bulworth, we gotta all keep fucking until we're all the same color.
posted by fungible at 6:05 AM on March 27, 2006

Or y'all could celebrate Black Marriage Day, a Nation-of-Islam-approved festivity.
posted by the sobsister at 6:14 AM on March 27, 2006

Having a) been very happily married for more than ten years, but with all the ups and downs that that brings, and b) watched a shitload of Judge Judy reruns while nursing babies, I will tell you one very important thing about being married.

The state of "marriage" is as much about what happens when you break up as when you stay together.

Being married confers on you more than a thousand rights than being committed does, financial, social, medical, etc. I cannot tell you how many couples live together, are committed, love each other for a while, and THEN when they break up, even if one or the other has been a solid financial contributor for years, if the house/car/bank account does not have his or her name on it, they are totally, totally SCREWED. Without that "involvement of the state," a co-habitant has no right to share in accumulated property or other assets, to make decisions re: children, etc. And if the breakup is a hostile one, look out.

If you CAN do better on your own, that's great, but look out if money gets involved. I'm just sayin'.
posted by jfwlucy at 6:15 AM on March 27, 2006

The nuclear family is a myth packaged and sold in the 1950s. And it's still on sale today! Act now, before teh gays ruin it.
posted by Eideteker at 6:28 AM on March 27, 2006

I don't really see her point with: "Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families." What lesson do we learn from this?

That marrage is slavery, duh!
posted by delmoi at 6:37 AM on March 27, 2006

The problem isn't the people who aren't getting married...it's the people who aren't raising their own children.
posted by rocket88 at 6:47 AM on March 27, 2006

Well said, Eideteker.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:49 AM on March 27, 2006

Is that former Harvard President at it again?

I thought the PC fascists took care of him?
posted by HTuttle at 7:17 AM on March 27, 2006

from a recent New York Times article:

"The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless -- that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.

In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school. "
posted by The Jesse Helms at 7:17 AM on March 27, 2006

"Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce" is a myth:

In 1981, for example, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At first glance, that would seem like a 50-percent divorce rate. Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.

There is no consensus on what the real percentage is, but it's somewhere between 18% and 40%.
posted by Lord Kinbote at 7:44 AM on March 27, 2006

The author will be on the Post's online discussion board at two today. Chance to ask questions.
posted by stratastar at 8:18 AM on March 27, 2006

That sentence about the "downlow" irked me too at first, until I realised that the author might have meant those clauses to be more separate than they appear. So, under that reading,

--the "downlow" phenomenon,
--the decline in a traditionally-black-and-male employment sector,
--and the increase in STDs related to both hetero- and homosexual activity

are things that all relate to the decline in the popularity of marriage, but not necessarily to each other.
If that is the intended reading, however, it's still an awkward sentence construction.

Likewise, I too did a double-take when I read this sentence: "He believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant."

And yeah, the first response that came to my mind was "well, his example didn't stop them knocking up their girlfriends accidentally, did it?" But then I realised I was making assumptions. In one or both cases, the pregnancy could just as well have occurred in a long-term relationship; it could have been planned; it could simply have been the catalyst for a cohabiting son and girlfriend to make a decision that they might have been talking about anyway.

Again, the writer could have made this easier for us: her sentence evokes images of the father strongarming his skeezy sons into a shotgun wedding. Overall I found this article thought-provoking but frustrating.
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:26 AM on March 27, 2006

Hmm, if a mom on welfare gets married (or gives up the dad) the state's office of support enforcement (at least here in WA) dings him for accumulated welfare debt throughout the life time of the child regardless of any hope of ever being able to pay it back or live on what's left over after the garnishment, and regardless of whether he is jobless or a longtime minimum wage-only earner. If a middle class mom marries the father of her children each benefits from the medical insurance coverage provided by the other's employer and their capital gains allowance goes from 250K (for a single person) to 500K for a couple. And they get to write off the kids as tax deductions. Hmmm....
posted by onegreeneye at 8:26 AM on March 27, 2006

--the "downlow" phenomenon,

Is this American slang? This is used in the article and thread but I am not sure what this is talking about.
posted by Deep Dish at 8:34 AM on March 27, 2006

onegreeneye: Not a snark, just an honest question. I'm confused. You mean if a mother on welfare has, say, a 4 year old child with a man, and then marries that man, he owes WA four years of back pay for the welfare the child used before they were married? Or something else?
posted by piers at 8:38 AM on March 27, 2006

If if mid-life crisis may be a bitch for married guys, I would bet that life seems even more meaningless and less fulfilling for 50 year old bachelors. Ditto for the old maids. A lot of people are just too self involved to get married, deciding instead to spend all of their energy upon themselves. My guess is that when they do reach middle age they will feel less fulfilled than their peers that built strong, permanent relationships with spouses and devoted countless hours to helping their children grow into well adjusted and successful adults. "The love you take is equal to the love you give."
posted by caddis at 8:38 AM on March 27, 2006

Rarely have I seen such a complete lack of interest in dealing with an actual issue. WhiteFilter, GeekFilter, and SnarkFilter come together to drown out any actual response to the link (which I thought was interesting, if not philosophically coherent enough for the Aristotelian logic-choppers of MeFi). The thread starts out with troutfishing pretending he has no idea what might be meant by "racial group" (this pretense being far more important, of course, than the problems of black women and children trying to navigate the current world of black culture), goes on to a bunch of snarkery about "marriage, who needs it anyway?" and Postroad claiming the author says that "under slavery marriage was a thrinving thing for blacks" (a complete lie: she says many slaves did their best to preserve it despite the strong contrary pressures of the institution) and sohcahtoa claiming that a concern mentioned in passing about black men having sex with other men, often unprotected, and passing on diseases—besides being totally unwarranted, since such things obviously never happen—demonstrates such unforgivable homophobia it renders the entire piece worthless... Well, obviously Joy Jones shouldn't have bothered writing it and Marky shouldn't have bothered posting it. Let's all talk about something fun, like Google apps and how awful Bush is.

Didn't anybody else find this a striking fact? "I was stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin." Yikes.
posted by languagehat at 8:40 AM on March 27, 2006

On non-preview: Pallas Athena has a reasonable response. If you give the author the slightest benefit of the doubt instead of jumping on every statement that can be interpreted in a bad way, it becomes more interesting; I think "thought-provoking but frustrating" is a fair summing-up.
posted by languagehat at 8:43 AM on March 27, 2006

"Marriage is for white people" is akin to "Doing well in school is for white people". Look, it pains me to say this, but there are negative messages in the African-American culture that are perpetuated not just by white Americans and American society, but also by black Americans themselves. The nasty part of hip-hop culture that promotes misogyny, materialism, and irresponsibility? You can't sit here and tell me that it's still all the white man's fault--frankly, you're being insulting, assuming black Americans don't have the smarts to prey on stereotypes, gullible kids, and can be selfish just like every other human being on the planet. Every time a white guy jumps when he sees a black kid in hip-hop garb he's a part of the cycle, but every time a rapper puts out another video promoting a drug-heavy, sex-laden clubbing lifestyle he's continuing the cycle, too.

I think that's the point the journalist is trying to make. Her comment about marriage in slavery was not that slaves were married because of slavery, but that they stayed married despite it. That no matter the problems facing African-Americans today, they still have it within them to form strong, stable, proud family units. That changes in one's culture come not only from the release of outside pressures, but by pushing against those outside pressures. That seems to be the dramatic difference between the African-American community of past and now. Before there were real pushes for change among its youth and leaders. That push isn't there any more, or at least the push for change is in a destabilizing direction. The kids have crappy role models, they grow up to be crappy role models.

I could go on and on--a number of the kids who go the after-school program in the place I work have no clue about the history of the civil rights movement. They've got a vague idea of what it means to be black and proud, but they think that translates to fancy cellphones and cars, as if the ability to shoot a gun makes someone "street". For fuck's sake, sitting in front of a police barricade with a German shepard snapping its teeth inches from your face and not moving and not retaliating, that's fucking balls. That's fucking street.

What's "race"?

A meaningless term designed to keep statisticians employed.

Hi, OK, you come to Park Heights in Baltimore, tell the people working here how meaningless race is, and they will laugh in your face and ask you how many times you've been stopped by the police.

We can talk about ethnicity and how race is meaningless term and whatnot, but those are ideals and have little immediate practical value in the real world.

And please, her comment about the down-low culture, the quote from a guy who wants marriage to be between a man and a woman? Do you really think this article is a tirade against the gays? In a country where the fastest growing number of new AIDS diagnoses are in African-American women--the very group that is carrying the African-American community--African-American men who are not being open about their unprotected sex on the side is a real fucking problem. Especially when the sex is unprotected anal--the kind that's best for disease transmission. If you will note, she did not say whether this should be addressed by stopping the homosexuals or just by being more accepting of homosexuals so gay African-American males feel more comfortable about being gay. The point is getting unprotected sex on the site and then transmitting diseases to your girl is not cool.

*breathes*
posted by schroedinger at 8:44 AM on March 27, 2006

piers, I think what he means is if the mom's been on welfare for four years and then marries the child's biological father the father is responsible for the years of back-pay.

This is the decision many people in poverty have to make. If a parent loses their job, they can't get a higher-paying one, the father's gotta leave so the mom can start receiving assistance to feed the kids. And if the dad comes back without a hellvua better-paying job than he had before, the family's doubly-fucked over.
posted by schroedinger at 8:48 AM on March 27, 2006

Deep Dish: On The Down Low
posted by box at 8:49 AM on March 27, 2006

Arg, I need to read all the comments before I respond to them.

Is this American slang? This is used in the article and thread but I am not sure what this is talking about.

Downlow ("Keeping it on the downlow", "Keeping it on the DL") refers to the practice of a man publicly dating and having sex with women while having sex with men on the side. It can also refer to having a woman on the side, but it's usually discussed in terms of men. It's a problem because protected sex/contraceptive use is not widely promoted, and can even be discouraged for various asinine reasons stemming from religion and the idea that one cannot advocate for one's own sexual health because it might piss off their partner.
posted by schroedinger at 8:53 AM on March 27, 2006

schroedinger: Excellent comments. If only you'd posted them a little earlier, I might have foregone my overheated outrage. Ah well, exercizing the outrage muscles is good for the thymos.
posted by languagehat at 9:15 AM on March 27, 2006

nah the outrage was great. when i got to languagehat's comment i thought "yes! just what i was thinking!".
posted by wilky at 9:29 AM on March 27, 2006

Didn't anybody else find this a striking fact? "I was stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin."

languagehat: I found this very striking, though perhaps not for the reason you did. This too:

Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families.

I don't have the sources at hand, but this flies in the face of everything I've ever read about the social conditions of African-American slaves. Indeed there's a substantial body of work (wish I had the reading list for my undergrad "Race Relations in North America" course handy, hope you'll take my word for it) arguing that the weak role assumed by many black fathers/husbands in contemporary America traces its origins to the erosion of these roles by the institution of slavery itself.

To wit: slavery was inherited matrilineally, of course; moreover, if male slaves were sold off to other plantations, there wives and children were not necessarily sent away with them. In other words, as a male slave, you had no guarantee that your "family" would remain yours for life, no way to take responsibility for wife and children except at the whims and economic exigencies of your master.

I haven't read this Cherlin fellow, but I'm highly skeptical of his seemingly authoritative stats on the social status of African-American slaves. Records of such things are, as they say, sketchy at best.
posted by gompa at 9:34 AM on March 27, 2006

languagehat and scroedinger with the 1-2 punch. my thoughts are in alignment with what you two and pallas athena said.

but...i also kind of feel like eideteker, b/c i hate seeing children from "non-traditional" families be told that there's something wrong with them because they're not from a model 1950's television style family.

i should ask some of my younger cousins, nephews, and nieces what they think of marriage. i know that among my relatives of my age, i'm in the minority that got married and has no children outside of wedlock. a very thought-provoking article, as others have already said.
posted by lord_wolf at 9:46 AM on March 27, 2006

I suspect it's not the "nontraditionalness" of the families that matters, but the ability of whatever family structure exists to provide a good home for the child. Extended families indeed seem to work.

The real elephant is the issue of the single working (or not) mother and her ability to provide materially/ socially for a family.

The question of the role of slavery in changing/ forming longlasting structures in black family formation is really interesting, are there examples from other cultures?

Taking the question further: how long does a cultural intervention like slavery need to hold for traditional cultural roles to change permanently. (another example maybe the effect of AIDS in Africa on families.)
posted by stratastar at 10:28 AM on March 27, 2006

I haven't read this Cherlin fellow, but I'm highly skeptical of his seemingly authoritative stats on the social status of African-American slaves. Records of such things are, as they say, sketchy at best.

Andrew Cherlin. An interesting paper on the deinstutionalization of marriage. Excerpt from a 1997 book, Ensuring Inequality:
The Structural Transformation of the African-American Family, by Donna L. Franklin.
posted by russilwvong at 10:34 AM on March 27, 2006

CRM114:
"Hispanic" isn't a race.

It depends where you live. In the south, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, Hispanic is a term used to define people from any of the Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America or the following regions: Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean Basin.

In Houston, where I live, the term Latino is generally regarded as being a "white" label. A local Clear Channel Tejano station put the phase "Latino Pride" on their billboards and got a lot of flack for being insensitive for it.
posted by DragonBoy at 11:34 AM on March 27, 2006

This is an interesting article (too bad the snark out boys seem to have jumped up and down on the thread). It made me think a lot about my neighborhood, which is almost all minority (about half black), and about my relationship.
I've been dating a girl for about four years, and I'm not sure we'll ever get married. It's just not a goal for us. We're happy with our relationship as it stands. That's the truth for a lot of other people my age that I know. And yeah, I do think we'll see a change toward the extended family becoming more important again, as government and corporations stop providing the type of support that people were accustomed to in the 20th century. The trends that I've seen make me think of families I knew in Italy and Spain, where kids stay home through their 30s, because it doesn't make sense for them to move out. Especially in my neighborhood, I see a lot of that.
posted by klangklangston at 12:36 PM on March 27, 2006

(Clear Channel deserves flank for merely existing)

I think there is a major disconnect between todays' black women and black men. My only close black friend (female) currently dates non-blacks (not exactly whites tho, right now she is with a jewish man and before that it was a Lebanese immigrant) and has confided in me that she has not met a black man that matches her maturity or life goals.

I've also noticed that my father (a white investment banker) has many black female work associates and colleages (that are in high positions) but very few black males. Just an observation.

Not just black men, but men in general it seems, are not as motivated as they used to be. We are seen way more young women applying and going to college than men, and woman are taking on more responsibilties than ever before. There has become a anti-intellectual/militant apathy among young men, and I find that many of my male friends (in their mid-thirties) are addicted to video-games and tv as if they were 14. Of course, with the American pres being the king of anti-illectualism and with all the demonization of science and medical tech and literature, I guess who could blame 'em?

On a diff note, my mother's side (Mexican-American) is very dedicated to family life, and for the most part the men in our extended family and community are very good fathers. That said, I have seen a shift in my generation where women do not feel like they need a husband, even if they have children, because the bond with parents, siblings, aunts and uncles is so strong.
posted by hellameangirl at 12:42 PM on March 27, 2006

The whole "What's race? What are they talking about?" shit is bullshit. But a black man, an asian man, and a white man in a room and you couldn't tell the difference. Race may not be valid biologically but it is still a meaningful word. It's a complicated word, but a meaningful word.

"What's an American? There is nothing biologically different between American's and other nationalities. American, French, Brazilian are meaningfulness distinctions. The whole concept of nationality is flawed."
posted by I Foody at 1:21 PM on March 27, 2006

What's "race"?

A meaningless term designed to keep statisticians employed.

Shhhhh.... You'll get me kicked out of the secret society. Oops! I shouldn't have said it was secret.
posted by jonp72 at 6:29 PM on March 27, 2006

The Census Bureau comes through with a nice bunch of data on marriage & fertility. Snazzy.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:57 PM on March 27, 2006

I find that many of my male friends (in their mid-thirties) are addicted to video-games and tv as if they were 14. Of course, with the American pres being the king of anti-illectualism and with all the demonization of science and medical tech and literature, I guess who could blame 'em?

How the fuck you blame George W. Bush for the behavior of 30-year-old boys, then excuse them for it, is beyond me.

If their behavior is good enough for you to befriend them, then why should they grow up? Why should they feel obligated not to act like 14 year olds? What other childish and irresponsible behavior do you tolerate in your male friends?

Most of the overgrown boys I know act the way they do because no one has ever expected anything from them. If you raise a child to be a child then you'll be damn lucky if they ever mature. It's a guy's personal responsibility and obligation to grow up and be a man, but the current trend of enabling and excusing their perpetual failures is irresponsible on its own.
posted by techgnollogic at 7:00 PM on March 27, 2006

Dragonboy: "Hispanic" isn't a race.

It depends where you live. In the south, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, Hispanic is a term used to define people from any of the Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America or the following regions: Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean Basin.

Ergo, not a race, a language or national group at most. I couldn't agree more. It is entirely possible to be white and Hispanic and/or black and Hispanic, or Asian and Hispanic ad infinitum, just as one can be black and British, or Asian and a francophone.
posted by CRM114 at 8:19 PM on March 27, 2006

Techgnollogic, my "blaming" of Bush for men's behavior was tongue-in-cheek, but still, men dont exactly have as many intellectual role models as the generation before.

Another thing, I tolerate a helluva lot in my friends, but they are just FRIENDS! Hence, I aint marrying any of them! Duh! Isnt that the point of this discussion?
posted by hellameangirl at 10:11 PM on March 27, 2006

I apologize that my previous comment was so heated.

My point is that few people become much more than their environment demands of them or their society expects of them. These guys you're friends with can be the way they are and they still get to be friends with you. I mean, what are the consequences of their behavior?

I'm not suggesting shunning people, but it seems to me that many of these problems with grown boys is that there's way too much tolerance of unacceptable fundamental behavior.
posted by techgnollogic at 3:43 AM on March 28, 2006

Well then, I guess its all up to us women. Of course, if ever I did pluck one of my friends off his beanbag chair, had him turn off the Beastie Boys, told him to get a haircut, change his underwear, go back to school and get a real job, trade in all his comic books and video games and buy a sensible car or save for a house, ...I would be considered a nag, a "mom", a gold-digger, a "desperate woman" a bitch, etc. Of course, once my baby-crave meter starts going up, that just may happen.
posted by hellameangirl at 10:21 AM on March 28, 2006

I never said it's up to women. It's up to everybody.

I would be considered a nag, a "mom", a gold-digger, a "desperate woman" a bitch, etc.

We've already established that these guys are childish...
posted by techgnollogic at 3:21 PM on March 28, 2006

I briefly "dated" (more like hung out with sporadically for 2 weeks) a young black 20-something man, and I was pretty disheartened to see a lot of his problems were ones always talked about when discussing the male African-American experience today. No father as a role model, no education or career, no ambition at all (none, even asked me how to "get" ambition), a low-wage job, a social circle that was focused on having fun and going out, etc.

But he wanted the marriage, wife, and 2.5 kids in the suburbs. He had no idea how to do it, and none of the life skills necessary to actualize his dream. I felt very sad for him, as it was obvious he really couldn't see outside his life to get his shit together. He couldn't bring anything to a marriage, and as recent TV shows like Living Single and Girlfriends demonstrate, it's hard for a successful black woman to find a successful black man.

(It was also odd for me to meet someone who was the embodiment of the very thing I studied in sociology class.)
posted by lychee at 3:31 PM on March 28, 2006

Possible derail--

even asked me how to "get" ambition

Now there's a good question. What makes some people more ambitious (competitive, achievement-oriented) than others? Role models? Parental pressure? And is it possible to become more ambitious by conscious choice?
posted by russilwvong at 5:09 PM on March 28, 2006

Absolutely. Lots of people don't know or don't really believe that there's a conscious choice to be made in the matter.
posted by techgnollogic at 5:22 PM on March 28, 2006