Eligible black grooms hard to find

by Larry E. Davis
University of Pittsburgh (KRT)

As we celebrate Black History Month and, with it, Valentine’s Day, it is a fitting time to ponder this sobering fact: Black America faces a little-known but critical gender imbalance.
There are in most 18-and-above age groupings only about eight black men for every 10 black women. This ratio is largely owing to high rates of infant mortality and homicides. Even more alarming, however, is the following bit of information: When incarceration, drug addiction and unemployment are factored in, the number of eligible (marriageable) black men is reduced to about five men for every 10 black eligible women.
These statistics carry with them enormous implications for the formation of black families in the United States and the overall well-being of blacks in general.
First and foremost, as one might expect, this gender imbalance has profound effects on the marriage rate for black people. For example, while the majority of whites—two-thirds—are married, about two-thirds of blacks are single. Hence, despite the fact that studies suggest the vast majority of blacks express a desire to marry, the sheer demographics of the situation make it impossible. Indeed, this demographic reality contributes significantly to the number of births among single mothers because many black women are forced to make a very unpleasant choice: Either have children as single moms or forgo having children altogether.
Moreover, when social and economic factors are thrown into the mix, finding a suitable partner becomes even more difficult for black women, who are graduating from college at twice the rate of black men and subsequently accruing incomes and professional positions consistent with their higher rates of educational attainment.
As a woman reporter told me in the ’90s, “Black women have become the men that their mothers wanted them to marry.”
The compounded result of all this? A double whammy for eligible black women—too few black men with too few resources. These facts may explain why there is so much emphasis devoted to the fostering of opposite-sex relationships at formal gatherings of blacks, even at professional black business and civil right conferences.
Of course, some will immediately think, “Why don’t black women date and marry non-blacks?”
Well, this sounds like a good idea in principle, but it must be kept in mind that there is actually a shortage of white males, too, albeit not nearly to the extreme of the shortage among blacks. Moreover, relations between blacks and whites remain contentious; just think of the repeated instances of police brutality reported in the news media and of poor intergroup race relations generally.
And it is true also that despite some lessening of racial antagonisms toward interracial marriage, societal prohibitions against such unions still remain strong both within white and black communities.
Of course, it is likely that romantic unions between blacks and other non-whites such as Hispanics and Asians will increase, but these groups don’t have a surfeit of marriageable men, either—certainly not one that would supplant the gender imbalance currently being experienced by black America. Hence black women are foremost left to find marriage partners among the few eligible black men who often have too little to offer.
What to do, then, about this profound social problem? We now recognize that the presence of responsible married men within the black community is key to exercising social control over youth: These men can prevent crime and raise boys to be responsible fathers who will then, in turn, provide financial as well as social support for their children.
One possible approach to solving this national dilemma comes from an unexpected source: President Bush’s recently announced $1.5 billion drive for the promotion of marriage. Reportage on the Bush proposal mentioned federal officials favoring, among other things, premarital education programs focused on high school students, young adults and unmarried new parents that offer instruction in marriage skills and mentoring programs using married couples as role models.
I would suggest that such a program go further—in fact, much further. It should begin in inner-city elementary schools continuing through high school and focus on at-risk black boys, giving them the tools and incentives they need to succeed in school with the goal of building, with pride, a strong and thriving black community in this society.
This would involve having married black male teachers and school administrators acting as mentors; it could mean schools partnering with business and professional societies to have successful married black men spend weekends with the mentored boys; it could also mean forming partnerships with pioneering community ventures that get inner-city youth involved in learning marketable skills and with churches.
This would be a sterling chance for President Bush, during Black History Month, to prove to one and all that, by marrying his newly announced marriage initiative to his oft-voiced commitment to education, he sincerely means it when he says that in America no child should be left behind.