Light-Skinned Black Women Fare Better at Marriage

Shocking!

Just kidding, of course.

I have expected this to be true for awhile, but now I’ve got the data to back  me up.

Research shows that light-skinned black women (below the age of 30) marry more frequently than their darker counterparts. In Shedding “Light” on Marriage: The Influence of Skin Shade on Marriage for Black Females, authors Darrick Hamilton, Arthur H. Goldsmith, and William Darity, Jr. “contend that the associated shortage of desirable men in the marriage market provides those black men who are sought after with the opportunity to attain a high status spouse, which has placed a premium on having lighter skin (i.e. intensified colorism in marriage markets for black females)” (30).

She Says, He Says #1 (The only thing that’s stopping you is yourself.)

“The only thing that’s stopping you is yourself.”

She Says:

I keep hearing that statement on a commercial advertising ITT-Technical Institute. It’s uttered by a black woman of Barbadian descent who recently completed an education program at the school and is now working as a project manager, her seemingly dream job. Her declaration is complete and utter bullshit. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in hard work, education, and all of the other ingredients needed to prosper in the working world without losing one’s integrity. However, I do not subscribe to the pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. It takes more than hard work and education to ascend from the abysmal depths of professional mediocrity. STFU!

He Says:

There are several things that I dislike about the commercial as well. To me it strikes the same chord that goes beyond just the Horatio Alger myth, and continues to beat black folks about the brow even further with the myth of the hardworking immigrant, and the entrepreneurial spirit deficient African American. In the commercial the young Bajan woman, is maximizing her potential, working her way to the top; her boyfriend/fiance/significant other, who coincidentally we can assume to be African American says “she’s determined, she’s going to make it to the top and I just want to be there when that happens.” This commercial plays with so many tropes it boggles the mind. First, the notion of the passive, submissive black male in the face of the dominant black woman. Secondly, the more culturally relevant trope in the world of black diaspora and modern black migration–the diligent, hard-working black other immigrant versus, the economically torpid, stagnated ethnic African American. It is such a subtle form of ethnicism, one that goes uncritiqued, and unthinkingly ingested by the masses. “Of course immigrants work harder than native born blacks, that’s why they have more success” is more often than not the pervasive wisdom–ask Chris Matthews.