I do think her angle is geographical, at least partially, and in any case, I'm not dismissing her problem. I'm stating a fact: successful black women do not have a monopoly on dating troubles. Your point is a good one--the dating woes of black women may be more systemic, more grounded in the sociological backdrop you bring up. I'm not arguing with that--I'm arguing with a couple of premises of the article--or what I perceived those premises to be.
Now, I'm not saying the issue doesn't merit discussion or study or fiction. If you'll recall, I said in my original post that I'd be interested in reading the book. However, I do want to make sure we're on the proper level of analysis. Returning to my statement that "successful black women do not have a monopoly on dating troubles," one could also accurately say that black people have no monopoly on having been hit hard by the recession. That is a true statement. It's also true that, as a demographic, black people have been hit harder for reasons that are systemic rather than not random. The latter is a valid point very worthy of discussion, policy consideration, etc. Nonetheless, running a headline about how black people have been hit hard by the recession is going to piss off unemployed white people with no health insurance. Running an article about how and why black people have been hit harder, as a group, would be less controversial (for more people, anyway).
What else don't black women have a monopoly on: being told that they don't deserve the kind of mate that they desire and that they're too picky. (Nor perceptions of aggressiveness, but that's another argument). I've often been told by family and friends that I was being too picky and should lower my standards. Now, the specifics didn't match--nobody specifically brought up not having a degree--but details aside, it does happen all the time. I rarely tell my parents that I'm dating, but at one point when I was in a longer-term relationship it was inevitable. Even after I discovered that the person I was dating was an inveterate asshole, I took much too long to broke up with him (partly because I listened to most of my friends, who encouraged me to work it out). When I finally did, my mother (who knew none of the details, but that's never stopped her) yelled at me for being picky and told me to get back together with him.
That's the danger of talking about "epidemics" based on one person's story. It's one thing to go anecdotal when it's her book, but it's another when it becomes a one-person trend article. If you're going to talk epidemics, you need numbers and maybe longitudinal studies. Otherwise, all I can do is talk back in anecdotes--my own as a single, reasonably successful and not hideous white woman, and those of my friends. Among my black, female friends in DC, the only one raised by a single mother is the only one who is married (or otherwise in a relationship). I'm not claiming I have a representative sample--not a lot of my friends, of any race, were raised by a single parents. But that's just it: we're either dealing in personal stories or we're dealing in trends, and to turn one into the other requires backing it with some empirical rigor.
Not having read the article about Holocaust survivors' children, I can't produce an informed response to whether or not the argument is analogous, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, "black people have all sorts of residual PTSD b/c of our history in this country." In fact, I think it would be worthwhile to consider the two together. It's not a competition; it's not an issue of "black people have it bad, too." Suggesting that black people, too, have PTSD issues to be considered doesn't imply that Holocaust survivors' issues don't deserve to be considered "in their own right." But "in their own right" doesn't conflict with being considered alongside of similar situations. In my humble opinion, looking at both together would only shed more light on the issues that Holocaust survivors children may have.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
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2 comments:
I don't think the article was saying that black women have a monopoly on dating woes. I think it was saying that it is way harder for black women to date these days. And there are statistics to back it up. This is the latest in a long line of articles responding to the "42% of black women have never been married compared to 21% of white women"stat. But it's from her perspective as a black woman living in DC. Here's just one example of that stat, but if you google it you'll find a ton more: http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-black-women-have-higher-chance-of-remaining-unmarried/
I think we're on opposite sides of an argument about whether it's appropriate to contrast and compare negative situations. I say no unless an article or discussion is specifically about comparing and discussing. I prefer to focus on the argument at hand. I'm also like that with real life arguments. I don't think you should bring up things that are outside the original arguments b/c that only takes the argument in unproductive directions (for example if we're arguing about the division of chores and you bring up the fact that I forgot your birthday, so who's the thoughtless one now and so on).
You say, yes, let's compare and contrast, b/c you want to suss out parallels and figure out if mayhap solving the fact that I don't remember birthdays might help out with the division of chores. Or in this case, whether the fact that many successful women of different races have a hard time finding suitable mates might illuminate why black women specifically have a harder time finding a suitable mate.
Both philosophies have their merits, but in this case I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that point.
As for the case of being called too picky. I would argue that it's a little different for black women in that often we are told as a group that we do not deserve a person who is in the same educational or income strata. In other words, though I have an MFA and make a certain income, others would get angry with me for not agreeing to date a janitor.
My Smithie BFF has a story about her relatives and friends not understanding why she didn't hit it off with a young mailman one of them had set her up with. They harassed her about this and called her snotty and too picky. This is different from a white women being told that she's too picky for dumping someone who looks like a good match for her on paper, but doesn't work out emotionally.
That said, in general it upsets me when anyone tells anyone else that they're being too picky. What does that mean? The fact is that you will have to spend the rest of your life with this person or spend a ton of money and emotional currency on a divorce if you decide not to. Under those circumstances how can you afford emotionally or fiscally NOT to be picky.
Also it's so deeply unromantic. Shouldn't we all hold out for someone we love and respect? What are we? Paper dolls who should just marry anyone as long as he's a "good guy?" That's ridiculous.
When I split with the big ex before I met my husband, most of my friends were understanding. The Smithie BFF actually thought he was not good enough for me, but a few friends (and his mom!) told me I made a huge mistake, b/c he was a "good guy" -- which to me insinuated that I wasn't capable of getting another good guy or that I was somehow undeserving of a better guy. Now that I look back on it, I realize that it doesn't matter whether he was a good guy or not. We weren't good together.
It's hard to find your match. The fact is that every single person is going to be wrong for you until someone is finally right. But I know very few happily married people who regret dumping a certain BF or GF who others told them they should keep around.
One last point: I recently did an article on how hard it is to do your dream job. I wish people would go into dating with the same attitude. It's a long, hard, and often miserable journey to find your match. But if you want to get married then you're going to have to go on it. And though I myself took a couple of breaks from dating when I was in my "dating towards marriage" years, for the most part I approached it like I approached my writing career, which has been like 99% rejection. You just have to keep writing until somebody gives you a chance and you just have to keep dating until you find that person, no matter how much you want to give up.
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