'Black women deserve better than what many black men have to offer'- R Banks
I know some bw were a bit hesitant and wary about this book when it first came out, but I would suggest that some of us look at the larger issue here and that is, how this book could have a far reaching effect because sadly people are the way they are and many black women will only receive counsel from a black man on these issues. Indeed I kept coming across comments like, ‘If he is a black man he wouldn’t be saying this’, or people mistaken him for white because the truth is that black men have long since adopted a selfish and self centred posture towards the whole issue, in fact people are almost having heart attacks at the thought of a black man not going the usual route of defending black men and the image of black men even at the expense of the well-being of the group!
I blogged for NWNW here
Buy a copy, request one for your library, get it in place of that gift you were already planning for your sister or friend (Christmas is round the corner), or recommend if for your book club. BWE have so much power of influence that they often don’t use and which often doesn’t cost them much or extra. Write a review. BWE activists (which means all of you), need to commit at least one hour a month towards pushing forward the BWE philosophy. JUST-ONE-HOUR-A-MONTH. How hard can that be!
'Should black women continue to be held hostage to the failures of black men'- R Banks
This can involve dropping a link in a discussion (wont take you more than 10 mins!). I have aggregated a whole lot of BWE work on the following website www.tellingblackwomenthetruth.com feel free to drop it all over the web. I have seen many do it and I thank you for your efforts to liberate your fellow black woman.
Put this hour down in your diary and decide what it is you want to do. Remember this hour is about spreading the message to new territories not just writing a blog post for instance to your usual audience. I used to print off leaflets and drop them surreptitiously on buses or train seats (in areas with a high population of black women). Even dropping a few leaflets on the sly in your hairdressers (who is to know it is you), even handing a leaflet to a bw and feigning ignorance saying ’someone gave me this leaflet I wonder what its about?’ Imagine how many people will come across this book in a public setting like a library or as a request for a book club.
Copy of the leaflet printed and dropped on train seats or the hairdressers!
In the UK the book is not yet available so I have been reading a listening to Richard Banks commentary on different online pages. I was impressed with some of the answers highlighted below:
Re Owing it to the black race:
‘Another concern is that black women feel they owe it to the black race to marry a black man and have a black family that is strong and does the race proud. Many college educated black women have cousins, fathers and brothers who have been to jail or unemployed. They've seen this struggle and feel like they want to help and be part of the solution rather than be successful on their own.’
Re academic theories and intellectual analysis need to have meaning to the person on the ground and not be disconnected from their personal desires aspirations
‘When I teach family law, we spend a lot of time on the question of: If we didn't have the institution of marriage, would we need to create it? What would life be like without that? When you ask people on the street if they think marriage is oppressive and has been a tool to consolidate male control over women and maintaining property relationships, those ideas don't connect with regular people at all. If you talk to mainstream gay leaders about destroying gay marriage, you have no constituency for that among gay rights advocates. Ten or twenty years ago, there was a constituency for that argument.’
Re the charge that 'Marriage as an oppressive institution'.
There's a lot to the critique of marriage as an institution, but in the book, I'm not critiquing what people want. When a black woman tells me she thought by the time she was 39 she'd be married with children, I don't begin to query her about why she wants to be married and whether marriage is necessary. I put myself where they are, and that's a choice I made.
(My choice here is not to critique people's norms, expectations, or values, but instead to take for granted that in our society people do still have gendered expectations of men and women. If I were creating a society, I might get rid of those, but I'm taking people as they are rather than remaking them in the way I think they should be.)
I was impressed with this answer given by Richard Banks to Salon.com because for a long time I have watched ‘intellectuals’ and assorted black intelligentia and activists query black women when they say they want to be married and say that black women are buying into an oppressive institution etc etc we should look at 'new' forms of relationships and partnerships etc etc. Indeed these folks decided they would rather challenge black women's desires than accept what black women say they want as valid and that they have a right to this desire. Indeed if black women say they want to be married why are such folk now suddenly beginning to 'question' it and this desire for marriage and make it out to be abnormal? I guess this questioning has become necessary now because of how hard it is for this ambition to be realized within race, so invalidating this stated desire as wrong headed, abnormal or black women wanting to be like whites instead of accepting new ideals, becomes the only way to ensure black women abide by the situation as it stands!
Re marriage is shorthand for committed relationships
In some ways it's a matter of shorthand. It is the case that for most couples in the U.S., a serious, committed, monogamous relationship is going to be a marital one. Most cohabitating relationships are not long term. People either break up or get married. Maybe that will change 10 years from now, but right now in the U.S., that's where we stand.
Re feminist wanting to manipulate black women’s issues to further their agenda
‘I've talked about this with a lot of academic white feminists at Stanford, and I've heard a lot of them ask, "Why do women need to be married? Why can't they have children on their own? And who am I to impose some moral code on women?" My response is that when I went out to interview people, I thought I was going to find a lot of black women who were so happy they didn't have to be married. But I didn't find that. To the people who say black women are leading the charge in being unmarried and we should applaud them rather than subject them to scrutiny, I would say they're really missing the experience that a lot of black women are having. A less charitable take is that it's doing a disservice to black women to manipulate their experience for the ideological ends of feminism.
See more http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/09/04/marriage_and_race_interview
I was also impressed at how he also essentially debunks this myth and chanted mantra of there are ‘Good black men out there,’ which has essentially immobilized many black women and prevented the dawning of the idea that hey would and should broaden their dating options. How does he do this? Well with the strong case he makes that as long as the number imbalance gives black men the upper hand and indeed so much power in the black relationship arena/market, they will continue to give black women a very bad deal not because they are evil demons, but as a function of this extreme bargaining advantage they enjoy. He says quite openly that black women would likely find better relationship deals with white men!
His is a good response for those who want black women to foolishly trust in the ‘altruist’ nature of black men.
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10 comments:
Thank you Halima. I have been waiting for your comments on this book. And yes, unfortunately, some black women will only listen to a black male on this issue which you and others in the BWE movement have been working on for a long time now.
As I said last week, Dr. Banks is doing what BW have long asked “good” black men to do – Police.Other.Black Men. From other reviews I’ve read Dr. Banks goes in and calls out unacceptable behavior among BM, colorism, and other issues that most BM wouldn’t dare acknowledge. I’m excited and looking forward to reading his book.
Also, I loved his answer to the question about feminism in the Salon interview. I thought it was excellent!: “I've talked about this with a lot of academic white feminists at Stanford, and I've heard a lot of them ask, "Why do women need to be married? Why can't they have children on their own? And who am I to impose some moral code on women?" My response is that when I went out to interview people, I thought I was going to find a lot of black women who were so happy they didn't have to be married. But I didn't find that. To the people who say black women are leading the charge in being unmarried and we should applaud them rather than subject them to scrutiny, I would say they're really missing the experience that a lot of black women are having. A less charitable take is that it's doing a disservice to black women to manipulate their experience for the ideological ends of feminism.”
Jacque said...
...And yes, unfortunately, some black women will only listen to a black male on this issue...
I'm not even sure about that. I only read the first three pages of comments and the majority of them did not address this central issue as it pertains to BLACK WOMEN at all. In an article, in which marriage and black women are the focus, somehow the commentators managed to avoid discussing it. There were plenty of comments relating to white privilege, male privilege, black men, the "roots" of the problem, feminism, and of course the obligatory WW cleverly avoiding any discussion of white female privilege. It is really is astounding when you take a step back and look at other people's motivations and interests at play.
I second your call for all Black Women to read Dr. Banks book. Forget "The Help", forget Tyler Perry. Forget the destructive messages that surround Black Women. And yes forget some of the destructive nonsense that you are hearing from the pulpit.
I read this book two weeks a go and was floored. The facts are there for any Black women to read for herself. You can pull up the actual studies that backs up every thing Dr. Banks is talking about. The facts counter all of the misinformation that is floating around in the Black community and on the net.
I hope once this book has been digested that Black women discuss it and place a positive review of the book on Amazon in support of it.
I sometimes have a hard time understanding why a lot of people go on the defensive when it come to this book. I mean if the house was on fire i'd appreciate someone telling it was on fire and pointing the way to the nearest exit, in a sense this is a similar situation. There are good black men out there but not enough and Dr. Banks seems to be simply stating instead of 'marrying down' or waiting forever for the right black man stop using race as a qualifier and you'll be more likely to find a mate with the qualities you desire. I feel rather sad for the man since this concept shouldn't get as much negativity as it does, and he shouldn't be subjected to all these personal attacks but that's life i guess. I'm happy i grew up in a household where IR dating has never been an issue.
Yes I am a fan! What sane bw wouldn't be?
I had only one problem with the book and that was it could have been longer by at least 100 more pages. I read it in one whole day and I could have gave him some more examples (lol) of some of my friends and family's relationships.
It was a good read though and let us know that black women are not crazy we all know that it is something different about our men compared to other races.
I have the book, and I have enjoyed reading it. The funny thing is that most of Banks' "eye-opening" statements are ones that BWE writers like yourself have been saying for years. Evia's oft-repeated comment about the destruction of so many BW's legacies (BW who want children, but don't have them because they waited indefinitely for their "black prince") was addressed in this book. That was the first time I've seen an academic address the long-term repercussions of high-achieving BW either forgoing children or having them OOW or in marriages to DBRBM who eventually leave and play little-to-no role in their children's lives... so even in the case of the latter where the BW has more resources and education than the poorer single BW, her kids still go through the same cycle of fatherlessness and all of its ills.
One thing I'd never considered until this book is WHY black divorce rates are so high. I figured it might have to do with a lack of infrastructure in the black "community" that could support a marriage, but I never really considered the possibility that the high rates of marrying down among BW create poorly matched couples that have a much higher possibility of divorce because of incompatible socioeconomic profiles. After all, money/finances are usually the No. 1 contributor to the breakup of a marriage.
I was also happy, like you, to see Banks' response to the author at Salon. That author is a gay man and Salon is based in one of the most liberal cities in the USA in San Francisco. It was nice that Banks didn't let this author's bias and lack of perspective of the heterosexual black woman's desires take over the message.
I haven’t purchased the book or read it, but I am planning on maybe sending some to others for Christmas. I was also thinking about keeping one in my home library just for reference. But to read it…not really what I need. The whole truth is what BWE are providing. But for some black women this book is ground breaking. And it is for BWE as well in a way because it lends conversation to a wider audience as to the thicket of these statistics.
Great job blogging for NWNW Halima! My womb is off limits without a marriage license!
Squarlymade
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