Sistas from songstress and actress Jill Scott to blogger and writer Sister Toldja have sparked quite a buzz over the subject of black men romantically involved with non-black women. But since the number of black men out-marrying hovered around a paltry 8% throughout the 80s and 90s, most media outlets have instead chosen to focus on recycled “lonely black female crisis” news. However, a new study revealing a steep jump in black male out-marrying may prove Toldja and Scott right about the interracial elephant in the room that’s about to sit down on everyone in it.

Dave Chappelle with wife & kids

Cross-cultural love in the US is nothing new. Before the advent of slavery, the US was home to immigrants from all over seeking a better life, and it wasn’t unusual to see interracial couples among Native Americans and European and African immigrants.

It was only after slavery became a fact of American life that laws against inter-marrying were put into effect, with most of these laws remaining on the books well after the official end of slavery in 1865.

Some however, refused to bow to legislation telling them who they could love.  Like Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass with wife Helen (seated) and her sister Eva

After Douglass’ African-American wife Anna died in 1882, he fell into a depression and turned to friends like Ida B. Wells and Helen Pitts, his clerk in the office of the Recorder of Deeds in Washington (to which he had just been appointed under President Garfield), to help him get his zest for life back.

Pitts, the daughter of Douglass’ abolitionist friends Gideon and Jane Pitts, was a suffragist and had co-edited a radical feminist publication in DC called The Alpha prior to working for him.

In 1884, Douglass, 70, incited a scandal by marrying the Caucasian Pitts, who was 20 years his junior.

Blacks and whites across the country either hailed the Douglass-Pitts union as revolutionary, or decried it as an affront to both races. In addition to facing criticism from the racially divided, post-slavery public, they also faced it from their own families.

Despite their abolitionist beliefs, Mrs. Douglass’ parents were so against the marriage they stopped speaking to her, effectively disowning her; Douglass’ children disapproved because they felt his marriage was a “repudiation” of their late mother.

When I look at the photo of Douglass and his white wife, at once, I can see their union as a marriage untainted by the barbarity that was slavery, and imagine myself as a black woman of the late 1800s just getting used to my white-mandated “freedom”–perhaps as a domestic worker, serving them at White House dinners or the homes of Douglass’ wealthy friends–feeling a 19th century wince seeing this good black man with this white woman.

And I can’t help but wonder if sisters in 1884 were having the same conversations surrounding interracial marriage many of us are having today.

Whites certainly were.

In the Feb. 28th, 1884 edition of the Nation Magazine, marriage between black men and white women was actually posed as an answer to Caucasians’ “negro problem”, and a black preacher ominously recounts reasons a rash of such marriages would be disastrous for black women.

Article on Frederick Douglass' marriage to Helen Pitts in the Nation Magazine, Feb. 28, 1884.

Translation:

Black men marrying white women could solve our “Negro problem” and cause black women to go crazy because no one will marry them!

An early version of the–insert negative adjective like [bitter, angry, bitchy] here–black woman crisis, anyone?

Whether or not this scheme of getting more black men to marry white women was ever set in stone, the idea certainly seems to have taken root.

Duke Ellington and wife

In fact, a new Pew study, “Marrying Out” (released 0n 6-5-10, updated on 6-15-10), reports that interracial marriage is on the rise, with 1 of out of every 7 new US marriages being interracial or inter-ethnic unions.  And out of those interracial marriages involving a black male,  that black male, represents 22% of all newly married black men in the US.

In other words, 1 out of every 5 black American men is now marrying a non-black woman.

Richard Pryor with wife Jennifer

Below is a graph I made by inputting the percentages of black men out-marrying since 1980, against the years these numbers were calculated (1980, 2000, 2008). The graph shows that within the last 28 years, the number of black men out-marrying has taken a swift upward trajectory.

This graph represents 7.9% of black men out-marrying in 1980, 15.7% in 2000 and 22% in 2008.

Although exact figures are difficult to come by, I can only imagine that in the 115 years from the end of slavery in 1865 to 1980–the years during which most most US States had anti-miscegenation laws in place –that the number of black men out-marrying hovered well below 7%.

The closest statistic I could find on the number of black men out-marrying before 1980 was from 1960, which stated that in that year, a mere 1% of black male and female newlyweds combined married non-blacks.

So what’s behind the sudden rise in black men marrying non-black women? The statistics beg the question: Was the reason black men didn’t marry non-black women in these high numbers in the past, simply because they couldn’t?

Since the number of black men out-marrying jumped approximately 14% over 28 years (from 1980 t0 2008), this might represent a trend, and if it does, with this current trajectory black male out-marrying could grow at a rate of about 2% per year.

Dr. Dre and wife

If this pattern continues, the number of black men out-marrying by 2025 could be roughly 1 out of 2 (52%). According to the Pew study, only 9% of black women married in 2008 wed non-blacks.

And those numbers don’t even account for the number of black men just dating white women.

Eric Benet and girlfriend

Something about this just doesn’t feel right, though I’m hard-pressed to explain why.

Especially considering that I’m already involved, so none of these men or who they choose make a difference to me anyway.

And I know it’s 2010. We have a black president, and our first black Disney princess. These, supposedly, are signs that our country is racially moving onward and upward, beyond these petty conversations about who desires who.

I get it.

But while my mind tells me I have no right to feel anything about who these men choose to love–because every couple falls in love for different reasons–I’m still curious: Why do so many of our successful fathers, sons and brothers not seem to want us?

Brian McKnight and girlfriend

The burden for this phenomenon cannot, despite media attempts to manipulate this as a “black woman’s problem”, be squarely placed on sista’s shoulders. And it’s gotta be deeper than black men being tired.

Babyface and girlfriend

So why does it seem like so many black men are flocking to non-black women? Is it something we’re doing wrong? Or are some black men just not right?

Prince and girlfriend

And with the rest of America mixing so fast outside of the black population that a new beige majority is slated to replace the dominant white power structure over the next 100 years, what if black men are absorbed by the beige-dominant culture? Where will that leave black women?

Thanks for reading this super long entry.

All pics in this entry borrowed from, and many, many thanks are due to, A Field Negro. Be sure to check out his gallery for an eye-opening look at dozens of black men historically and currently linked to non-black women.

Questions:

Is this trend of black male out-marriage a problem? Or are people just making it one?

Were you aware of the growing numbers of black men out-marrying?

Why do you think black women, even though there are more of us than black men, have not out-married as much as black men?

Are you a brother who’s bothered when sisters date or marry out, even though you might date or marry non-black women?

Other thoughts? Comments? Let’s discuss. I’d love to hear from you.