I'm a Young Black Woman, and I Will Get Married

By: Helena Andrews | Posted: April 25, 2012 at 12:28 AM

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In a piece for Marie Claire, The Root contributing editor Helena Andrews says she's declaring war on the alleged epidemic of singledom among African-American women. And her first weapon is her own relationship story.

So, according to the data -- and the media that are obsessed with it -- I'm screwed. As a 31-year-old college-educated black woman who's never been married, everywhere I turn, the odds of finding a good man are against me. That is, of course, until I turn over every morning to the man sleeping next to me. He is (gasp) black. He is (quelle surprise!) college-educated. He isn't a felon, a deadbeat, a father of illegitimate children, or a cheat — all the categories women like me are forced to choose from, according to the seemingly never-ending stories about the "crisis" of black marriage. Attention, media! There is no crisis in my bedroom ...

How could my experience and that of so many other black women be so different from the official statistics? I wanted to find out -- so I started digging. Because so many news reports repeat the 70 percent figure without citing a source, I went straight to the mother lode of demographic data: the U.S. Census.

Read Helena Andrews' entire piece at Marie Claire.

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