Stumping for Marriage: You're Doin' It Wrong.

I’ve long suspected that part of the reason that aspirational Negroes rail against ghetto folks is actually to reify that stereotype, and consequently give relatively banal middle class lifestyle choices the weight of much-needed social uplift. (It’s why you see portrayals in the media of professional black folks with traditional nuclear families reflexively celebrated as ‘positive’ and ‘affirmative’.)

A very sententious case in point:

From the synopsis:

From the creators of the award winning website Black and Married With Kids.com comes a ground breaking documentary set to challenge negative stereotypes surrounding marriage and family in the black community.

So marriage requires a lot of patience and work? You don’t say! I’m also not sure why any of what was said in the clip is unique to African-American marriages or which stereotypes it “challenges.”

But it sure will make a lot of people feel good about themselves.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • Molly

    Why are none of them same-sex couples?

  • young_

    Aren’t there legitimate reasons to celebrate/endorse black marriage? There are so many reasons to believe that, all other things equal, two married parents will have an easier time achieving and helping their children achieve positive outcomes than comparable single-parent families. There are also pernicious stereotypes and generalizations out there about the moral failings of black Americans that I think are also worth countering.

  • Molly

    GD, why didnt Tyler Perry do each vignette playing both the man and his wife? lol

  • young_

    Sorry GD- I missed your comment. I think the focus on opposite-sex couples is also a result of the concern that a lot of people feel toward the very high percentage of black children being raised in single-parent households.

  • So if we show enough images of black married couples all the single black people will be convinced it can work and get hitched, and all the white people will stop thinking that our families consist solely of single mothers on welfare and deadbeat dads? I’m not buying it. I agree with G.D. that this seems like yet another “black people vs. niggers” line of discourse designed to self-aggrandize.

  • young_

    @GD: College-educated black folks are definitely more likely to get married, but (as far as the studies can tell) marriage also leads to improved outcomes for less educated and lower income people as well. In fact, it’s arguably even more important for them since the tangible benefit in having two parents who each earn $17,500 a year versus only having one, for example, is enormous. The apparent benefits of marraige even exist after controlling for income too though, probably because married couples literally have more hours available to spend monitoring and supervising their children.

    These studies obviously still can’t rule out the possibility that people who marry are different than those who don’t (i.e. there might be hard to measure personality differences, differences in life experiences, etc.) but I think the research is pretty clear that, whatever is going on, people who grow up in married households are generally better off, even when their parents aren’t affluent or highly-educated.

    @Universeexpanding: In isolation, I doubt that a video like this will change the thinking of all white people, but I wouldn’t underestimate the subtle effects of increased exposure to stereotype-challenging images and information. I’m sure there’s plenty of self-aggrandizing going on too, which annoys me, but that strikes me as a far more secondary issue. That tension will always be there, so long as middle-class people believe that assimilating more of their behaviors will lead to better outcome for less privileged black people.

  • If you flood people with enough images I suppose that you could see some positives over time but I guess what you posit as a secondary issue concerns me far more. I don’t think that “ghetto” people (god I hate that word) find people like the ones that are in this spot aspirational – I think it’s really easy to pick up on an “us vs. them” tone here. What I’m asking is, even if marriage is beneficial can a spot like this encourage people to get married. If the aim is simply to draw attention the existence of a married black middle class, how does that help everyone else?

  • young_

    GD- I think that’s right but I don’t see why those two alternative explanations are mutually exclusive. Seems to me like people are probably more likely to get married because they already have more stable lives in various ways, but at the same time, people who get and stay married are also likely to live more stable lives.

    UE- I hate the pejorative use of “ghetto” too and the us v. them/ good blacks v. niggers has always bothered me too, whether it’s coming from W.E.B. DuBois, Chris Rock, or Bill Cosby. I definitely didn’t mean to suggest it was trivial. The more that I think about it, you’re probably right about the doubtful usefulness of this particular clip.

    But I also don’t think that the black marriage issue is just an issue for poor or uneducated black people. From what I recall, the disparities persist pretty high up the SES scale as well, so I’m not sure that there aren’t benefits to making middle-class black people think more about marriage too. All that being said, I can’t vouch for this clip or the overall project without more information.

  • Pingback: Stumping for Marriage: You’re Doing It Wrong, The Sequel. « PostBourgie()

  • Big Word

    I think encouraging people to get married is a good thing. However, I think they really are going about it the wrong way because most of what I’ve read suggests that people who don’t get married aren’t doing so because they don’t think it’s good thing. Rather the institution just doesn’t fit in with their values and that fact ought to be recognized and respected by people who want to promote the mainstream version of marriage. I don’t say that to imply any sort of character deficiencies on the part of people who choose not to get married. It’s just the way it is. I would say for a large portion of young women growing up today becoming a mother is more important to them than becoming someone’s wife.

  • thinking of a name

    Wow. I have a whole different view on this. I don’t see this as an us verses them issue. I see this as a video that is marketed to people who are like minded to those in the video. I can only speak on my experience and two things really stand out to me. First, several of the people who I went to undergraduate school with and graduated college with some years ago are not married, not because they don’t want to be married, but because of issues with relationships. I see this video marketed at them. Second, there a people like me, who are married and generally happy but without reflection, as in there are not many images that represent my reality out there. I would get this video to look at another person’s relationship and hopefully find some sort of kinship there, look and see if others have gone through the things that maybe we have gone through and how others have overcome some obstacles. With this, as with everything else, I think that it comes down to an issue of balance. With whites there is an understanding and representation that you have both single and married people/parents within that community some that are positive and some not so positive. So why can’t there be the same balance of representation in the black community?

    As for the comment divorce is not an option, I understand it. You do all of your homework and kicking of tires before you get married, then as long as all parties represented themselves correctly before the marriage, then divorce is not an option because why would it need to be?

  • thinking of a name

    These are my random thoughts, as I don’t have time right now to make them pretty as you all do so well :) ….

    So maybe I am being simplistic, but maybe you can explain to me what you mean by it is for black people who want to get married and live a particular kind of lifestyle? What types of different married life styles are there? Maybe I am just naive to this point. I believe that the idea and issues of marriage, in general, are universal.

    I am not sure that as an aggregate black Americans are social conservatives, maybe in theory but I am not sure about practice. So, I don’t know if blacks are already proponents of marriage.

    I don’t think that the idea that middle-class black marriages should be celebrated is a bad thing. I don’t think that celebrating black marriage, in general, is a bad thing.

    You ask what obstacles and issues are unique to being a black couple. Well, I know that this has to do with “class”, but there is a rather extreme feeling of loneliness, it is something that I have grown accustomed. I was the only one of my black friends and social peers whose parents were married and one of the few (less than half) of my white friends and peers whose parents were married. It was to the point that as a child I distinctly remember wishing my parents were divorced so that I could do what ever I wanted and get all types of toys and treats and trips and you name it – like my white friends did. When the Cosby Show came on I was so happy, because finally I saw a reflection of me and my family, but then people black and white began to criticize the show because it was not real, black people did not live like that, it was not reflective of true life … but it was reflective of true life, my life, but no one seemed to value it. So where do I fit in? It feels like being a unicorn. So those are the things that are brought into our marriage that are different, this feeling that as the women expressed you are not real, there must be some kind of catch, because people like me and my family don’t exist. Then, I get the feeling that there are some people that are waiting and wishing for this thing to fail, because them we won’t be riding so high on the horse, and then we can come down to earth and be like real people.

    Another interesting note, as some of you have children as they grow their experience may be more like mine as you all become the next generation of privilege.

    To your point on divorce is not an option: I do believe that there are marriage that end because things get hard at that moment, but if given a chance things can get better and if divorce was not an option at the time, it would have gotten better. I remember a particular point in my parent’s marriage when they went through a rough patch (before I wished them divorced) there was talk of separating. I wanted them to stay together, I even spoke to the both of them about it, I did not care if they were unhappy, I wanted them to be married for my benefit, period. My mother told me later that she stayed at that point because of her children, but they are still together now and happy, and their children are grown and gone.

  • young_

    Although I completely agree that the slogan “divorce is not an option” can be a bad thing if taken too literally*, I think it is probably very positive if taken as a flexible, aspirational maxim. In fact, I’d argue that it might even be necessary to reinforce the stability and feeling of commitment and engagement in a healthy marriage. The fact is, American culture now makes it very acceptable for couples to give up on and walk away from their marriages without trying to preserve them, and I don’t think this is necessarily a good thing. From an individual freedom perspective, fine– everyone should be able to marry or unmarry to their heart’s content, but there are individual, family, and social consequences, and I think the “divorce is not an option” approach ensures that people really contemplate doing what they reasonably can to preserve their relationship instead of just becoming too self-absorbed, moving rashly and looking at the front door.

    *Maybe I’m being too generous, but I tend to think that the people (of our generation) who say things like that often don’t really countenance the possibilities of their spouses becoming abusive or flagrantly adulterous, for example.

  • young_

    There’s no way to know or guage these things but I strongly disagree with the suggestion that we should assume every divorced couple made the right decision just because they know their relationship better than we do. Do you disagree that some people take marriage a lot more seriously than others and work a lot harder to keep it healthy, stable and fulfilling? That some people have much more constructive reactions to marital angst/disatisfaction and go to much greater lengths to repair them (particularly counselling), when others would have just given up?

  • young_

    btw, I suspect that a lot of marriages end up in divorce because one partner gives up and gradually abandons the relationship over time, until divorce seems like the only logical solution. People who adapt “divorce is not an option” as a (flexible) personal philosophical approach to marriage may be more willing to work on their situation after the first signs of problems, because their marriage is something that is very valuable to them and that they want to proactively work to preserve and improve.

  • thinking of a name

    I was asked a question and I gave an answer based on my experiences. I don’t have to defend my lifestyle to anyone, why should I, I am happy and secure with myself. I do, however, try to understand, and learn from, perspectives that may be different from my own.

    When I said that your children would be of privilege I was making no correlation with marriage. I just noted that there is a lot of discussion of privilege on this site and it is often, in my opinion, viewed as a bad thing but I was just wondering if anyone else had noted that a lot of people on here will have children of privilege.

    I did not, nor have I ever stated, that my lifestyle is for everyone. Once again, I was asked a question and gave an answer, based on my experiences. I also did not say ALL marriages where people are considering divorce.

    Once again, in my experience, the idea that there was a family like the Cosby Show was not seen as a real life scenario.

    I joined the conversation to give my perspective on this and other issues and also to understand where other people are coming from and possibly learn a thing or two, but if you would rather have a conversation where everyone agrees and lives the same lifestyles or use me as a model Bible thumping social conservative pro-marriage villain (which I don’t think I am) that likes to run through these threads then I will just keep it moving.

  • young_

    I agree with Universeexpanding’s point that “Divorce is not an option” is also an important reason why people need to seriously think about marriage before entering it (and perhaps a big counterargument to the religion prof’s WaPo article discussed in the other PB marriage post).

    And for the record, I think that deciding who and when to marry or unmarry is far less important than deciding who to have children with (and when). I just wanted to throw that out there because most of my views about the importance/benefits of marriage stem from the fact that I’m pretty convinced that it’s generally conducive to a whole range of better outcomes for children and that divorce generally promotes a number of negative outcomes for children.

  • young_

    I should probably stay out of it but having been part of the discussion too, I feel compelled to type my two cents. Just keeping it real, I was initially a little surprised by the tone of UE’s response to Thinking of a Name too. I didn’t think Thinking got ‘vilified’ like he claimed, but it definitely didn’t come across as someone just breaking down someone’s arguments and exposing their logical flaws.

    For whatever that’s worth, just my unsolicited two cents…

  • Tiffany In Houston

    I happen to agree with TOAN and while I certainly enjoy the discourse and intelligence of the site participants, I have to say the general tone of the posters keeps me from commenting. I don’t necessarily feel this is a safe space for us Negroes who might tend to think a bit more traditionally but still consider themselves progressive enough to want to stretch a bit.

    Just my 14 cents.

  • An a totally unrelated topic, I had to look up the word “sententious “… I feel so ignorant.

  • cicely

    i read every day but rarely comment, mostly due to time constraints. i love the site: the various and sometimes conflicting viewpoints; the commitment to critical thinking and argument refinement; and, of course, mad jokes. postbourgie seems to me to be a place that welcomes hearing the ideas of all kinda folx, and part of that welcome is not coddling grown people when their arguments don’t hold together; me, i feel respected by it.

    that being said…it seems like there are a few different things going on in TOAN’s post. the unicorn thing, which i feel; earlier today i was telling my partner i was sick of feeling like a unicorn, like my…brand, if you will, of blackness is this bizarre and singular thing. i tend to chalk that up to the erroneous concept and numerous representations of negritude as this monolithic thing. if not totally monolithic, then some kind of ill “theme and variations”. i feel like this video, in seeking to expose the fact that black people really do go to college and get married and have kids or whatever, just perpetuates the “us vs. them” thing, as so many pointed out. and i think the “us vs. them” and the “monolithic negritude” thing are related. this idea of, “well, we always see the bad, let’s show the good” often comes off to me as “please don’t make us stay in the box with them! we’re normal. just like you!” and it’s not hard to guess who the “you” is…

    the second issue i saw in TOAN’s stuff was admirably explicated by UE. i am sometimes guilty of thinking that my experience is the norm, but whenever i go there, i get into trouble.

    thirdly, perhaps there’re some semantic differences at play, too…. if you’re still reading TOAN, what is the definition and ideal of marriage that you find to be universal? also, what did you meant by privilege? when i read it, i questioned whether you meant in terms of institutional oppression, or more like, a driver’s license at 16?

  • thinking of a name

    That being said, I think UE’s problem with TOAN’s post was that it extrapolated from personal experience (which is totally fine to share) to a broader idea of how people should think about marriage without enough dots for UE to connect the ideas together.

    WRONG!

    I was asked a question by GD pertaining to MY SPECIFIC black marriage (being that I am both black and married I guess it would be logical to ask about my marriage being different. Good! We can move on to the next point) to which I answered BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE (I don’t know what else I would base it on really. Maybe I should look up some studies on or pertaining to black marriages and get statistics from said study that I was not a part of in describing MY marriage. Or better yet, why don’t I go out and get funding to do said study to answer this particular question pertaining to my specific marriage … Oh, but then I would probably have to get the necessary credentials to carry out such a study and hire staff and, oh yeah, find a sample of at least let’s say 100 TOADs, yeah, that’s a good number. Devote a couple of years to is, sounds good. Oh yeah, I forgot, there is only one TOAD so that won’t work …). Now, if he was asking about ALL black marriages, then that was not my interpretation, but he did not write “ALL black marriage” he wrote “YOUR black marriage”. Maybe this was some sort of subtle subconscious me verses you type of speak, hmmm, hadn’t thought about that …

    I don’t know what to say other than that. I guess what the majority is stating and want me to accept is that I have been called out for my lack of logical argument and acted in a knee jerk manor to not being coddled and to that I say … okay, sure, why not.

    • but it’s not clear that the marriages are not indicators of something else. The pooling of resources is no small thing, but it also assumes that their marriages are the reason for the stability of those families. Black people who are poor are less likely to get married because of the attendant instability of poor life.

      It’s not poverty + marriage = improved outcomes; it’s probably more like poverty + relative stability (from family, church, no pressing legal concerned, etc.) = a greater likelihood of being married in the first place.

  • thinking of a name

    please try to reply so that your reply is threaded to the comment you’re responding to.

    I would love nothing better than to do that, however, at some points the reply option does not work for me and I am forced to start a new threat at the bottom … like now.

  • thinking of a name

    For some reason reply is not working for me!!!

    SHANI-O:
    Thanks for coming back…but the part where he said “because you’re a black couple” is what stands out to me. It’s not a question about your marriage and only your marriage, it’s a question that asks what issues in your marriage are specific to being black.

    That’s fine, and I can handle that argument and I could have revisited the question and given a more defined answer or maybe I would have thought about it and come to the conclusion that, you know what, there really isn’t anything different about my black marriage. This is a completely different response than the one I got.

    However, I am afraid, that at this point and time, I don’t have the energy or inclination to go any further into this specific topic.