With the end of college quickly approaching for many fourth-years, discussions about the future run rampant across Grounds. Students spend hours endlessly struggling with career plans -- but that comes as no surprise. What may be most surprising, if only to me, are the discussions among women about marriage and relationships. Specifically, many black women have engaged me in this anecdotal but at the same time, real discussion about the quantity and quality of the black males at the University.
Two weeks ago, The Cavalier Daily published an article about how women now outnumber men at the University. Most importantly in that article, the writer mentioned to the number of minority men versus minority women in college. For black students, twice as many women as men attend college. If you have not heard from some of my sisters yet, this is only the beginning of the problem.
Accentuating this educational gender gap is the reality that black women earn college degrees at twice the rate of black men. What does all this mean? It would be nice to say it doesn't mean anything, but what is happening is that many black women are becoming discouraged by their relationship outlook because the availability of men "at their level" continues to dwindle.
Only 50 percent of black women, compared to 80 percent of white women, are expected to be married by the age of 28, according to author Michael Dyson. Overall, less than 40 percent of black women are expected to marry. This statistic reaches beyond the effects of the gender gap in education. In 2000, there were 603,032 black men attending college, while 791,600 were locked in jail. In 1980, there were 143,000 black men in jail, while 463,700 were enrolled in college. Thus, as Dyson writes in "The Michael Dyson Reader," the prison system, with its genocidal effects, is stripping the black community of black men.
But the discussion of the black female plight in marriage does not end with the large number of black men in jail and the disproportionate number of black women versus black men with college degrees.
Further burdening the conversation is the reality of interracial relationships. Specifically, there is a hang-up with many black women and men in the community with blacks dating whites. Interracial dating between blacks and other minorities is often condoned because there is an underlying assumption that both parties involved are joining due to their similar plight in the marriage scheme.
Dating whites, in the minds of many blacks, brings numerous problems mainly because of a historical recollection. It still leads many blacks to assume that the black person who dates a white person does so strategically in order to move up in society or deny his or her blackness. Ask Bryant Gumbel, Tyson Beckford, and Cuba Gooding Jr. (if you get a chance) and they can reminisce about hearing that claim.
Also adding density to the conversation is the hang-up with black beauty as articulated by skin color: "Light skin girls are favored," and "Dark skin girls are favored." Both are common expressions but do nothing to address the problem.
Where do we go from here? Cynically, I could easily say that the competition over the few good men graduating from the University with great academic and extracurricular achievements should continue. Sadly, I know many men who enjoy this scenario. Let it not be forgotten, many men, including me, think this scenario is embarrassing.
The reality is that there are many dimensions to the destruction of black love and black relationships including educational disparities, death by the hands of gangs and prisons, skin-color bias and worship of white standards of beauty. The future may seem bleak, but as Michael Dyson writes: "There are millions of black women from every walk of life who simply want, like every other group of women alive, to be wanted and loved by the men who issued from their mothers' womb."
Concluding with the sentiment of Michael Dyson, bell hooks and many other writers, to ignore that desire and turn our back on each other is the annihilation of black love.
Kurt Davis is a Health & Sexuality Columnist. He can be reached at kurt@cavalierdaily.com.
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