USA Today Claims Black Women Are “Dating Out�?

“In 2004, 26.5% of black males ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in college versus 36.5% of black women that age, according to the American Council on Education’s most recent statisticsâ€?.Which is one of the reasons why black women are dating more white men then ever before, USA Today claims.

By COED Staff

The hot button article appeared last Sunday, stating, among other things, that “American black women are among the least likely to marryâ€?. The reason for this low marriage rate? The negative statistics aimed at young black men.

According to the article, recent numbers have shown that black men are “seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men and more than twice as likely to be unemployed.â€?

Combine those figures with a growing number of black women frustrated with the ‘high rates of successful black men choosing blondesâ€?, and you’ve got women ready for a change.

“I think a lot of black women are realizing or feeling that the pickings are slim,â€? one such women is quoted as saying in the article, while another one claims she witnessed “All the black men literally [pushing] (us) out the way to talk to the blondesâ€? at a party she once attended.

The article goes on to interview a few other women, as well as give the opposite opinion a voice, but what it never does is comment on how baffling and negative the story really is.

To offhandedly suggest that black men are so bad that black women are turning to a different race to find love is an incredibly weighty assumption. Promoting interracial dating and marriage is one thing, but implying that it’s happening because one male race is outdoing another socially (or choosing a mate based on retro “whiteness = successâ€? thinking) is an entirely different contention—one that deserves much more thought and research than a page or two in a news magazine.