Race And Marriage

Approval of interracial marriage is at record highs:

Rick Banks, author of the book Is Marriage for White People?, takes a deeper look at the issue. Black women marry across racial lines the least. His theory as to why:

[F]or many black women, to marry across the race line feels like a betrayal of the race, as though they are leaving behind black men who, these women know all too well, are among the most disadvantaged group of people in society. Many successful black women want not to abandon black men, but instead to lift as they climb.

In a subsequent post, he encourages these women to defy this convention:

Black women would benefit themselves by more frequently marrying across the race line. These women would not only have more relationships, they’d have better relationships too. In marrying down rather than out, black women choose a partner of the same race but a different class. Many college-educated black women would do better to find a man of the same class, even if a different race. While compatibility may be a matter of both race and class, it is clearly that case that black women’s marriage patterns reflect too much emphasis of race and not enough of class.