Shayna and Ben Engaged
LINK to all of their engagment pics.
Thanks for the link, Lorraine!
I know you're en route from Alaska to L.A. That sounds like a trek!
And yeah, I can well imagine the motion sickness from the boat you're on. That is no joke! Just the thought of it is making me queasy! LOL
Okay, everyone, STOP what you're doing and check out THIS YOUNG BLACK WOMAN's blog.
She wrote to me to ask me to help to promote her blog. I get asked this a lot and normally I don't do it because usually, what they have is not much of critical relevance to bw or it's a duplication.
However, her blog's content has a different texture and much of her advice is excellent, especially if you go to the core of her message. The blog is called: The "Black Girl's Guide to Everything".
After she first wrote to me and I checked her out, I knew she was on to something there. So, I told her I'd urge my readers to read her site and comment. However, when she told me in a second email that she's a pre-med student, maintaining a high GPA, has internships, and in honors organizations, I was strongly tempted to write her and tell her I can't, in good conscience, pull her away from what's most critical for her personal future to focus on saving other young bw. This is exactly how some bw get pulled into becoming mammies for others.
I just checked my email and I've been asked to do an interview with the BBC. I won't be doing it, but here's the info in case some of you want to listen to the program.
I am writing from the BBC World Service programme 'Newshour'. We air around the world to over 40 million people weekly.
We are covering the story about new research from the Pew Center that 1 in 12 marriages are now interracial. I saw your blog and thought you would have a good perspective on this. Would you be willing to speak to us today? We air at 20:00 GMT / 15:00 EST.
Anyway, I'm going to use this young blogger's blog as a teachable lesson. She's really good because she's gets to the heart of the upwardly mobile, educated YOUNGER bw's experiences. She knows the terrain. I can hit at it but she can easily hit the bullseye. Now, here's the thing, once her blog becomes well-read and the comments start flying in, it WILL draw her away from her PERSONAL goals. It will. Saving people can become addictive and highly time-consuming. We know that a lot of bw are in need of a lot of saving. LOL! I think some bloggers develop a God-complex. I also think some bloggers have a passion for what they do, and I think, in some cases, their lives are sucked into this. I don't want that to happen to this young blogger.
There are many students who start college as pre-med majors, but fall by the wayside because they do NOT manage their time well. That's the chief reason why many college students don't do well in college. They have to manage their own time all by themselves. No adult is there to stay on them to force them to do this or that at this time or that. Pre-med requires intense focus, LOTS of studying, and you've got to be able to manage your time extremely well, all by yourself, the overwhelming most of the time. You can't afford to split your focus!!!
I don't have to split my focus to do what I do here. I have the time and ease of life to do this. Thankfully, I don't have many other demands on my time and energy. I have others in my life to help me to meet my personal needs and to support me in meeting all the demands of family life.
So as an older bw, I know that's not fair to her--to send her off on this path. I don't want her to split her focus to save alla our people. I want her to become a doctor because that, all by itself, would be a mighty contribution to all of us!!
So, speaking to her directly, as an older bw to a younger one: "Don't do this to yourself. Look out for yourself 'first and foremost.'" I'm writing about this here because I don't want you to think I don't want to help you. But I also want YOU to learn how to say, "Yes, I could help, but I'm NOT going to, because I must promote and protect MY own interests--FIRST AND FOREMOST."
So, with that said, I'm leaving this up to her because she's going to have to learn to do that sooner or later--all by herself, although she's a proific writer, who has assured me that she can do it all. LOL!
However, PLEASE comment on her site so that she will know that we appreciate her to the max!! We must always support those who support us!
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Okay . . . in case there's any confusion about the term, an okey-doke is any maneuver used to stop or slow bw's movement away from the failed black community or non-QLL bm. The okey-doke can present itself in various forms.
One such okey-doke maneuver is the accusation that as more AA women marry out, they are causing the black race to become extinct. You'd be surprised at how many bw are slowed or stopped by this LIE.
Thanks, S for this ARTICLE about the upsurge in interracial marriages in the United States. Black-white marriages is the fastest growing interracial marriage and as of now 24% of black men marry out as opposed to 9% of black women.
Black men marry out at close to 3 times the rate of black women, yet blacks will almost always accuse black WOMEN of bringing extinction to the black race by marrying out. I know that men of most groups marry out at a higher rate than the women, but is there any other group where the gap in the rate is this high?
Black men and their bm-identified bw supporters will say that no one wants bw and that bw can't marry out, yet as more and more of us DO marry out, then bm and their bm-identified bw say we shouldn't have done it because a bw who marries a wm is a bw that a bm would have wanted. LOL! See how the okey dokes work. You'll be perpetually confused and paralyzed if you listen to them, but that's the goal of the okey-doke to do that--to keep bw from moving on.
I've also heard the ridiculous notion that the reason why the bw-wm marriage has a very high success rate is because a bw will "change" to make herself more accommodating to a wm. PLEASE! It's next to impossible for an adult person--man or woman--to change their behavior to that extent and in the time period that would be needed to create these successful marriages bw have with wm. Keep in mind that most adult behavior is so fixed until most adults can't change their behavior--even to save their lives!! We've seen plenty proof of that. So, how is it that bw can so readily change themselves SO FAST to succeed in their marriages with wm? They can't. They were ALREADY good wife material, already ready to be a good wife to a compatible, QLL man.
So many people hate to give black women credit for anything positive!!
All research shows that higher educated people tend to want to get married and they also tend to have higher rates of success in their marriages. DUH! Many bw who marry wm are upwardly mobile, which usually means they have higher levels of education. Therefore, when bw of this sort date and marry out, they tend to do so with men who are also upwardly mobile and possessing higher (didn't say always matching) education levels. So, DUH!
Many bw are ALREADY good wife material. We don't need to change ourselves. What more bw need is compatible, QLL husband material, which is available in the global village.
It's not the bw or the wm's fault that the white (or other non-bm) guy can see the value of the QLL bw and chooses her to be his wife and the mother of his children. All sensible people seek quality in their mates, so this is guaranteed to happen more and more.
The article also highlights that white women fare the worst in their interracial marriages. I don't know exactly why, but if some of you recall, the groundbreaking research done by the National Council on Family Relations (See a portion of my post about this--re-posted at bottom of this post) also points out that the ww-bm marriage success rate, in particular, is the lowest of all interracial couplings.
But this extinction accusation is ludicrous, in itself, since only a relatively small portion of the blacks on earth are in the United States, but the foul, sexist thing about this accusation is that NO ONE accuses black men of causing the black race to become extinct--despite the fact that 24% of bm who marry at all, marry out according to this research.
I'm just pointing out some of the foul, okey dokes here.
Another aspect of this is what Ralph Richard Banks (who wrote "Marriage is for White People") talks about often in his interviews. He says that black MEN are the most vehement opponents of black women marrying out. WHY????? It's black MEN who marry out almost 3 times the rate of black women!!!! Why are they not vehemently against bm marrying out?????
I mention the statistics also because SOME AA women still feel that we, who date out or marry out, are deserting bm. I KNOW they feel this way because theyve SAID this to me and various other bw who have married out.
So, these stats are vital to point out the supreme folly of their thinking because their views influence many other bw to remain still and WAIT, while their youth and their lives slide away.
For ex., I was talking to the bw (mentioned in a post below) who became recently engaged to a wm, and she told me that she hasn't even told some AA women colleagues and so-called friends about her engagement because they're still hot at her for even dating a wm. LOL! Mind you that hardly any of these bw colleagues or "friends" are married, never been married, and most haven't dated in the past ten years, and when they do have anything to do with a man, he's ALWAYS noticeably unsuitable or on a lower level. Well, she and I both know that most, if not all of these other bw, are simply envious. SMH That's why they're angry at her for ignoring and/or dodging all of the okey-dokes aimed at bw like us and finding a QLL man who happens to be white. LOL!
So, I mention these statistics here--for bw to wake up to the facts about what's going on out there--NOT because I oppose bm marrying out. Quite the contrary. I think that black men and women SHOULD focus exclusively on who they, on an individual level, feel is the most compatible, QLL partner for them because that would result in more general happiness, and that's good for everyone.
I do not believe that AA men and women share a common destiny anymore. Yes, the males and females have a historic past in common, but that's about it. Anyone who spends more than a minute around AA men and women will conclude that the thinking of the two genders is almost totally different. This is what causes the constant friction.
I know some of you might wonder why these stats even need to be highlighted to bw. LOL! This is mind-boggling to some of you non-AAs in particular because barely anyone in certain locations of the U.S. even needs to read these statistics to see that black men are dating out and marrying out in relatively high numbers.
But, some AA women are stuck in a time warp and in a state of blindness, and they want to stay there. They just can't bring themselves to see this, so when they want to accuse someone of destroying "black love," it's us women who they claim haven't given bm a "chance' even though the overwhelming most of those bw do not have anything even remotely resembling "black love" or any kind of love with a man, in their own lives.
I really would love it if bm and the bm-identified supporters would go ahead and love who they want to love and stop with the okey-dokes aimed at stopping bw on this SLICE from loving who we want to love. I guarantee you that smarter, upwardly mobile bw will be just fine. Smarter bw will continue to get their education, travel, mingle more fluidly, and seek out QLL marriage partners and have families--and in that order. And younger bw must keep the finding of their QLL mate as a priority at all times--though it doesn't always have to be on the very front burner, depending on your age and stage in life.
For those who've sent me pics and other material to post, please know that I will post them all--very soon!
Okay, I'm off to do my 2-mile walk. Remember, we have to make fitness a priority too. LOL!
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******The following is RE-POSTed info from an article I did in October 2009 about the HIGH success rate of bw-wm marriages as compared to other interracial marriages in the United States. Unfortunalely, the link to the NCFR is no longer active, but I'm sure you can find the actual article in their archives. Here's the LINK to my October 2009 article.
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Thank you, Felicia for finding this information!! I tell ya--Felicia is a researcher extraordinaire. She deserves a BIG tip for this info. She has staged a one-woman coup! I've gotten quite a few inquiries re research conducted on black-white marriages in general and some of the queries specifically ask about the success rates of BW-WM marriages. Well, these results below are recent and are based on a comprehensive study conducted by the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR).
If anyone wants to argue, dispute, or naysay these findings, tell them to argue with the NCFR.
Send this to all the bw you know who are still being fed lies upon lies about bw-wm relationship success. So many black women are constantly told the LIE that a relationship or marriage with a white man is not going to work. I was told the same thing by quite a few black folks who claimed they cared about my well-being. LOL! Apparently, they were hoping to diminish my interest in exploring my relationship options across the racial lines or that what they predicted would come true.
THIS research study has proven just the opposite. I'll be sure to send the naysayers these findings.
Here's the LINK to the NCFR's exhaustive findings. LOL! Read it for yourself.
Remember that this research study was conducted by The National Council on Family Relations, the "gold standard" on family relations research. (NCFR) They would have NO reason to be biased. This study compared different combos of interracial relationships to same-race relationships. I have listed a few of their findings below.
"But Will It Last?": Marital Instability Among Interracial and Same-Race Couples*
The report said they "used 10 years as our primary exposure period [to examine] because the average duration of American marriages that end in divorce is 8 years."
1. "Racial differences in marriage, on the other hand, correspond to higher divorce rates but mostly in marriages where the White spouse is female."
2. "NH [non-hispanic] Black husband/White wife marriages were twice as likely to divorce as White/White couples, and NH Asian husband/ White wife couples were 59% more likely, according to Model II. Highlighting the role of gender in interracial dynamics, the reverse combinations actually showed a lower or similar risk of divorce."
[This next finding is really amazing until you consider # 6 below.]
3. "White husband/NH Black wife couples were 44% less likely to divorce than White/White couples," and White husband/NH Asian wife couples were only 4% more likely to divorce by Year 10.
4. "The current study examined the likelihood of divorce among interracial couples compared to same-race couples. We find that although interracial marriages overall are more vulnerable to divorce, this reflects the experience of some but not all couples. According to the adjusted models predicting divorce as of their 10th year of marriage,interracial marriages that are most vulnerable involve White females and non-White males (with the exception of White females/Hispanic White males) relative to White/White couples. Conversely, White men/ non-White women couples show either very little or no differences in divorce rates; or, as in the case of White men and Black women, are substantially less likely than White/White couples to divorce by their 10th year."
5. "Our data show that these marriages, specifically those involving Black men and White women, have the highest likelihood of disruption of any White/ non-White marriages."
6. "NH Black women and White men who choose to intermarry may be selective of an especially high degree of commitment to their relationship that reduces the potential for divorce."
[So this is exactly what I said--even before I read these findings. BW-WM relationships tend to be the REAL DEAL; we're not "experimenting."]
[In other words, bw who marry wm tend to be selective and we tend to select white men who can commit to a long term relationship; these men are serious about that commitment and the converse is also true, meaning that wm tend to select commitment-centric bw.]
I remember Darren actually saying this to me before we got married. He said he knew that I would make a commitment to our marriage, and that he felt very good about that. I knew he was commitment material too.
7. "Interracial couples tend to be homogamous on education."
[This means that their educational levels or skills, abilities, etc. tend to be the same or equivalent.] For ex. one bw who married a wm told me that although her husband didn't have as much advanced education as she had, he was a diplomat. It goes without saying that through his job, he brought a tremendous amount of social and other capital to her table--although he didn't have as much formal education as she had. (Read about this couple in BOOK 2 of my essays.)
8. "Whites, specifically White females, who intermarry tend to be less educated than those who marry other Whites."
Wow, so much about these findings rings true--in general--about me and Darren.
Anyway, Felicia has dug out the research findings. It's not necessary to argue with anyone; just refer them to the study and if they want to argue, tell them to get in touch with the NCFR. This is especially timely info.
To black women and ALL of our male admirers. Yeah, YOU. LOL! PLEASE circulate this information. It doesn't matter what the women do with it. Just send it to them.
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The following pertains to black-black marriages in the U.S. I didn't make any of this up. This is actually what's going on despite all notions about "black love" and "black folks gotta stick together" and other types of magical thinking circulating among blacks in the U.S.
Divorce Statistics: Effects on Black Community
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