Are Single Black Women Being Exploited By The Media?

Are single black women being used for the media's gain?

By: Amanda Anderson

When it comes to marriage, the statistics are not in our favor.

No matter how nicely we want to put it, the pickings are slim for African American women. But there are a lot of factors that play a role in the decline in black marriages. While some would say that a sky rocketing incarceration rate of black men plays the biggest factor, educated and successful black women are feeling the scarcity more than ever before.

Even though we already know the facts, it seems as if our issues have become a hot topic in the media. There are videos popping up everywhere featuring single successful black women expressing their concerns of a marriage less future. Although they have achieved much success in education and in their respective careers, those achievements somehow become void if they are not married by 40.

And the topic invokes such a heated debate among the African American community, one can’t help but understand why the media continues to recycle and rehash this story as often as possible. While the characters might change, the story is still the same.

The fact is, although it is harder for black women to find partners that they can spend a lifetime with, good black men are not extinct. And although the statistics say a lot, they are NOT saying that marriage is impossible for African American women.

And if there is some type of issue between black men and black women that needs to be handled, maybe we should do that in the privacy of our own communities. For the life of me, I do not understand why everyone is so intrigued by our “difficulty” in finding husbands. For us to be the minority in this country, somehow our problems have become the concern of the majority ran media.

Besides…one can’t help but look at all these videos and get a desperate vibe that does not represent the type of women that we truly are. Is marriage harder for us to come by? Maybe for a larger majority. Are we desperate? Hell no.

No matter what the videos show, those of us that never make it down the aisle won’t be sitting around pitying ourselves.

We will simply take our master’s degrees, small businesses, and PhD’s and continue to enjoy the things that we do have.

And maybe if we learn to enjoy who we are in solitude, someone might come around and will be able to enjoy us just as much as we enjoy ourselves.

Life’s too short, enjoy the moment. And for God’s sake, stop making these “Single Black Women” videos.