The “Black Marriage Negotiations” video has been making it’s rounds on Facebook walls and on Essence’s blog. It has grossed nearly 200,000 hits on YouTube after going viral late last week. It was created by an anonymous user at Xtranormal.com, a site that boasts, “If you can type, you can make movies.”

If only the bar wasn’t so low.  The video isn’t just bunk because it misuses the term “womanist,” a label meant to convey that black women’s emancipation cannot be achieved without black men and children also being fully equal in society. Simply stated, it’s another baseless attack on educated, professional, single, African American women who seek healthy partnerships with men.  There are so many stereotypes about black women that this video affirms without  providing any context, but perhaps the ones that sting the most are about sex and money.

Starting with the latter, it is really hard for me to believe that black women, the same women who are least likely to marry a college educated spouse want someone to “pay all of the bills… and  pay for every dinner and date we go on.” But if we provide more of a context for Black women, it’s not hard to see why some may want their male counterparts picking up the tab every now and again. Recent data compiled by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research reveal that although black men make significantly less than white men, they still make more than black women. Yes, there may be some variation among women when it comes to the dinner tab question, but I don’t think it is completely unreasonable for black women who make less than their male counterparts to expect them to pay for more during the courting process.

Read More »