Overall this book is pretty depressing for an African American women to read, whether married or single. All we heard from were single and divorced women. No notes from married women and especially married men or even single men.

I'm also not sure how I feel about the conclusion, that the solution is for African American women to date and marry interracial in hopes of attracting back African American males. It seems like a big fallacy.

I did enjoy the chapters on "mixed marriages". ( )

Although the question posed in the title of this book may alienate some readers who toss off the query with a laugh, much of research in this work does have implications for relationships and marriage regardless of race, especially the points about the increasing education and earning power of women contributing to a socioecomonic gap. ( )

All my single ladies there is nothing new here you haven't heard before; basically marry up, marry light (or White), and marry out (of your racial, social, or cultural background). I felt mixed emotions for some of the women because after awhile it is apparent that race is not the main cause of their singledom, but their unaddressed mental illnesses and preoccupation with the lies they tell about themselves and men that cause the bulk of the problem. I refuse to believe that educated, attractive, successful Black women lack passports which prevent them from traveling the world and meeting all types of men--some of them Black--and not being able to have a connection with any of them. Forget marriage, some of the women interviewed have not encountered, interacted with, a penis for over a decade. Girl....them degrees can't keep you warm at night.
( )

Where to begin? I feel the title is mismatched with the content of the book. The author acknowledges as much in his afterword.

"I cannot overstate the significance of the interviews in the evolution of this project. My conversations with black women transformed my vision for this book, as did their willingness to rethink their own lives. Their sense that their story had not been told was palpable. It was as though, for all their success, their lives remained invisible. I began to think of this book as a small effort to remedy that. No longer a social science project designed to evaluate alternative causes of the marriage decline, or even to systematically assess the consequences of the marriage decline, the book became more of an effort to illuminate a set of experiences that had been obscured, a casualty of attention that oscillates from the black poor to everyone else but rarely settles for long on the black middle class.

I picked up this book because the provocative title piqued my interest in what Banks might have to say about the ripple effects of the African American marriage decline. Instead, what I got was a book that seemed obsessed over the dating woes of successful black women in America. As per usual, the script devolved into what black women should do to solve the declining marriage rates of the black community. We are the saviors of black marriage, didn't you know? Turning the focus on what black women are or are not doing or what they need to do to address the social ills of the entire black community is nothing new. It's a tune I grow increasingly tired of hearing.
( )

Every black man I know hates this discussion. My father tells me, "It doesn't matter if all black men are 'dogs'.' How many do you need? You only need one man. You can't tell me of all the men in the world there is not one." As a child, I heard him say this to every single woman in my family. As a child, I believed him. As an adult, I realize what that even if the woman only needs one man strange things happen when the man has the world at his disposal.

My father wouldn't believe it as a man with many options (even in his older years); he would not understand. Thus, perhaps foolishly, I am delighted that the book Is Marriage for White People was written by a man. I am certain that if a Black woman had written the exact words she would be accused of bad mouthing Black men, over exaggerating the obvious or being the stereotypical angry Black woman.

Perhaps Banks should have titled his work Is Marriage for White Women. He admits that while the problem of Black women is too few choices, the problem of the Black middle class or upper class man is too many. Banks is a thorough expert on the Black middle class. However, if he spent any time with the Black working class he would realize that even Black men who are not middle class earners have the upper hand. Contrary to what he says, incarceration nor underemployment prevents Black men's options to marry. The fact that Banks doesn't give Black men who aren't in the middle class enough credit is the primary fault of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed Is marriage for White People [Women]. Reading the stories of the women cited in the book was like talking to old friends or older mentors. The primary goal of the book seems to be 'Should Black women marry men who are not Black?' The secondary goal is, 'Are black women even desirable to anyone besides Black men?' And the unfortunate understatement is, 'Are Black women even desirable to Black men' (Dyson aside)?

Whether you agree with Banks' conclusions or not, and I do, Is Marriage for White People [Women] is well worth the read. ( )