AFFIRMING THE IMPORTANCE OF CLASS

The primary purpose of Childs's article is to present interview data. The author avoids detailed theories of racism and sexism, preferring instead to cite general demographic trends on interracial intimacy and widely accepted theories of Black women's oppression. To be fair, the inclusion of lengthy analysis and interpretation of the women's data would be difficult, given the constraints upon journal articles. However, this shortcoming leads to a problem, as many of the women's voices are presented without thorough analysis, leaving the larger issues to which Childs points, racism and sexism, relatively untouched. What results is an article without a firm argument, as Childs avoids substantive commentary on the sociological themes that repeatedly present themselves in the women's narratives. The issue is framed in the following manner:

According to Childs and the respondents, Black women are facing a matching or marriage-market problem. The argument becomes blurred, however, as Childs moves from the subjects' narrative about the shortage of available Black men, which is a social construction (see above citation, “To Black women”), to presenting the shortage as an objective statistical fact (“demographic realities”). Childs repeatedly affirms subjects' understanding of their collective, market-based problem, with observations such as the following:

And,

Here, Childs offers evaluation of the subjects' narratives and arrives at the conclusion that concerns over shortages of Black men are, in fact, “realistic” or “legitimate.” However, she does not offer enough sociological evidence to support her claim. The “shortage of Black men” thesis has at least two possible readings. First, it could refer to a sheer numbers problem, wherein the actual ratio of Black men to Black women, or the sex ratio, is such that there are not enough men in society to partner with. Within the age range in question, however, this most definitely is not the case, as pointed out by Orlando Patterson, whose analysis of census data from 1998 shows that “for the fifteen-to-twenty-four-year cohort, not only is the sex ratio the highest of all cohorts of Afro-Americans—there are 105 men for every 100 women—but it is also the only age group where the ratio is higher than that of Euro-Americans” (Patterson 1998, p. 65).

Though she does not adequately clarify what she means by “realistic” or “legitimate” matching concerns, let us give Childs the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she is not simply talking about the overall sex ratio, but is instead referring to a specific segment of the Black population. Childs's sample comprises women who are presumably heterosexual, and “overwhelmingly middle class.” These middle-class Black women are only in the market for straight, middle-class Black men. This understanding of the market changes the contours of the project, adding a class dimension to the narrative, one which Childs does not adequately address. Toward the end of the article, she includes a quotation from a woman who conflates the “shortage of Black men” thesis with the class/status element of the women's narratives:

There is plenty of sociological precedent for affirming the class/status-dependent marriage-market argument. For example, Patterson notes a widening gap between Black women and Black men in class and status attainment as they age, with Black women far outpacing their male counterparts (1998). Blacks with at least some college education marry non-Blacks at rates far greater than those without, and Black men marry non-Black partners at rates that double those of Black women (Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 1997). Wilson documents the importance of financial stability to African Americans looking for partners using both quantitative (Wilson 1987) and qualitative methodologies (Wilson 1996), as underprivileged Black women have little incentive to link themselves to underprivileged Black men, who can offer little in the way of status or financial security. Economic considerations influence marriage patterns across all races, as the male's ability to fulfill a central economic role for the partnership or family has traditionally been a crucial determinant of when, if at all, women decide to marry (Oppenheimer 1988). Black women are not unlike women across the entire range of races who consider class status when making decisions about intimate partnering.

Still, it is Childs's job to tease apart the data, and highlight the class dimension of this story. Her subjects' beliefs about Black male scarcity are data points in the constructions of their dating pools. These Black women are just as selective as other women, in that they prefer to date financially stable men of their own race. But for Black women in college, the pool of men who meet these criteria is smaller than the pools from which women of other races choose. Institutional racism explains why the pool of Black men is small, and this racism makes the conditions of partnering different for Black women than they are for White women. But scarcity does not explain why Black women choose to date the men they do, nor why they do not date others. Childs cites Rockquemore as stating that “the broader structural factors affecting African American women have created a context in which interpersonal interactions are shaped by competition … not unlike others who fight over limited resources” (Childs 2005, p. 553). If the resource is simply Black men, with no regard for class, then the resource is not scarce. The premise of the “shortage of Black men” thesis is that Black men who are of working-class status or below are not worthy partners for middle-class Black women.

RACISM AND RACIAL PREJUDICE

Downplaying class, Childs identifies race as the dominant paradigm of her study: “collective opposition to interracial relationships is not based in the belief that whites are inferior or undesirable, but rather it is based on white racism, Black internalization of racism, and ulterior motives” (Childs 2005, p. 558). Childs quite clearly spells out the implications of the “internalization of racism,” which she defines as “having a negative self-image and perceiving Whites as superior” (Childs 2005, p. 551). For interviewees, Black internalization of racism manifests itself in the cultivation of interracial relationships, which are viewed as symbols of alienation from the Black community. Subjects describe those who date interracially as “traitors,” and Black men who date interracially are specifically singled out as being “submerged in White culture” and “acting White.” Internalization of racism signals the racial disloyalty of Black men who date White women.

Here, we should pause to consider the ways in which race does and does not matter with reference to the cultivation and political significance of intimate partnerships. For straight Black women, shared experience as a Black person may make a Black man a better companion than a White man. Two Black people may relate to each other more easily as a result of racialized experiences, and perhaps this is a justifiable reason to look to race as one among many compatibility factors.

However, the political significance of interracial relationships is a different matter. It could be that partners view Blackness as a signal of shared political ideology. These shared political views operate the same way in which shared racialized experiences do—as personality traits that the partners have in common with one another. Evidence suggests that racialized experiences and collective memory lead Black people to ideological clusters that are distinct from traditional White political ideologies (Dawson 2001). So, one might argue that there is reason to use statistical discrimination based on race when looking for a mate, if similar political ideology is a high-priority compatibility trait for whoever is in the market.

This is different from the idea that it is politically beneficial for all Black people or, further, that it is socially just for two middle-class Black people to share companionship or get married. There is nothing intrinsically good, in a political sense, about two middle-class Black people getting together. For example, if Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice were to partner, it is unlikely that Blacks, or any other group, would mark their union as a landmark moment in either Black political progress or social justice. Women in Childs's study do, however, describe straight, middle-class, Black intimate partnerships, in and of themselves, as politically honorable and beneficial to the wider Black community, without regard to context.

Attacking Black interracial daters on political grounds, by describing interracial dating as “treason,” is misguided. In fact, Childs's article includes testimony from older Black folks who date interracially yet are deeply connected to their local Black communities and invested in pro-Black political causes. Nonetheless, the grain of truth in Black women's accusations of racial treason is that a White feminine beauty standard does exist in America. Mainstream American culture places White women at the top of a racialized hierarchy of feminine beauty, with Black women at the bottom. Straight American men may embrace or reject the White feminine beauty standard, and they may do so consciously or subconsciously. Regardless, we all engage the beauty standard on a daily basis by merely living in this society, and our social actions are framed by the habitus whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. A “kinder, gentler” (to use Bobo et al.'s 1997 locution) version of the “internalization of racism,” or racial treason, might simply state that the White feminine beauty standard is powerful and pervasive, which would be apt. Partnering with White women as the ultimate measure of this internalization is on much shakier ground.

Childs's explication of “White racism,” a phrase which she deploys frequently, is less clear. In discussing interracial coupling, Childs offers the following analysis, immediately after quoting a young woman who says, “My mom would have a problem with it [interracial dating]; she just doesn't trust White people.” Childs writes,

Childs does not define what racism is. Based on the excerpt above, racism could be an ideology of racial privilege or insult, or any instance of interpersonal mistreatment based on race. Racism could refer to conditions in a society where racial privilege, in combination with class and/or gender and sexuality privilege, engenders sustained and systemic racial inequality. Without a concrete definition of racism, Childs cannot distinguish between the arguably racist undertones of Blacks' distrust of Whites, and the social fact that is “White racism.” Implicitly affirming her subjects' moral authority, Childs frames White racism as a social poison and the grounds for justifiably objecting to interracial intimacy in Black communities. Black prejudice, manifested in this case as a distrust of White people, is allowed to fall outside the presumed definition of racism, without the needed analytic justification for such exclusion.

To be clear: the objection here is not that White racism and Black prejudice are the same, equally sociologically relevant, or equally responsible for racial inequality. Nor is the argument that racism, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination are equally morally problematic regardless of whether the actor is White or Black, and regardless of institutional context. The objection is that Childs's analysis does not match her data. The author herself notes that “White racism plays a central role in Black opposition to interracial dating” (Childs 2005, p. 550), but the quotation from her respondent suggests that Black racial prejudice plays a role as well.

Black prejudice is not simply distrust of White people; it includes controversial stereotypes about Black people as well. For instance, Childs repeats that “the college women argued that they did not think most White men found African American women attractive because of their body types, offering explanations such as ‘White guys are used to White girls who don't have a butt’” (p. 553). The myth of the “Black behind” permeates American society, and Childs underscores the role of popular culture and mass media in constructing and refining stereotypes of Black womanhood. There is no denying the multiracial contemporary upkeep of the myth, as many African Americans understand celebration of the Black behind as a tribute to Black womanhood and a challenge to a White feminine beauty standard that demands that women starve themselves to achieve a desirable body type.

Despite affirmation of the Black behind as distinctive and essential to healthy Black womanhood, Ann DuCille (1996) points out the potentially dangerous flip side of the stereotype, using “Shanie,” Mattel Company's Black “Barbie” doll, as an expository example. Shanie was marketed to African Americans as a distinctly Black alternative to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Barbie doll, complete with brown skin, hip-hop clothing, and fuller, more “realistic” hips and body type. DuCille notes, however, that Shanie's hips were not any wider than Barbie's. Instead, the illusion of thickness is produced by a larger behind and arched back, which makes Shanie's rear stick up in the air when lying on her stomach. DuCille, not surprisingly, takes issue with this body type as the marker of authentic Blackness, as it is based on a bodily contortion of the Black figure that makes her genitalia more pronounced and available than are the White Barbie's. For DuCille, it is a small historical step from Shanie to stereotypes of sexually predatory and insatiable Black womanhood, used to justify the rape of Black women during and after American slavery, and to aid in the construction of White womanhood as biologically distinct, sexually virtuous, and morally superior.

Whether or not one understands the myth of the big Black behind as racist or resistant, ascribing such an empirically dubious phenotypic characteristic as racially essential is absurd. When women in the study suggest that White people are liars and cast Black women as those with large behinds, it is reasonable to suspect that the subjects' understandings of racial essences influence the meanings they give to interracial interaction, intimate or otherwise. Specifically, I suggest that this type of stereotyping and willingness to draw firm moral and biological boundaries between racial groups illustrates the utility of two competing explanations for contemporary racial prejudice: Glen C. Loury's theory of racial stigma, and the group-position theory developed by Lawrence D. Bobo.

Loury's theory of racial stigma as outlined in The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (2002) is directly related to Lee Sigelman and Steven Tuch's (1997) work on “metastereotypes.” Sigelman and Tuch first note that stereotypes reinforce the beliefs and disbeliefs of their users, providing solidarity for the oppressed. Metastereotypes are defined as Blacks' perceptions of Whites' perceptions of Blacks with the potential to influence a range of behaviors. For example, Blacks tend to believe that Whites think of Blacks as dangerously violent: the Black criminal is a metastereotype. This metastereotype leads to the Black assumption that they will be greeted with hostility if they move into a White residential neighborhood. As a result, Blacks may choose not to move to White neighborhoods, believing that Whites will treat them poorly because Blacks have been stereotyped as criminals. Sigelman and Tuch are quick to note that, in many cases, Blacks' assessment of Whites' stereotypes are fairly accurate—White people may in fact share the racist belief that Blacks are violent and dangerous. Blacks' consideration of metastereotypes may be justified not only by the historical legacies of White racist violence and discrimination, but also by the current collective psychological leanings of many White Americans.

I am not arguing that metastereotypes fully explain why residential segregation persists in America. As numerous studies, including those by Massey and Denton (1993) and Jackson (1985), have documented, unjust housing legislation and discrimination in the real estate market are the primary historical culprits that explain today's circumstances. Further, a theory of metastereotypes is not a theory of modern racism as distinct from interpersonal racial prejudice. Bobo's notion of “laissez-faire racism” offers a more complete picture of contemporary racism, noting that racism

Stereotype theory has a role in understanding racism as a sociological and political phenomenon, so long as we place it in the historical context of structural inequality and institutional racism.

Loury's work on racial stigma builds on the phenomenon of metastereotypes and uses it to explain interpersonal behaviors among Blacks and Whites. His discussion of self-confirming stereotypes fits nicely with Childs's subjects' complaints about interracial dating. Loury's “logic of self-confirming stereotypes” includes three elements: rational statistical inference in the presence of limited information, feedback effects on the behavior of individuals, and a resulting convention (Loury 2002, pp. 26–27). Mapping this framework onto Childs's data, the phenomenon she describes could be read as: Black women assume that White men prefer to date White women because they view Black women as unattractive or unreceptive (rational inference, or metastereotype of “the angry Black woman”); Black women refuse to investigate the possibility of relationships across racial lines, with men who they believe prefer White women anyway (feedback effect); and the rates of Black female/non-Black male partnerships remain low (resulting equilibrium). Alternatively, this model could be applied to White men who: assume that Black women believe that White men are racist, untrustworthy, and uninterested (rational inference or metastereotype); don't pursue Black women, because Black women will not trust them enough to have a reciprocal partnership (feedback effect); and the rates of interracial partnerships remain low (equilibrium). Again, none of this directly conflicts with the affirmation of “laissez-faire racism” and the White feminine beauty standard as social context.

A primary argument of Loury's The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (2002) is that racial stigma, the force responsible for contemporary racial discord, is a cognitive, rather than a normative phenomenon. Loury therefore argues that we cannot simply condemn actors for being racist, nor should we believe that purely structural solutions will solve America's racial problems. Sigelman and Tuch note, however, that stereotypes and metastereotypes have more than simply cognitive functions, as they are motivated by an ethnocentric bias designed to enhance one's group while disparaging outgroups. This competitive, group-based notion of ethnoracial identity has profound political implications, as Bobo highlights in his work.

Bobo argues that contemporary racial prejudice results from conditions in which racial groups believe they are competing against each other for political and economic resources. Feelings of prejudice are activated when group members feel threatened by antagonistic groups, regardless of whether there is any legitimate economic or political threat. Each group in the racial hierarchy builds a historical narrative that constructs group members as more deserving of the resources in question than are outgroup members. Thus, prejudice is more than the misreading of relevant social information (Loury's cognitive dysfunction), immoral socialization, or class antagonism; it is “a story of self, as positioned in a racialized and stratified social world” (Bobo 1999, p. 468). Childs states that Black women's situation is “not unlike others who fight over limited resources” (Childs 2005, p. 553). But this particular resource, suitable partners, is only limited because the group has built a story of self that constructs the resource as scarce by starting from the premise that the only suitable partners are middle-class Black men, and that by virtue of their race alone, Black women deserve middle-class Black men more than non-Black women do.

INTERRACIAL INTIMACY AND STANDARDS OF BLACK WOMANHOOD

Straight Black women in Childs's study believe the resource in question to be scarce largely because of Black men's propensity to date White women, along with White men's refusal to date Black women. As one respondent notes,

Childs adds, citing her respondents,

According to the respondents, the problem here is twofold. First, the option to date interracially is more readily available to Black men and White women than to Black women, and, second, Black men and White women choose to exercise this option at a rate that is too frequent for Black women's taste. It is not simply that Black women are randomly unlucky; according to the interviewees, Black men and White women (with suspect motives) actively participate in intentionally forging these conditions.

Interviewees advance a number of behavioral explanations for the phenomenon of Black male/White female partnerships, which ultimately results in some of Childs's best analyses. Subjects describe White women as promiscuous and behaviorally submissive, eager to perform labor, sexual and other—including homework and laundry—for Black men (Childs 2005, p. 552). Black men are described as shallow and obsessed with White beauty, and unwilling to meet the reasonable demands of Black women as intimate partners. White women are thought to be attracted to Black men because Blackness symbolizes sexual prowess and danger, which casts the White partner as bold or trendy in her mate selection. What results is a buttressing of the boundary between White and Black femininity, with White women cast as sexy, agreeable, and hip, and Black women as unattractive and angry. In sum,

We thus arrive at the fundamental tension in the women's narratives, a tension which Childs disregards. On the one hand, these Black women are furious with the ideal of White femininity. They construct oppositional narratives of Black female bodily appearance and interpersonal behavior, refusing to aspire and conform to racist, sexist, and exploitative standards of beauty and courtship. On the other hand, their sense of self-worth remains inextricably tied to being the object of a man's desire, even as they describe themselves as more empowered than White women. As one respondent says, “when a White girl says, ‘I got me a Black man,’ you can say, ‘Good’ because you got you the same” (Childs 2005, p. 554). What allows this respondent to feel satisfied or safe is not that she is confident, outspoken, or self-affirming; it is that she has a Black man of her own. She can only ward off the insult of Black male/White female partnerships by securing romantic attention from a middle-class Black man for herself.

The insidiousness of racism and sexism is revealed through these data. Childs's concluding words are:

Racism and sexism are certainly oppressing Black women, but Childs is unclear about exactly how they congeal to form the “current structure.” She simply says that Black women are “devalued,” and shakily points to “addressing racial and gender inequalities” as a step toward resolution. One of the many ills of racism and sexism is that these ideologies flow from structures and institutions of oppression, infecting all subjects and influencing their interpersonal relationships, whether they benefit or suffer from the racist and sexist social structures. Furthermore, the hegemonic character of this ideological infection often prescribes a discourse of dissent that reaffirms the categories and sociohistorical narratives on which the ideologies depend (Jenkins 1997).

Black women are structurally disadvantaged (unjustly) because of their race and gender. Like any victims of injustice, they are right to object to their mistreatment, and to the systemic inequality that produces unequal status-attainment outcomes. But the “racial and gender inequalities” engendered by institutional racism and sexism are only slices of the pie. Though Childs does not acknowledge it, her data point to an additional slice: standards of Black and womanly identity limit the choices available to Black women pursuing positive self-images and happiness. These Black women will meet their own standards of Blackness and womanhood if, and only if, they successfully position themselves as objects of heterosexual desire for a select group of privileged Black men.

In this respect, one would expect these standards to meet the expectations of the other groups in question, i.e., Black men, White women, and White men. It is reasonable to assume that each of these groups would find it most appropriate and natural for privileged Black women to partner with privileged Black men. My argument is not that choosing a partner of a different race is a “silver bullet” in Black women's, or any other demeaned population's fight against institutionalized racial and gender oppression. Instead, the point is that Black women have agency in their search for dating partners, and the reasons for which dating within one's race and class has been “naturalized” should themselves be critically examined. The possibility of creating new standards of intimate partnership, across boundaries of class, race, and gender, as one of many strategies for empowerment, must not be ignored.

None of this denies the stark reality that Black men are underrepresented in institutions of higher education and in high-status/compensation employment. Nor does my argument disavow the influence of historically engendered institutional racism that continues to operate to the detriment of Black men and women in America. But institutional racism alone does not answer Childs's questions about why Black women are frustrated with their options for romantic partnering. Her subjects' narratives are not about their frustrations with processes and structures that exclude underprivileged Blacks from high-status attainment. Instead, respondents produce narratives that focus on the behaviors of the middle-class men and women in their dating pool, framing interracial intimacy as moral and political misconduct.

DECODING THE STEREOTYPE

The premise of Childs's article is that it is problematic simply to say that Black women are angry about interracial relationships, i.e., without exploring the roots and character of their anger. Childs's motivation for writing the piece is not to completely destroy the angry-Black-woman stereotype, but to present narratives of Black women that contextualize their frustration and disappointment. In presenting her respondents' concerns as legitimate sociological predicaments beyond their control, Childs presents Black women as rationally angry about their situation. Black women have a right to be hostile about interracial relationships, Childs suggests, because they signify the destruction of Black community and the devaluation of Black womanhood.

Presenting the sociologically rational anger of her subjects is Childs's way of rebutting the narrative of Black familial pathology. Angry, as a descriptor of Black women, signals more than inconsequential antagonism. The imagined angry Black woman is not merely angry; but loudmouthed, aggressive, dominating, and castrating. According to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's infamous 1965 report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, the angry Black woman is responsible for a breakdown in Black gender roles that results in a Black-male code of misconduct that impedes, jeopardizes, or even precludes a stable family life. Without parents capable of occupying appropriate gender roles, Moynihan argues, Black children suffer from poor socialization, making them prime candidates for a range of antisocial behaviors. African Americans are thus trapped, across generations, in a cycle of underachievement that should be attributed to Black cultural dysfunction, not to White racist ideology or discrimination. By calling the angry Black woman into question, Childs offers an implicit critique, or at least complicates this Black pathology model and the cultural/behavioral explanation for American racial inequality. The article is an honorable effort to disintegrate her subjects' anger from the hostile, helpless stereotype of the angry Black woman.

Childs's data show that Black women are deeply invested in building strong partnerships with privileged Black men: these partnerships make them feel wanted and also signal commitment to pro-Black politics. The crucial question is whether this desire for privileged-Black-male approval is ultimately a productive tool for combating racism and destroying the racist discourse of Black familial pathology. One could argue that Childs's respondents' collective preoccupation with romantic attention from privileged Black men only serves to reinforce the centrality of breadwinning Black men as the indispensable ingredient in the antidote to Black “pathology,” thus solidifying the discourse that Childs sets out to trouble. But Childs does not engage this possibility.