• Celebrity
    • OTE – Screen Kings
    • Daniel Kaluuya Digital Cover
    • Digital Cover Method Man
    • Digital Cover Zazie
    • Celebrity News
    • ‘Yes, Girl!’ Podcast
    • Entertainment
    • Black Celeb Couples
    • Celebrity Moms
    • Red Carpet
    • If Not For My Girls
  • Fashion
    • ESSENCE Fashion House 2022
    • Fashion News
    • Street Style
    • Accessories
    • Fashion Week
  • Beauty
    • Best In Black Beauty 2023
    • ESSENCE Hair Awards 2022
    • AVEENO Skin Health Startup Accelerator
    • Beauty News
    • Skin
    • Makeup
    • Nails
    • Girls United: Beautiful Possibilities
  • Hair
    • Hair News
    • Natural
    • Relaxed
    • Transitioning
    • Weave
    • 4C
  • Love
    • Love & Sex News
    • The Solve Podcast
    • Weddings
    • Parenting
    • Relationships
  • Lifestyle
    • Black History Month
    • ESSENCE Gift Guide 2022
    • ESSENCE + smartwater Live Well Challenge
    • Build Your Legacy 2022
    • Dream & Plan with Confidence Prudential
    • AMEX Platinum Travel
    • Homecoming Season 2022
    • Lifestyle News
    • Health & Wellness
    • ESSENCE Eats
    • Money & Career
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
    • Black Travel Guide
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Paint The Polls Black
    • Raise Your Voice
    • Culture
    • Politics
  • Video
  • Festival
    • 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture
    • 2022 Fest Videos
  • Events
    • 2023 Wellness House
    • 2023 Black Women In Hollywood
    • 2023 HOLLYWOOD HOUSE
    • 2023 ESSENCE Film Festival
    • 2022 Girls United Summit
    • 2022 ESSENCE Fashion House
    • 2022 Homecoming Season
    • She Got Now
    • Dear Black Men
    • I Am Speaking
    • Power Tools
  • Studios
  • Girls United

WHERE BLACK CULTURE, COMMUNITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS MEET

Sign up for ESSENCE Newsletters the keep the Black women at the forefront of conversation.

Your email is required.
Your email is in invalid format.
Confirm email is required.
Email did not match.
Select the newsletters you'd like to receive:
Please select at least one option.
By clicking Subscribe Now, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Skip to content
SUBSCRIBE
  • MAGAZINE
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Celebrity
    • OTE – Screen Kings
    • Daniel Kaluuya Digital Cover
    • Digital Cover Method Man
    • Digital Cover Zazie
    • Celebrity News
    • ‘Yes, Girl!’ Podcast
    • Entertainment
      • The State Of R&B
    • Black Celeb Couples
    • Celebrity Moms
    • Red Carpet
    • If Not For My Girls
  • Fashion
    • ESSENCE Fashion House 2022
    • Fashion News
    • Street Style
    • Accessories
    • Fashion Week
  • Beauty
    • Best In Black Beauty 2023
    • ESSENCE Hair Awards 2022
    • AVEENO Skin Health Startup Accelerator
    • Beauty News
    • Skin
    • Makeup
    • Nails
    • Girls United: Beautiful Possibilities
  • Hair
    • Hair News
    • Natural
    • Relaxed
    • Transitioning
    • Weave
    • 4C
  • Love
    • Love & Sex News
    • The Solve Podcast
    • Weddings
    • Parenting
    • Relationships
  • Lifestyle
    • Black History Month
    • ESSENCE Gift Guide 2022
    • ESSENCE + smartwater Live Well Challenge
    • Build Your Legacy 2022
    • Dream & Plan with Confidence Prudential
    • AMEX Platinum Travel
    • Homecoming Season 2022
    • Lifestyle News
    • Health & Wellness
    • ESSENCE Eats
    • Money & Career
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
    • Black Travel Guide
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Paint The Polls Black
    • Raise Your Voice
    • Culture
    • Politics
  • Video
  • Festival
    • 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture
    • 2022 Fest Videos
  • Events
    • 2023 Wellness House
    • 2023 Black Women In Hollywood
    • 2023 HOLLYWOOD HOUSE
    • 2023 ESSENCE Film Festival
    • 2022 Girls United Summit
    • 2022 ESSENCE Fashion House
    • 2022 Homecoming Season
    • She Got Now
    • Dear Black Men
    • I Am Speaking
    • Power Tools
  • Studios
  • Girls United
Home · News

Commentary: The Black Men Shortage

ABC News "Nightline" story about single Black women having difficulty finding a partner may have struck a nerve with readers and viewers, but ESSENCE Relationships editor Demetria L. Lucas finds it problematic that Black women continue to be singled out as the only ones having difficulty finding love.
Commentary: The Black Men Shortage
By · Updated October 29, 2020

woman-sitting-with-laptop.jpg

If I could, I would climb under a rock. That’s the only logical way I can think of to avoid the onslaught of articles, primetime TV segments, books, and countless blog discussions lamenting “The Black Man Shortage.”  (TBMS)

TBMS is something like the Black girl equivalent of those end of the world movies that come trotting out every three-day weekend to thrill us with CGI effects, remind us of the importance of family, and most importantly, churn out hundred million dollar returns for a big studio.  Whenever anyone in media needs some sort of ratings bonanza or send their website’s comments section into a frenzy, they– the most recent being “Nightline“ – trot out a story about TBMS, a horrific tale of no love and lots of loss that depicts a single Black woman from [insert any urban center here] clinging to a half-empty apple martini, a Louis Vuitton Damier Speedy or a perfectly-coiffed girlfriends.

I watched the Nightline segment on YouTube the day after it aired (I was trying to avoid it, but my Blackberry Inbox blew up with emails titled “Have you seen this?”)  I yawned my way through all the stats that I’ve heard so often they run through my head like a CNN ticker:

*42% of Black women aren’t married;

*If every Black man in America married a Black woman today, one out of 12 Black women still wouldn’t make it down the aisle if they hoped to marry a Black man;

* 70% of professional Black women with B.A.s, M.D.s and J.D.s. are “still without the more elusive title: M-R-S.”

I stared blankly at my Mac screen as yet another batch of extraordinarily beautiful (the woman with the dimples? Gaw- geous) and successful Black women lamented their loneliness. I kept staring, even added an eye roll, as Steve Harvey suggested single Black women date “older men.” (Oh, that’s all I have to do?) I watched, added a side eye for emphasis, and I wondered… three things. The first of which was, why are we still talking about this?

The Washington Post gave good ink to this topic two weeks back. Oprah covered it when Harvey’s bestselling relationship guide dropped earlier this year. CNN dedicated the vast majority of its first “Black in America” to this subject. Terry McMillian’s been talking about TBMS to the masses since at least the 1980s. The very first ESSENCE had a coverline, “Black Man, Do You Still Love Me?”… in the 70s. The Moynihan Report documented this problem back in the 60s when the Black marriage rate still hovered around 62%.

Fifty years later, we’re still talking, but what are we doing about it other than re-hashing the same material? Where’s the action? (And by action I mean more than advice like, “date older men.”)

You know what else I wondered? Where are the news stories about White girls and Latinas and Asian ladies who can’t find a good man? Don’t they have issues too? Cause the ones I know are in my single boat, rowing around the Hudson River with me and looking for love too. There’s this entire fictional franchise called “Sex and the City” (maybe you’ve heard of it?) dedicated to White women’s search for love in Manhattan that women of all colors flock to in droves because its relatable. You know why it’s relatable?  Because 51% of American women are living without a husband, i.e: they are single.  This is the first time in American history that more women are single than married. Fifty-one percent of Latina woman are unmarried, so are 45% of non-Hispanic White women, and 41% of Asian women.

So all that makes me wonder, where are the stories about all these American (ie, not just Black) women? Why are women who are hued like me always trotted out for national viewing as lonely (and sometimes desperate), with the not so subliminal subtext that Black men just can’t show no act right? Why are we always the ones chosen to sit in freshly-permed groups in chic bistros discussing dating hardships like we’re the only ones facing them. Why is what is largely an American woman problem being so widely portrayed as a Black woman’s problem?

Last but not least, I wondered, where are the men in this discussion? I mean, yes, you have Steve Harvey on set, but he’s a relationship expert and further, ineligible to date as a married man. I’ve never understood why in all the roundtables about why so many women are single, no one ever just asks a batch of men, “Hey, what’s keeping ya’ll from putting a ring on it?” Or better, why no one ever gets the single men and women who are supposed to be pairing off with one another into the same room to discuss why they’re not getting together. Isn’t talking about heterosexual relationship problems and attempting to solve them in same-sex groups absolutely pointless? 

Which got me back to the point of wondering what the whole point of still just talking about single Black women and the Black Man Shortage was to begin with.

I Kanye shrugged, closed my Mac and turned on my TV to get my mind off Nightline.

Guess what was on?

An end of the world movie.


Demetria L. Lucas is ESSENCE’s Relationships Editor and the author of ABelleInBrooklyn.com, where she muses daily on love, sex, dating, and relationships.
COMPANY INFORMATION
  • Our Company
  • Customer Service
  • Essence Ventures
  • Change Your Address
  • Contact Us
  • Job Opportunities
  • Internships
  • Media Kit
  • tag
SUBSCRIBE
  • Newsletters
  • Give a Gift of ESSENCE
  • Magazine Tablet Edition
FOLLOW US
MORE ON ESSENCE
  • Home
  • Love
  • Celebrity
  • Beauty
  • Hair
  • Fashion
  • ESSENCE festival

ESSENCE.com is part of ESSENCE Communications, Inc.

Essence may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.

©2023 ESSENCE Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Essence.com Advertising Terms

Get The ESSENCE Newsletter and
Special Offers delivered to your inbox

By clicking Sign Up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Get The ESSENCE Magazine
by subscribing below
subscribe now