Speaker 1: I am a Yamler, your host for this journey. I
Speaker 1: was a hopeless love aholic but just could not get
Speaker 1: my love to work. Then, after a series of heartbreaks
Speaker 1: and deep heartache, I finally got clear about what love
Speaker 1: is and what it is not. I want to share
Speaker 1: some of what I've learned about lover a holism. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the R Spot, a production of shandaland Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Our Spot,
Speaker 1: the place we come to discuss all things relationship. That's
Speaker 1: the R in our Spot. I am a Yamla, your host,
Speaker 1: your God, your friend on this journey through life and relationships,
Speaker 1: whether you're joining us for the first time or whether
Speaker 1: you're a long time listener. Today we are continuing our
Speaker 1: conversation with doctor Chris Marsh. She's the author of the
Speaker 1: book The Love Jones Cohort, Single and Living Alone in
Speaker 1: the Black middle Class, and we know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of that going on. Last week we focused on the
Speaker 1: single hood aspect of her work and why you really
Speaker 1: do need to stop asking us why are you single?
Speaker 1: Maybe the real question is why are you married? This week,
Speaker 1: we're going to be taking questions from the audience and
Speaker 1: getting into the financial side of relationships along with the
Speaker 1: benefits of family and the structural or social forces that
Speaker 1: can limit the dating pool. Take a listen for you
Speaker 1: just tuning in this as the Arts Live. My guest
Speaker 1: today is doctor Chris Marsh and we are talking about
Speaker 1: single and middle class, being single, in the middle class,
Speaker 1: being in the middle class and being single. Is it you?
Speaker 1: What do you do? Okay? So this is what I
Speaker 1: want you all to do. Put your questions in the
Speaker 1: chat and doctor Marsh and I will tackle them for you.
Speaker 1: Doctor Marsh is a professor at the University of America.
Speaker 1: Now you said you're a denographer. What is that word?
Speaker 2: So I'm a demographer. So I looked at demographic trends.
Speaker 2: I look at like fertility, immortality, migration, immigration, and I
Speaker 2: build statistical models to understand that trends over time. It
Speaker 2: sounds boring, but I promise you it's really really not.
Speaker 3: And in some ways I give some.
Speaker 2: Tables and some numbers in the book, but I also
Speaker 2: talk to people. I talk to sixty five people and
Speaker 2: that are single and living alone. So besides having like
Speaker 2: the numbers, I also put like metaphorical meat on the
Speaker 2: numeric bone when we understand this demographic trends. So I
Speaker 2: just look at demographic trends over time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to read some of these things that
Speaker 1: are coming sipping tea with Steph. He needs the salary
Speaker 1: and the intelligence to roll with me. Okay, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? Intelligence? What does that mean? Does that mean
Speaker 1: he has to be educated or he has to have
Speaker 1: a good conversation. I don't know. Why is it always
Speaker 1: about the middle class help the poor? Well, we're not
Speaker 1: leaving the poor. This is one book, one topic. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, Okay, here we go. Let me get a question.
Speaker 1: I'm questioned out. Scroll up. Middle class people can't even
Speaker 1: buy homes anymore? Is that true? See, let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. Go ahead, go ahead, doctor marsh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yes, we have to unsay. It's hard out
Speaker 2: here in the streets from middle class folks. It really
Speaker 2: really is, which I think is the perfect conversation to
Speaker 2: have for this podcast because we're talking about relationships.
Speaker 3: One of the things I argue in the book.
Speaker 2: Is that that we consider how we define family and
Speaker 2: should we redefine family.
Speaker 3: So if we think of the Census Bureau's.
Speaker 2: Definition, So I'm a demographer. You look at national data.
Speaker 2: Census Bureau in some ways can be the gold standard
Speaker 2: of data. If we look at the Census Bureau definition
Speaker 2: of family, family as someone that you're related to by blood,
Speaker 2: marriage or adoption. So because I, Chris Marsh, I'm single,
Speaker 2: living alone and don't have any children, I don't show
Speaker 2: up in the census data as a family.
Speaker 3: Why I show up in the census data as a household?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you.
Speaker 2: Where that's a problem for me, Because there's you have
Speaker 2: to think about, like there's benefits to being considered a
Speaker 2: family versus a household. I'm gonna give you three quick
Speaker 2: examples and you'll understand these. One my Verizon cell phone,
Speaker 2: I want to get a discount. I'll want that family
Speaker 2: discount on my one cell phone from Verizon. Now that's
Speaker 2: a kind of a benign example. A slightly more egregious
Speaker 2: example would be.
Speaker 3: Going on vacation.
Speaker 2: Single occupancy is more expensive than double occupancy. Now, the
Speaker 2: one that everybody can wrap their mind around on this
Speaker 2: call and going to shake their head to is thinking
Speaker 2: about the tax structure. A single hood penalty is built
Speaker 2: into the tax structure. And so I have a dearest girlfriend,
Speaker 2: her son. My god son passed away, her husband passed away.
Speaker 2: Why can't her and I be considered a family.
Speaker 3: And I can.
Speaker 2: Get the benefits of being able of helping my god
Speaker 2: daughter for like college or stuff like that. Why can't
Speaker 2: we be considered a family. So I do think the
Speaker 2: definition of family is too narrow, and we need to
Speaker 2: expand the definition of family to include these non romantic,
Speaker 2: nurturing relationships him.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I.
Speaker 2: Don't really care if you change the word family. I
Speaker 2: do care that everybody gets the benefit of a family.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, here's a question for you. How do
Speaker 1: I step out of my comfort zone to meet someone.
Speaker 1: I tend to become shy when I see a nice
Speaker 1: guy and I don't know how to approach him. Okay,
Speaker 1: that they'll have nothing to do with middle class, black
Speaker 1: single none of none of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't give him. I'm not the advice person. However,
Speaker 2: what I will say, Listen, every time I go to
Speaker 2: the airport, I mean, somebody, take yourself to the airport.
Speaker 3: I didn't say you have to go. I did say,
Speaker 3: take yourself to the airport, get dressed up, go to airport.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you mean somebody, but I don't.
Speaker 3: But I don't give advice. But I don't give it vice.
Speaker 1: Now, you know I said this years ago, and somebody
Speaker 1: jumped all over me. You know where I attract men
Speaker 1: all the time in the home depot, in the home depot,
Speaker 1: and I know he's working on gout of business. And
Speaker 1: I go and I just and they'll come over and
Speaker 1: help me. And then and then they want to name
Speaker 1: and the number. But once they recognize it's me, then
Speaker 1: they then they just lose it. Okay, all right? Love
Speaker 1: thinking about what family means? Good good, good, good good.
Speaker 1: Here's a good one. Do you believe a marriage from
Speaker 1: two different classes? I guess that's middle class and upper class,
Speaker 1: middle class and working class. I guess that's what they mean.
Speaker 1: Do you believe a marriage from two different classes can
Speaker 1: be successful? Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely, I don't care what kind
Speaker 1: of class you got, right, it's the love, it's the people,
Speaker 1: it's the heart.
Speaker 3: The only thing I just want to and I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't want to put a value judgement and whatever
Speaker 2: works for you, but I just want to be clear
Speaker 2: kind of what the data kind of suggests, what the
Speaker 2: social science literature suggests typically we married people in our orbit,
Speaker 2: and typically you married somebody does have the same education,
Speaker 2: the same kind of like background. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: if you marror somebody outside that background, it won't be successful.
Speaker 2: It is typically it's people that you're in close proximity to.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's another one. Is it just me? Are there
Speaker 1: statistics on the constant struggle to maintain yourself as middle class?
Speaker 1: Are these statistics on that?
Speaker 2: Yes, So there's a good conversation about like whether or
Speaker 2: not there's downward mobility. If you are middle class, will
Speaker 2: your children be middle class too? Where there'll be like
Speaker 2: a downward mobility that happens.
Speaker 3: And if we don't.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons why when I talk
Speaker 2: about middle class, I always want to include a wealth
Speaker 2: measure because when a global pandemic hits and the world
Speaker 2: stops on its axes and some of us may not
Speaker 2: go back to work, do we have assets that we
Speaker 2: can draw from?
Speaker 3: Not a value statement, but.
Speaker 2: I got to understand when we think about that, these
Speaker 2: wealth disparities that exist in America, do we have assets
Speaker 2: that we can draw from? So it's if you don't
Speaker 2: have assets or something to draw from. It's going to
Speaker 2: be harder for the next generation. So you could actually
Speaker 2: drop out of middle class datus. The generation behind you
Speaker 2: can definitely drop out of middle class datus, and or
Speaker 2: you could maintain it, or you might get some upward
Speaker 2: mobility and like be considered upper middle class. And I
Speaker 2: talk about some of that in the book as well.
Speaker 1: Somebody is on their way to the airport and the
Speaker 1: other person said, I met my husband at the home deeper.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. Let's go back into
Speaker 1: that middle class again for just a moment. Are there
Speaker 1: distinctions or differences or different challenges if you're thirty in
Speaker 1: the middle class, forty in the middle class, fifty in
Speaker 1: the middle class, because someone here said they were, they're
Speaker 1: fifty five, they were married for twenty years, now they're
Speaker 1: single again. So does your dating or does your singleness
Speaker 1: shift or change based on your age? Does that question
Speaker 1: make sense? I think it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yes, So I'm going to I'm going to answer that
Speaker 2: question in two kind of ways. So one of the
Speaker 2: questions I asked I asked about, like, who's more stigmatized
Speaker 2: younger folks when you're single, younger folks or older folks
Speaker 2: when you're a male or when you're a female.
Speaker 3: And I didn't.
Speaker 2: I only had those two groups in the cohort and
Speaker 2: a lot of the respondents. It was so interesting because
Speaker 2: even I, as a scholar, couldn't figure out who was
Speaker 2: more stigmatized, younger folks or older folks, men versus women.
Speaker 2: And it was really interesting when you talked about like
Speaker 2: younger folks, and when the respondents talked about younger folks
Speaker 2: being single, they talked about how.
Speaker 3: If you were.
Speaker 2: Single younger, something must be wrong with you because you
Speaker 2: have a bigger pool.
Speaker 3: As you get older, your dating pool has died off.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, right, so.
Speaker 3: The numbers aren't the same, so they look at you differently.
Speaker 3: And I was like, that's baffling to me. I've never
Speaker 3: even really thought about that. And it's like, if you're.
Speaker 2: A man in your single they're looking at you a
Speaker 2: certain kind of way. If you're a woman and single,
Speaker 2: look at you a certain kind of way. So I
Speaker 2: couldn't figure out, like who's more stigmatized. But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: The common denominators that being single, you're still stigmatized and
Speaker 2: people still think something's wrong with you. So I when
Speaker 2: I answer that that question that way, I also want
Speaker 2: to kind of draw from, like some of the social
Speaker 2: science literature, and one of the things that's really interesting
Speaker 2: is that people that have never been married long term singles,
Speaker 2: the data is kind of clear. We tend to be
Speaker 2: happier as we age. Part of the reason why we
Speaker 2: tend to be happier is because we've built a network
Speaker 2: of friends. We have people that we can go to
Speaker 2: church with, that we can go golfing with, that we
Speaker 2: can use profanity with. I love profanity on a good day,
Speaker 2: and people that we can go traveling with. So we've
Speaker 2: built a whole network. You have a lot of people
Speaker 2: like the person that just asked the question, who is
Speaker 2: returning to single, And because they're returning to single, they
Speaker 2: may have But I'm not saying that's the case for
Speaker 2: the person that asked the question. But a lot of
Speaker 2: times when you're married, you put all of your eggs
Speaker 2: in the married basket and you don't cultivate those other relationships.
Speaker 2: So you think, like, you know, this is a person
Speaker 2: you're going to have for the rest of your life,
Speaker 2: and your.
Speaker 3: Soul to bill of goods, like you know, you're got
Speaker 3: to live all the.
Speaker 2: Rest of your life this person, but you find yourself
Speaker 2: coming back single. So I would say that it's important
Speaker 2: that we cultivate these other relationships beyond just the marriage relationship. Again,
Speaker 2: that's why I am just so enamored with the show,
Speaker 2: because it's not simply about just married relationships. It really
Speaker 2: is thinking about how we need to cultivate these other relationships.
Speaker 2: As a side note, real quick, there's also some data
Speaker 2: that's suggesting that parts are leaving their partners when they
Speaker 2: get sick. Your friends will be there for you, your
Speaker 2: partner may or may not be there for you. I
Speaker 2: have a dear girlfriend. If she hears it in my throat,
Speaker 2: I'm a little sick. There's gonna be like the Trilogy, right,
Speaker 2: there's going to be salted crackers. There's going to be
Speaker 2: seven up and they're going to bed sick.
Speaker 1: Some kind of suit my door, as opposed.
Speaker 3: To some booth thing. It's like, well, baby, cash at
Speaker 3: me some money and I'm gonna go to the store.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, listen, somebody is asking a question. Kimberly
Speaker 1: Wright is asking this question. She said her and her
Speaker 1: husband rented a house for seventeen years. They bought a
Speaker 1: house in twenty nineteen, and because he is the breadwinner,
Speaker 1: the lone is in his name, but she's on the deed.
Speaker 1: What does she need to do to be safe in
Speaker 1: that arrangement? Now, I think that's a legal question, but
Speaker 1: it is a question when you marry into or couple
Speaker 1: into the middle class and your namemate and on none
Speaker 1: of the paperwork, that's a problem. And I know that
Speaker 1: as a lawyer, I've seen that. I've seen people who
Speaker 1: marry into a relationship or go into a relationship. I've
Speaker 1: had cases where they've been together twenty five thirty years
Speaker 1: but weren't married. He dies and the ex wife or
Speaker 1: the kids come in and swoop up everything. So what
Speaker 1: do you think about prenups in middle class We'll talk
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: When we come back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the R Spot. My guest today is
Speaker 1: doctor Chris Marsh. We are here on the R Spot
Speaker 1: and we are live on Instagram talking about doctor Marsha's
Speaker 1: book The Love Jones Cohort being single and middle class
Speaker 1: and living alone in America. What is it that you
Speaker 1: was saying, Doctor Marsh.
Speaker 2: Actually a few of the respondents actually talked about pring ups,
Speaker 2: and again I'm about it.
Speaker 3: If you about it. I'm about it. I don't judge you.
Speaker 2: Whatever works for you, and I really don't care. But
Speaker 2: if that's what y'all agree upon, that's what y'all agree upon.
Speaker 2: I think it's so unfortunately allow outside circumstances or outside
Speaker 2: noise to determine what works best for us.
Speaker 3: But similar comment that I have similar conversation in the book.
Speaker 3: I think it's chapter seven.
Speaker 2: It's about wealth and one of the things that's really
Speaker 2: really clear, people don't have estate planning, especially when you're
Speaker 2: talking about black folks. Prince John Singleton and Aretha the
Speaker 2: Queen of Soul did not have a live a will
Speaker 2: or living trust. If you are single, we talk about
Speaker 2: it in the book. You need to make sure you
Speaker 2: have a will and a living trust. I don't care
Speaker 2: how little you have. I don't care how much you have,
Speaker 2: but you worked for whatever you have. Especially for those
Speaker 2: that are single, you want to make sure that you
Speaker 2: have a will or living trust and you know exactly
Speaker 2: where your assets are going to go.
Speaker 1: And again, yeah, I say a little or how much,
Speaker 1: that's right. Have a will or a living trust, whether
Speaker 1: you're even if you're married, have it, because you give
Speaker 1: away you lose so much when you die into state
Speaker 1: and it can be a hot mess if you have
Speaker 1: a house, even a car, even a car. Please please please,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find me two lawyers or two friends. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do a class on why you need a will
Speaker 1: and why you need some life insurance.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2: I won't tell you the name of the company, but
Speaker 2: they I wrote the book, and they reached out to
Speaker 2: me and they're like, we really appreciate this conversation about
Speaker 2: like singles, because think about it, when you look like
Speaker 2: a state planninger, you look like wealth management commercials. You
Speaker 2: have same sex couples, you have interracial couples, you even
Speaker 2: have single parents. Where's the single person?
Speaker 3: You don't see them in the commercials.
Speaker 2: And so they reached out to me. They're like, this
Speaker 2: is a really great conversation. How can we tap into
Speaker 2: this market? And they just felt very explore And I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm not trying. You're not trying to use
Speaker 2: me to exploit this group of people, but I think,
Speaker 2: you know, use your wisdom, find a group, a group
Speaker 2: that's really supportive of you, and maybe we put something
Speaker 2: together and we talk to these singles and we have
Speaker 2: them put their estate plans together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really, really really, particularly if you are single and
Speaker 1: middle class and you own the house, you own a condo,
Speaker 1: please please have a will. You can do it the
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollar will on legal Zoom. But that is
Speaker 1: so so important, and particularly the young people. You know,
Speaker 1: my daughter died at thirty one. She owned a house
Speaker 1: and she had a will. Okay, so it's very very
Speaker 1: important in our culture as people of color, black, brown,
Speaker 1: we do the family thing and we pass stuff on.
Speaker 1: But you we live in the society where everything you
Speaker 1: know is black and white on paper. So I think
Speaker 1: you we need to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I talk of the book. I think about
Speaker 2: how like my father wrote something on the back of
Speaker 2: a napkin. I was like, this is what we knocking
Speaker 2: ready to do. We're not gonna have this written on
Speaker 2: the back of a napkin and was putting your safety
Speaker 2: to deposit box, and we're going.
Speaker 3: To go through best legal documents and let's go ahead
Speaker 3: and do that. Let's just go ahead and do that.
Speaker 1: Point Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. My grandma Steve buried his
Speaker 1: money back in the day. My grandmother did too. She
Speaker 1: kept it in the freezer. My grandmother wrapped her little
Speaker 1: dollar's up and put him in the freezer. Okay, here
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, I'm a van Zain. Can we do
Speaker 1: a talk on protecting our assets. I'm a single woman
Speaker 1: with a new home. I don't have any documented for
Speaker 1: my only child if something happens to me. Okay, doctor March,
Speaker 1: she need to be on that right, come on tell
Speaker 1: her Tella Tella.
Speaker 3: Yes, like absolutely, I hope that we do do a show.
Speaker 2: But I think that we need to have legal documents
Speaker 2: in a place and never You're never too young, and
Speaker 2: you're never too old, and I don't care how little
Speaker 2: you have or how much you have, you've worked hard
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 3: Put a legal document in place so people.
Speaker 2: Know exactly what you want to happen if something were
Speaker 2: to happen to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got it written down on paper and from
Speaker 1: my typewriter, and I have a legal will, and I
Speaker 1: got a folder in the thing that say this is
Speaker 1: what I want. Don't be messing with me and don't
Speaker 1: have me laying around for fifty two days weeping and wailing.
Speaker 1: Get in, get out, put me in the box, because
Speaker 1: I don't know where I'm going and I want to
Speaker 1: get there on time. Okay, somebody says, yeah, somebody has
Speaker 1: a very good question, Uh, doctor marsh. They want to know,
Speaker 1: how do you define wealth? I think that's a good
Speaker 1: thing because just a little money in the bank that's
Speaker 1: not wealth. How are you defining wealth?
Speaker 2: Right? It's really funny because I was having a conversation
Speaker 2: with a student about whether or not they're rich or
Speaker 2: whether they're now in the NFL, whether or not they're rich,
Speaker 2: or whether or not they're wealthy. If you have a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of money in your account, you're checking account,
Speaker 2: you would be considered rich. But wealth is when you
Speaker 2: have assets that are building wealth for you. Because all
Speaker 2: this money in this account goes, you can draw from
Speaker 2: this asset and you can still live. So I talk
Speaker 2: about wealth, it's some kind of asset. In most cases,
Speaker 2: our biggest asset is going to be our house. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But in some cases you have, especially in Black America,
Speaker 2: you have like entrepreneurs, so you have businesses. Some people
Speaker 2: have gold and precious metals. I ain't there yet, but
Speaker 2: I'd love to get there one day. And so do
Speaker 2: you think of this assets that's what makes you wealthy?
Speaker 2: But just having a bank account with six figures doesn't
Speaker 2: make you wealthy, that just makes you rich.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that is so so very important because I
Speaker 1: am not rich, but I am wealthy. I am wealthy
Speaker 1: because I have a lot of catalog of publications that
Speaker 1: the minute I take my last breath, everybody going to
Speaker 1: be running to buy my book. Okay, all right, and
Speaker 1: I ain't even here. They going to be making money.
Speaker 1: So I have to manifest my wealth. Somebody said they
Speaker 1: were married for I can't remember how many years, and
Speaker 1: their husband passed and he didn't have a a will. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's important.
Speaker 2: I mean, we really can't say it enough, but we
Speaker 2: really can't stress it enough. It's something to think about,
Speaker 2: and I think, but I also think, what's the issue.
Speaker 2: This came up on the book a little bit. We
Speaker 2: have to think about the history of black Americans in particular,
Speaker 2: and how we don't trust these institutions, and how we're
Speaker 2: afraid to go ahead and do these living trusts and
Speaker 2: these wills and so on and so forth. But we've
Speaker 2: got to kind of move past that and understand that
Speaker 2: we want to make sure people that are coming behind us,
Speaker 2: our meeces, our nephews, are god children.
Speaker 3: Whoever may be they're set up well, So please think.
Speaker 2: About trying to engage these institutions and put these living
Speaker 2: trusts and wills together.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now, another big conversation that I've heard lately, Dr
Speaker 1: marsh is generational wealth. Yes, if you're single and middle class,
Speaker 1: meaning you've got some assets, you've got some wealth. How
Speaker 1: do we build generational wealth? How do we do that?
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's like a super duper great question to
Speaker 2: the kind of conversation we were having earlier. We have
Speaker 2: to think about it. If something happened to me, So
Speaker 2: I've got a couple of assets. If something happens to me,
Speaker 2: who was it going to go to. It's going to
Speaker 2: go to the next generation. I don't have children, so
Speaker 2: it's not going to go to my children, but it's
Speaker 2: going to go to my god daughter.
Speaker 3: I'll give us some stuff to my students. I love
Speaker 3: my students.
Speaker 2: I am only a professor because I admire and adore
Speaker 2: my students. The day they get on my nerves, I'm
Speaker 2: leaving being a professor and doing something completely different. So
Speaker 2: we need to think about how our assets can hopefully
Speaker 2: help the next generation. I want to complicate this conversation
Speaker 2: just a bit though, and I want.
Speaker 3: You to stay with me. It was funny because I
Speaker 3: did something for b ET a little while ago.
Speaker 2: And you know, you do a two hour interview, they
Speaker 2: put a thirty minute snippet up on social media and
Speaker 2: so they heard me say like, well, if you want
Speaker 2: to improve marriage rates for Black Americans, pay Black Americans reparations.
Speaker 2: So here's the conversation that I have in the book.
Speaker 2: And I think that this is important, So just stay
Speaker 2: with me for a second. There's a huge generational wealth
Speaker 2: gap that existed an American and I don't think it's
Speaker 2: going to be closed on the individual level.
Speaker 3: It has to have federal intervention.
Speaker 2: And the way that we close this wealth gap is
Speaker 2: to pay reparations to Black Americans. To do anything less
Speaker 2: than that and put the onus only on the individual
Speaker 2: to close the wealth gap. When this is a federal process,
Speaker 2: there are federal laws in place that built it is
Speaker 2: short sighted and that's a heavy burden that Black Americans
Speaker 2: have to carry. Now, I don't care where you sit
Speaker 2: in that conversation. I don't care where you sit with reparations.
Speaker 2: All I'm asking you to do is to sit in
Speaker 2: the conversation and see where you fit in that conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm not even going to touch that with
Speaker 1: a ten foot poll. Them reparations, I cannot, I cannot.
Speaker 3: Not everybody wants to have the conversation. People just don't
Speaker 3: want to have a conversation.
Speaker 1: But I'm just like, it's it's a conversation that we
Speaker 1: need to have for a variety of reasons. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk. Let's talk about our relationship with reparations.
Speaker 3: That's the point. So that's the point.
Speaker 2: Though I do believe that you were to pay Black
Speaker 2: Americans reparations, the.
Speaker 3: Marriage rates might change.
Speaker 2: You might see an increase of black folks getting married
Speaker 2: because we have access to capital now, and because we
Speaker 2: have access to capital, we have people that are looking
Speaker 2: like us, doing things and building.
Speaker 3: Things, and now we're more likely to partner or to marry.
Speaker 3: It is my argument, that is my theory.
Speaker 2: The only way we got it, the only way my
Speaker 2: theory could we know if it works.
Speaker 3: Or not is to pay us preparations and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, in terms of old reparation, the concept
Speaker 1: forty acres and the mule. Now, I don't want no donkey,
Speaker 1: I don't want him. I don't want the donkey. I
Speaker 1: don't want him. But you know what, for me in
Speaker 1: this day and age, I didn't educate my children. I
Speaker 1: didn't educate my children. I was a young single mom
Speaker 1: growing up. So my commitment in life was to educate
Speaker 1: my grandchildren. Reparations for me would be that my grandchildren
Speaker 1: could go to college for free. Reparations for me would
Speaker 1: be that, you know, there's a fun that my grandkids
Speaker 1: could go to to get a home. You know how
Speaker 1: much would forty acres cost today in the middle class neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Will let that be my grandchildren's down payment on their home.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't have to be for me today forty
Speaker 1: acres and the mule. But how can we construct those
Speaker 1: reparations in a way that would be conducive to my
Speaker 1: needs today? I don't need. I got rabbits and fox
Speaker 1: and two dogs and the squirrels. The squirrels. That's driving
Speaker 1: me crazy, But you know it's so I think that
Speaker 1: to broaden it, that concept of what reparations would be today,
Speaker 1: and I think it would support because I know someone
Speaker 1: been in relationship for twenty years and haven't been haven't
Speaker 1: gotten married, because he's an artist and you know, his
Speaker 1: income is up and down, and he says, I can't
Speaker 1: marry a woman if I can't buy a house, and
Speaker 1: I can't do that. And literally he's never been married
Speaker 1: and he's a he and he's middle income middle I
Speaker 1: would consider middle class even though he doesn't own the house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you be middle.
Speaker 1: Class and not own a home?
Speaker 3: Okay? So yes you can.
Speaker 2: The definition that I use in some of my quantitative work,
Speaker 2: not in the book, but some of my work that
Speaker 2: builds up to the book, you had to also have
Speaker 2: a home to be considered middle class. You had to
Speaker 2: have educate some kind of higher education. You had to
Speaker 2: be like you had to be like a professional managerial position.
Speaker 2: You had to have income that was above the threshold
Speaker 2: I can't remember what the threshold was for median households.
Speaker 2: And then you also had to own a home. Part
Speaker 2: of the reason again, why I wanted to do that
Speaker 2: because in the literature it talks about the fragility of
Speaker 2: the black middle class, that black Americans are one or
Speaker 2: two paychecks away from poverty, especially when you.
Speaker 3: Don't have the assets.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to argue that there's this new demographic
Speaker 2: group that exists. So I use the strictest measures possible
Speaker 2: to define middle class, and everybody says, well, if you
Speaker 2: would have relaxed the standards for a home ownership, would
Speaker 2: it have increased the group? Actually, education having a bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2: The thirty three percent of the US population have a
Speaker 2: bachelor's degree, I.
Speaker 3: Think almost I talk about in the book.
Speaker 2: I think maybe seventy percent of people own homes or
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I can't remember the number.
Speaker 2: So it's actually education was the hardest variable to load
Speaker 2: on being middle class.
Speaker 3: It actually wasn't owing a home or not really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about that when we come back. So
Speaker 1: my bachelor's degree serves absolutely no purpose. Well, none of
Speaker 1: my degree serves no purpose. My law degree, you don't
Speaker 1: serve no purpose. My master's degree does serve a purpose.
Speaker 1: My master's because my master's degree is in spiritual psychology.
Speaker 1: So I do use that.
Speaker 2: But those variables, again, I'm not trying to I know
Speaker 2: people might suggest those variables are elitists, but I have
Speaker 2: to understand, I'm trying to establish this group in the
Speaker 2: social science literature. So I had to use what other
Speaker 2: measures were used in the past to say this group
Speaker 2: is here. That's why I use those measures. I don't
Speaker 2: adhere to those measures. It's what I'm trying to do
Speaker 2: to say, I'm using your own measures, your own measurements,
Speaker 2: to say, this group is here, and let's have more
Speaker 2: conversations about people that are single and living alone. But
Speaker 2: I also think like part of the conversation too, is
Speaker 2: that there's an emergence of scholarship being written on singles.
Speaker 2: And I say in the preface of the book, I
Speaker 2: say that this really is a love letter to Black
Speaker 2: women in a lot of ways, because whether or not
Speaker 2: it's an adaptation, we had to do it or we
Speaker 2: chose to do it. Black women have been doing singlehood
Speaker 2: for a very long time, and we are showing the world. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're showing Americans, we are showing the world. We are
Speaker 2: showing other racial and ethnic groups how to do this.
Speaker 2: So what you're not too ready to do is make
Speaker 2: this a face that doesn't look like me, because it
Speaker 2: has been we have shown other people how to do it.
Speaker 2: So that's another reason why I want to write the book,
Speaker 2: to say, you know, let's get black women their flowers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and black women who are working hard and who
Speaker 1: are making the choice to be single. I want more
Speaker 1: of us to make that choice from our souls and
Speaker 1: not from disappointment, not from disappointment that past relationships didn't work.
Speaker 1: And also to look at all of the things that
Speaker 1: you've said. When we accumulate wealth, how do we pass
Speaker 1: it on to other members of our family? Understanding that
Speaker 1: wealth isn't about money, it's also about assets, you know,
Speaker 1: to start doing little investments that we can. I have
Speaker 1: a home that I live in, but black women, as
Speaker 1: a black women, want to really acquire. I like land.
Speaker 1: I want land and property. That's that's my thing. I
Speaker 1: don't need cars and boats and all of that. I
Speaker 1: want some land because when the stuff go left, I
Speaker 1: want to be able to go out there and plant
Speaker 1: me some tomatoes and some string beans. So my thing
Speaker 1: is land. Doctor marsh is the author of the Love
Speaker 1: Jones cohort. Being single and living alone and the middle class?
Speaker 1: What do you want to leave our listeners with? I
Speaker 1: thank all of you for tuning in today. Somebody said
Speaker 1: I'm tired of paying bills alone. We'll stop making them.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to pay them, don't make no bills.
Speaker 3: Don't but please do not get married.
Speaker 2: Justin can find somebody or partner or Jesse can find
Speaker 2: somebody to pay your bill.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you know how many people are doing that.
Speaker 1: That's a whole other conversation. About the women who say
Speaker 1: I want a partner that makes two fifty two, three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars and they ain't even got a college degree.
Speaker 1: That's a whole number conversation. What do you want us
Speaker 1: to know about being single, being middle class in the
Speaker 1: new world, in the New Age.
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I wanted to say is, please
Speaker 2: go and buy the book.
Speaker 1: The Love Jones Cohort.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Love Joe's Cohort signal I living Alone in
Speaker 2: the Black middle class. You can find them on most bookstores.
Speaker 2: I also have an audiobook, so you can read the
Speaker 2: audio book. Please let me know when about what you
Speaker 2: think when you read the book. There's two things I
Speaker 2: want to say about reading the book. It is an
Speaker 2: academic book, so the introduction in chapter one are theoretically dense.
Speaker 3: If that's not you get down and you don't.
Speaker 2: Appreciate that, just skip on to chapter two and read
Speaker 2: the stuff from chapter two on. I wrote the book,
Speaker 2: and I try to flip through the first chapter, so
Speaker 2: that's not I'm not really a theoretical person. But buy
Speaker 2: the book, read it to the very end. Read the
Speaker 2: appendencies because I mean the afterword, because there's some really
Speaker 2: juicy stuff in the afterword. Also, when you read the book,
Speaker 2: be sure and read the footnotes because I am a
Speaker 2: black woman who is an academic, and so there's so
Speaker 2: certain things that I couldn't say in the book because
Speaker 2: my editor was like, doctor marsh you go off on
Speaker 2: a tangent.
Speaker 3: Can you can you imagine him saying that?
Speaker 2: But okay, if you go off on a tangent, put
Speaker 2: stuff in the footnotes. And he's like, but keep the
Speaker 2: footnotes to a bare minimum. I have one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty footnotes because I have stuff that I want to say.
Speaker 2: Let me just give a golden nugy about one footnote.
Speaker 2: Then what's something I wanting to leave you with?
Speaker 3: In the book, we talked about like black middle class
Speaker 3: identity and what that means being middle class and so
Speaker 3: on and so forth. So the respondents talked about W. E. B.
Speaker 2: Du Bois and this idea of the talented tenth basic sense. W. E. B.
Speaker 2: Du boys was a sociologist, well known cyciologist, and he
Speaker 2: said ten percent of black America are going to help
Speaker 2: improve all of the ninety percent of black America. He
Speaker 2: pushed back against his own idea. Here's what's really interesting
Speaker 2: about that. I had to be sensitive to the data.
Speaker 2: The respondents talked about W. E. B.
Speaker 3: Du Boys, so I had to talk about him in
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 2: But I put a footnote because what people very rarely
Speaker 2: know is that there was another scholar at the exact
Speaker 2: same time who was writing as W. E. B. Du Boys,
Speaker 2: and this scholar was suggesting, if you would improve the
Speaker 2: life chances of black women, you'll improve the life chances
Speaker 2: of everybody. But her work was not getting published. Her
Speaker 2: name was Anna Julia Cooper, one of the first black
Speaker 2: women in the country to have a PhD. Part of
Speaker 2: the reason why her work wasn't getting published is because
Speaker 2: they were gatekeepers that prevented her work from getting published.
Speaker 2: One of the gatekeepers was W. E. B.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: The argument is is that he actually plagiarized her stuff
Speaker 2: later on in life. I, as a black woman and
Speaker 2: an academic, will not write a book where Anna Julia
Speaker 2: Cooper is not somewhere in my book. So if you
Speaker 2: don't read the footnotes, you missed out on that wonderful
Speaker 2: kind of conversation.
Speaker 3: Okay, so what do I want to leave you with?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, there's so many things that we could
Speaker 2: talk about.
Speaker 3: If there was one thing that I wanted to leave
Speaker 3: you with.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: I think, like I said before.
Speaker 2: It's important for us to de stigmatize single hood.
Speaker 3: I don't want you to get in.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to stay in relationships that are abusive, toxic, unfulfilling,
Speaker 2: and unrewarding simply because you don't want to hold the
Speaker 2: title of single. I also want you to think about
Speaker 2: whether or not the singleness is based on individual behavior
Speaker 2: or are there like structural forces that actually constrain your
Speaker 2: dating market and that's why you're single. I think when
Speaker 2: we leave it at the individual conversation, women in particular
Speaker 2: are like, what was me?
Speaker 3: Something's wrong with me. I'm not fast enough, I'm not
Speaker 3: praying enough.
Speaker 2: I'm not thin enough, I'm not thick enough, I'm not
Speaker 2: dark enough, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not light enough.
Speaker 2: Let's step back and think about how like structure, how
Speaker 2: society might play into this conversation. And when we do that,
Speaker 2: it allows us to have a more positive relationship with ourselves,
Speaker 2: which is really, really, really important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you are single, and if you do
Speaker 1: have assets or wealth, make it a choice. You know,
Speaker 1: because the one thing I found very interesting you said
Speaker 1: you defined middle class as the people who were considered
Speaker 1: that they've done everything right. They've got the good job,
Speaker 1: they've got the good education, blah blah blah, and a
Speaker 1: partner may be one of the rewards for doing the
Speaker 1: right things. And it's really not, I really hear on
Speaker 1: the R spot, I talk about building your relationship with yourself.
Speaker 1: Celebrate the fact that you did get the education, that
Speaker 1: you do have, the home, that you do have a
Speaker 1: few little ducats that you can spend on your nieces
Speaker 1: and your nephews and your grandma, and feel good about that.
Speaker 1: One of the things, you know, one of the ways
Speaker 1: that I stay single because I you know, I have
Speaker 1: a natural. When I was growing up, guys never said
Speaker 1: to me that I was pretty. They never told me
Speaker 1: I was pretty. I was always sexy. I was always sexy.
Speaker 1: So I have this thing, and you know, when I'm
Speaker 1: on the prow I know where I know where to
Speaker 1: put the perfume on my body so that you know
Speaker 1: I'm sending out those vibes. I know which button the button.
Speaker 1: I know which shoes to wear, so since I'm single
Speaker 1: about choice, I don't put no perfume on them places letter.
Speaker 2: I say, celebrate you, right, I say, put that perfume
Speaker 2: off for yourself.
Speaker 3: Put them shoes off for yourself, nurturing.
Speaker 1: I have my shoes and my and my push up
Speaker 1: bra that I do for me. But when I have
Speaker 1: that on, that's for me. But when I'm on the prowl,
Speaker 1: I got a whole another, a whole nother way of being.
Speaker 1: Doctor marsh Thank you so much for joining us, and
Speaker 1: thank you to all of you out there for tuning
Speaker 1: into the Art Spot today and every week. Whether it
Speaker 1: be where to pick up a man and I'm telling
Speaker 1: you don't sleep on the home depot, some real cuties there,
Speaker 1: or if you want to know how to define wealth.
Speaker 1: I hope you really learn something today that you didn't
Speaker 1: know before. Be sure to join us next week for
Speaker 1: our season finale. That's right. Time flies when you're learning
Speaker 1: a lot. In the meantime, stay in peace and not
Speaker 1: in pieces. Fine. The R Spot is a production of
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.