Speaker 1: I am Yama, your host, your guide, a teacher for
Speaker 1: some and a soft place to fall for others. And
Speaker 1: I was a miserable failure in my relationships until I
Speaker 1: love myself enough to be able to share my love
Speaker 1: with other people. Welcome to the R Spot, a production
Speaker 1: of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the R Spot. I am your guide, your facilitator,
Speaker 1: your support, your comrade in arms. Yes, we talk about relationships,
Speaker 1: all kinds of relationships. And when we look out in
Speaker 1: the world today, who my lord relationships are? They're all
Speaker 1: I can say is pray for the people. Ah, praise
Speaker 1: for the people. The people need help. And social relationships,
Speaker 1: family relationships, intimate relationships, loving relationships. And you know, for me,
Speaker 1: it's your relationship with yourself that is the foundation and
Speaker 1: the basis of everything. I don't care who you are,
Speaker 1: what you're doing, gay, straight, black, white, or young, how
Speaker 1: you be with yourself is going to show up, and
Speaker 1: how you be in relationships. But there's this phenomenad that
Speaker 1: seems to be going on that's getting a lot of
Speaker 1: conversation all over the place, and that's singleness. Singleness, being single,
Speaker 1: being unhooked up, unattached, unmarried, you know, and in some
Speaker 1: places people try to make it like it's a disease,
Speaker 1: like there's something wrong with you. I am single by choice,
Speaker 1: single by choice. I've been married three times, twice to
Speaker 1: the same person. Lord, pray for the people, not be
Speaker 1: a people, okay, and in two long term relationships. And
Speaker 1: my last partner made this transition about I guess it'll
Speaker 1: be four years in January. Wow, my goodness. And I'm
Speaker 1: single by choice. I made that choice. That's what I
Speaker 1: want to do right now. Get me together. My relationship
Speaker 1: with myself is shifting and changing, because you know, I
Speaker 1: crossed that seventieth decade last year. So I don't even
Speaker 1: know how to be an old lady in relationship, you know,
Speaker 1: because my mind is young, and I know if I
Speaker 1: be swinging through the chandeliers and doing the stuff I
Speaker 1: used to do when I was young, I could hurt myself.
Speaker 1: So I have to figure out how you be old
Speaker 1: in a relationship.
Speaker 2: What you do?
Speaker 3: You know, I can do the basics.
Speaker 1: I like to cook, and i'll iron, and I'll run
Speaker 1: your bath and rub your feet and all of that.
Speaker 1: But you know, I have some old I don't know
Speaker 1: what you call it, prejudices. You know, I don't want
Speaker 1: nobody on no crutch or a walker. I'm not on
Speaker 1: no meds, so you being on your meds on you,
Speaker 1: and I find not a lot of men my age
Speaker 1: are just not in shape.
Speaker 3: So I have to go young. I have to go younger.
Speaker 3: But how young I haven't.
Speaker 1: Figured any of that out yet, so I said, let
Speaker 1: me just stay over here with me and my kooties
Speaker 1: and don't be infected in the relationship pool. But then
Speaker 1: there are a lot of younger women who are either
Speaker 1: in upset or breakdown or horrification that they're single. And
Speaker 1: then there are some who just have given up because
Speaker 1: for many women, they're just done. They are done with
Speaker 1: the shenanigations and the bad behavior. Yesterday, I think it
Speaker 1: was my beloved sister, beloved sister Stephanie Mills, who's on
Speaker 1: Broadway yay, did an interview on the Breakfast Club, and
Speaker 1: she said that at sixty seven, she's single by choice
Speaker 1: because she don't want to deal with knuckleheads. I didn't
Speaker 1: know there was sixty seven year old knuckleheads, So she
Speaker 1: too is single by choice. But a lot of women
Speaker 1: aren't comfortable with it. A lot of women aren't happy
Speaker 1: about it. A lot of men aren't happy about it.
Speaker 1: Men come to me all the time and say, I
Speaker 1: can't find a good woman.
Speaker 3: Well, where are you looking?
Speaker 1: You can't go to the second hand store or the
Speaker 1: Salvation army to look for no good women?
Speaker 3: Because I know a lot of them. What age group
Speaker 3: do you want? I'll send you some references.
Speaker 1: But today we are gonna talk about single hood and
Speaker 1: I have a guest today. I have a guest today,
Speaker 1: and then we're going live. We're gonna talk to some
Speaker 1: single women out there and get some insight and input.
Speaker 1: My guest today is doctor Chris Marsh, and she is
Speaker 1: the author of a brand new book, The Love Jones Cohort,
Speaker 1: The Love Jones Cohort, Remember the Love Jones, Love Jones,
Speaker 1: I Gotta Love Jones. Welcome, Doctor Marsh. We want to
Speaker 1: talk about The Love Jones Cohort. We want to talk
Speaker 1: about being single. We want to talk about all of that.
Speaker 1: And the thing about your book is it's The Love
Speaker 1: Jones Cohort, but it's about being single and middle class.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about that because is there
Speaker 1: a distinction between being single in the middle class, the
Speaker 1: upper class, the lower class. I want to talk about that,
Speaker 1: and you draw from your background in both economics and politics,
Speaker 1: and what in the world is intersectionality.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 1: But she was a post doctoral scholar at the Caroline
Speaker 1: Population Center at the University of North Carolina before she
Speaker 1: joined the faculty of the University of Maryland. So she
Speaker 1: is both a woman, a single woman, a scholar, and
Speaker 1: something that she do with intersectionality.
Speaker 3: I don't know what that is. So she's gonna tell
Speaker 3: us what that is. Okay, welcome doctor Marge. How are you,
Speaker 3: doctor Venzan.
Speaker 2: It is truly a pleasure to be on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the wonderful introduction. It's just a blessing
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 4: So thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: Now, before we start talking about singlehood, what in the
Speaker 1: world is intersectionality?
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 4: Okay, So we're gonna start there.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I am an academic, but I'm going to
Speaker 2: try to break this down into very basic, kind of
Speaker 2: like terms for you. I'd like to use the analogy
Speaker 2: kiss keep it simple, stupid. So I want to try
Speaker 2: to keep real simple for what intersectionality means. So when
Speaker 2: we think of it's kind of like a euretical framework.
Speaker 2: And so what it means is that I'm not just black,
Speaker 2: I'm not just a woman. So if you study racism,
Speaker 2: you're going to miss some of some of the issues
Speaker 2: I face as a woman.
Speaker 4: If you study sexism, you're going.
Speaker 2: To miss some of the things that I face that
Speaker 2: it relates to rapes. So intersectionality says, you can't disconnect
Speaker 2: my blackness from my womanness. You have to talk about
Speaker 2: how me as a black will be those intersecting identities.
Speaker 2: How that now how I navigate through the world and
Speaker 2: how the world looks at me because I'm a black woman,
Speaker 2: And one of the arguments I make in the book
Speaker 2: is that it should really be I'm a black, single woman,
Speaker 2: and how does the world look at me? And how
Speaker 2: do I navigate the world. So that's what intersectionality means.
Speaker 2: You can't just look at me as black, you can't
Speaker 2: just look at me as a woman. You have to
Speaker 2: look to those intersecting identities.
Speaker 1: So is that why you talk about being single and
Speaker 1: middle class?
Speaker 2: That's a really great question, and class is part of it.
Speaker 2: So it's race, of class, it's gender, it's singleness. But
Speaker 2: one of the things, because I am an academic, one
Speaker 2: of the things I decided early on in my academic career.
Speaker 2: And please understand what I mean when I say this,
Speaker 2: I said I was not going to pimp the poor
Speaker 2: to make my academic career. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: scholars who do not look like me who talk about
Speaker 2: poor Black Americans.
Speaker 4: But in spite of all.
Speaker 2: The isms that exist in America, there is still a
Speaker 2: thriving Black middle class. And because there is a black
Speaker 2: middle class, all of my work looks at black middle class.
Speaker 4: It's a smaller subset of Black America, but they're still there.
Speaker 2: So because they're there, I really wanted to talk about them,
Speaker 2: and I really wanted to talk about to the point
Speaker 2: you were asking earlier, I really want to talk about
Speaker 2: people that are single and living alone in the black
Speaker 2: middle class because by definition air quotes, they did everything right.
Speaker 2: They went to college, they got the big houses, the
Speaker 2: big degrees, the big titles, but at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, they're still single. Because if I don't look
Speaker 2: at the middle class, what they could say is, oh,
Speaker 2: they're poor, so.
Speaker 4: They should have done they should have gone to school,
Speaker 4: they should have got a better job.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, these are people that are solid middle
Speaker 2: class members and they're still single. So let's kind of
Speaker 2: complicate the conversation. So that's why I really want to
Speaker 2: look at middle class. Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait a minute, I'm going live. I am going
Speaker 1: live because this is too juicy and too good to
Speaker 1: just be between.
Speaker 3: You and I.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, good afternoon. I am live on the
Speaker 1: R Spot today and I've got a guest, doctor Chris Marsh,
Speaker 1: who confesses and admits that she is an academic, but
Speaker 1: she talks about the middle class. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: middle class single people today. I want you to listen in.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take your questions. We're gonna this is so juicy.
Speaker 1: We were doing the interview and just her first line
Speaker 1: to me was so delicious until I said, I have
Speaker 1: to share this meal with my community.
Speaker 3: We need to.
Speaker 1: Understand the black middle class. Now define middle class. If
Speaker 1: you're just joining in, this is the R Spot. We
Speaker 1: are live, me and doctor Chris Marsh talking about being
Speaker 1: single and middle class. She's the author of a brand
Speaker 1: new book, The Love Jones co Hoart. The Love Jones Cohort.
Speaker 1: And remember that movie The Love Jones, okay, with Neil
Speaker 1: Small and the little cutie I can't remember his name,
Speaker 1: but anyway.
Speaker 3: And Lorenz Tate, Lorenz tape.
Speaker 1: Yes, how Lorenz forgive me because you know I love you,
Speaker 1: but I'm old. I can't remember. My brain takes frequent naps. Okay,
Speaker 1: How are you defining middle class, doctor marsh.
Speaker 4: That's a really, really, really great question.
Speaker 2: So, being a sociologist and a dermographer, I looked like
Speaker 2: the literature and I had to see what the literature
Speaker 2: said about middle class. And typically there's four measures. There's income, occupation, wealth,
Speaker 2: and education. Those are typically the four measures that are
Speaker 2: used to define middle class income.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, income, wealth, education.
Speaker 4: And education, income, occupation and well.
Speaker 1: So many women today are single, and some of them
Speaker 1: are single by choice, and some of them are single
Speaker 1: by happenstance. Some of them are upset at they're single.
Speaker 1: And we want to talk about what that means. What
Speaker 1: does it mean to be single today? And how can
Speaker 1: you choose to be single today? And why would you
Speaker 1: choose to be single today?
Speaker 3: So we want to talk about all of that.
Speaker 1: And doctor Martin talks about this thing called intersectionality, where
Speaker 1: all of who you are, if you're a woman, if
Speaker 1: you're black, if you're forty, if you're single, all of
Speaker 1: that message together. So you can't look at one thing,
Speaker 1: you got to look at it all. Oh somebody said,
Speaker 1: many are married but single. Yeah, baby, that's a whole
Speaker 1: nother conversation. I'm alone but not lonely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there are so many men out they're saying
Speaker 1: to me, to me, I hear it all the time.
Speaker 1: I can't find a good woman. I'm like, well, where
Speaker 1: are you looking? Where are you looking that you can't
Speaker 1: find a good woman?
Speaker 3: All right? Let me see if doctor Marsh got back
Speaker 3: in here. All right, here she is everybody to doctor
Speaker 3: Chris with A. K.
Speaker 1: Marsh a professor at the University of Maryland. She's a sociologist.
Speaker 1: And we're here today to talk about single, being single,
Speaker 1: single and middle class. And we've defined middle class. Everybody,
Speaker 1: stay tuned, will be right back right after this. Why
Speaker 1: do we have to have those distinctions? Why do we
Speaker 1: have to have that? Oh?
Speaker 2: So, as I was saying earlier, one of the things
Speaker 2: that was really important to me as a scholar and
Speaker 2: as an academic is that I did not want to
Speaker 2: and please understand what I mean when I say that
Speaker 2: I did not want to pamph the poor to make
Speaker 2: my academic career. There are a lot of scholars who
Speaker 2: do not look like me to spend their entire time
Speaker 2: talking about poor Black Americans, and the Bible even talks
Speaker 2: about how the poor will be with us for all time.
Speaker 2: But I decided that I was not going to pamp
Speaker 2: the poor to make my academic career. I wanted to
Speaker 2: look at the black metal class. Those two air quotes
Speaker 2: have done everything that they were supposed to do. They
Speaker 2: had the big houses, the big degrees, the big salaries,
Speaker 2: the big occupations, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: they live different lives than other racial ethnic groups in
Speaker 2: particular like white folks. And so I wanted to study
Speaker 2: the black middle class. But people often ask like, how
Speaker 2: do you define black middle class? And I was trying
Speaker 2: to say, like, if we look at the social science literature,
Speaker 2: there's usually four measures that are used to define middle class.
Speaker 2: It's income, it's education, it's occupation, and it is I
Speaker 2: know we couldn't rebollw that well, and I studied the stuff, right,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't elements so, but I also think people use
Speaker 2: a line of objective measures, but I also think we're
Speaker 2: talking about the black middle class, it can be some
Speaker 2: subjective measures like, for example, where you go to church,
Speaker 2: what kind of social organization do you do, how involved
Speaker 2: are you with your community? So I do think if
Speaker 2: we use just objective measures where it's just numbered, youmit them,
Speaker 2: you hit the market, you don't, it can be short sighted.
Speaker 2: So I try to offer more of a more contextual
Speaker 2: understanding of how we think of no middle class. But
Speaker 2: to the point that one of the listeners said earlier,
Speaker 2: it does come off as classes and the leaders. When
Speaker 2: you have to have a certain education, you have to
Speaker 2: have a certain kind of occupation, you have to make
Speaker 2: a certain amount of money, and you have to have
Speaker 2: some kind of wealth, that can be a very immendous perspective.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 1: Now, Now, do middle class people make differently? Do they
Speaker 1: date differently?
Speaker 2: Maybe don't necessarily make differently, and they don't date differently.
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you a big academic word and
Speaker 2: explain what it means. One of the things I talk
Speaker 2: about in the book is this idea of educational homogomy
Speaker 2: and what that means. In very Layman's terms. It means
Speaker 2: like we typically are going to marry somebody that looks
Speaker 2: like us, whether or not that needings education, whether or
Speaker 2: not that needs income. So when we're talking about a
Speaker 2: lot of educated black women, are they able to date
Speaker 2: educated black men? Please do not leave this conversation saying
Speaker 2: that doctor marsh is saying everybody's got to have a
Speaker 2: a bachelor's degree or a PhD to get married. That
Speaker 2: is not what I'm saying. What I'm suggesting is that
Speaker 2: we typically marry people that look like us. So I
Speaker 2: really want to know, like what the middle class black
Speaker 2: middle class does about marriage and dating and so on
Speaker 2: and so forth, because if we look at the numbers,
Speaker 2: I'm a demographer. If we look at the numbers, especially
Speaker 2: when we start talking about professional black women, there aren't
Speaker 2: comparable professional black men numerically, So what are black women
Speaker 2: going to do? So that's part of the conversation I
Speaker 2: have in the.
Speaker 3: Book Wow Wow Wow.
Speaker 1: That is I don't know. That's troubling to me, and
Speaker 1: it is. It's troubling to me because I never ask
Speaker 1: a person about their education. I guess I look at
Speaker 1: their heart and their soul first. Because my husband, he
Speaker 1: went to college during our marriage, and I had already
Speaker 1: been to college. Right, all right, Well, anyway, you said,
Speaker 1: stop asking why you're single?
Speaker 3: Why do you say that? So here's the thing.
Speaker 4: There's two things.
Speaker 2: One, I'm like, I don't know why everybody thinks it's
Speaker 2: okay to ask single people why are you single? Why
Speaker 2: are you worried about our daily practices of what we're doing?
Speaker 2: And so after reading the book, I tell the readers,
Speaker 2: I hope, after reading this book, you are just as
Speaker 2: likely to ask somebody why are you married as you
Speaker 2: are to.
Speaker 4: Ask somebody why are you single?
Speaker 2: We always ask single folks, but we don't ask married folks.
Speaker 2: If we keep asking the single folks, it suggests that
Speaker 2: the priority is that you have to be married. Not
Speaker 2: a good marriage and not a healthy marriage. You just
Speaker 2: have to be married. So either we should be asking
Speaker 2: everybody or we should be asking nobody. But what you're
Speaker 2: not gonna do is just ask single quolts. So that's
Speaker 2: why I blew up people to take away from the books.
Speaker 2: Stop asking. But if you're gonna ask, be consistent, don't discriminate,
Speaker 2: ask married folks, and ask single folks.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm gonna start asking people, why are you married right,
Speaker 3: and wait for.
Speaker 2: Our culture and wait for coherent response, because come on,
Speaker 2: I responded. In the book, they talked about how they
Speaker 2: have to get their narrative together for like the holidays.
Speaker 2: The holidays are coming up, so they have to get
Speaker 2: their narrative together for why they're single. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: if we're gonna be asking people about maritals, fasts were
Speaker 2: asking everybody, So everybody has to come to the holiday
Speaker 2: holiday party or dinner with their narratives and explaining why,
Speaker 2: justifying why they're single or why they're married.
Speaker 1: Really, well, I'm single by choice, but you know what,
Speaker 1: everybody's coming to my house, so ain't nobody gonna ask
Speaker 1: me that question?
Speaker 2: What single folks do get it are quite often. And
Speaker 2: one of the things in the book I talk about
Speaker 2: is I talk about how single folks can actually deal
Speaker 2: with that because they get it quite often. And a
Speaker 2: little piece of advice that I'm gonna give single folks
Speaker 2: is that when someone asks you why are you single?
Speaker 2: It's a very benign response that you can give, but
Speaker 2: it'll get them to think about the error and their statement.
Speaker 2: You can just say, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, okay, there's a couple of things you can do.
Speaker 2: You can cuss them out from I may even grace
Speaker 2: the house sweet they how dare you ask me? Blah
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. Or you can just say in a
Speaker 2: very benign the way, what do you mean by that? Now?
Speaker 2: Typically what's gonna happen is they're gonna stutter, They're gonna stammer,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna say, oh, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like you know, like no, no, no, no, no, what do you
Speaker 2: mean by that? Because all of my accolades, all of
Speaker 2: that pedigree that I bring with me does not matter
Speaker 2: as long as I don't have an mrs degree. You
Speaker 2: gonna go home thinking about the question that you just
Speaker 2: asked me. I'm not gonna go home think about it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave that back on you, and the allness
Speaker 2: is on you to understand the error in your way
Speaker 2: when you ask a question, why are you single?
Speaker 1: Well, we can't ignore the fact that there really is this,
Speaker 1: uh I guess social consciousness that if you're single, there's
Speaker 1: something wrong with you.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: Even if you're single with children, either through divorce or
Speaker 1: choice not to be married, you then look at you
Speaker 1: like you got cooties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like right, yes, yeah. They think something's wrong
Speaker 2: with you. And that's that's one of the main reasons
Speaker 2: why I wrote the book. I was really trying to
Speaker 2: be stigmatize singlehood because what we have to understand is
Speaker 2: that there's people that will be in relationships that are abusive, toxic, unfulfilling,
Speaker 2: and underwarding simply because they don't want to hold the
Speaker 2: title of single. They'll either stay in something or get
Speaker 2: in something because societal pressures and the way in which
Speaker 2: society is built, it's it caters to be a partnered,
Speaker 2: it caters to be married, and so single folks are
Speaker 2: just like, oh my gosh, I've got to get part
Speaker 2: I got to be partner, I gotta be married. I'm like,
Speaker 2: absolutely not. So I'm really trying to be stigmat singlehood
Speaker 2: and have people know that there's nothing wrong with you
Speaker 2: being single. You can stand very comfortably and confidently in
Speaker 2: your singleness. And I think as we start to continue
Speaker 2: to have these kinds of conversations, we start to be
Speaker 2: sympathizing in and people feel more comfortable scanning in their singleness.
Speaker 1: Well, now not only are you single, but you a
Speaker 1: childless cat lady.
Speaker 2: In that part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's also not only just being single. It's
Speaker 1: the choice now that many women are making not to
Speaker 1: have children, and that seems to be a whole nother
Speaker 1: disease that we carry. What do you mean by the
Speaker 1: Love Jones? What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Well, there's two reasons why if fy to call the
Speaker 2: book Love Jones Cohort. One reason is that if you
Speaker 2: get at a really cool title for a book, people
Speaker 2: will die just by the book. It because of the title.
Speaker 2: Thank God for that right. But the other is why
Speaker 2: I really wanted to call it the Love Jones Cohort.
Speaker 2: So it's based on the movie Love Jones. And it's
Speaker 2: based on a demographic term, which is cohort. Cohort just
Speaker 2: means a band of people. So when I started write
Speaker 2: to school way back in the Stone Ages, I noticed
Speaker 2: that I was being trained at the demographer, and I've
Speaker 2: noticed that marriage rates were changing for all racial and
Speaker 2: ethnic groups, but way more pronounced for Black Americans. And
Speaker 2: so my sisters and I we bought a house on
Speaker 2: this in Lamart Park in Love Angeles, California, and two
Speaker 2: other people, single people bought houses on mar Street and
Speaker 2: I was like, you know what, I really think that
Speaker 2: there's this demographic shipt in married couple. I mean in
Speaker 2: middle class couple that married couples to young black professionals
Speaker 2: who aren't married and don't have children, like the characters
Speaker 2: in Love Jones. So pop culture kind of saw what
Speaker 2: was happening, but the academics were slow to get on
Speaker 2: the board with what was happening. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: pay respect to the movie Love Jones because that's where
Speaker 2: you start to see this demographic shift from this traditional
Speaker 2: kind of middle class family like we think about the
Speaker 2: Huxtables on the Kywsky Show. Two are like, you know,
Speaker 2: middle class or upper middle class, we have two point
Speaker 2: five children and the black picket fence. We now start
Speaker 2: to see this demographic and the Love Jones where they're single,
Speaker 2: they're trying to drop their lives and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth. So I put the two terms together, an
Speaker 2: academic term and a pop culture term, and I can
Speaker 2: help with the term the Love Jones cohort and its
Speaker 2: subtitle is Signal and Living ap blone in the black
Speaker 2: meddle class.
Speaker 3: Oh that's good, that's good.
Speaker 1: I want you to give me a better explanation about that,
Speaker 1: and we're going to do that right after this break. Alrighty,
Speaker 1: if you're just joining us here on the R Spot
Speaker 1: today we're talking about being single and being middle class.
Speaker 1: My guest today is doctor Chris Marsh and we are
Speaker 1: glad to have her. Start thinking out there. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about being single? Or what are your questions
Speaker 1: about being single? What are your challenges being single? Whether
Speaker 1: you have children or not. Do you talk about being
Speaker 1: single and a parent in your book?
Speaker 2: No, I actually don't talk about single parents in my book.
Speaker 2: I left a lot of questions for my graduate student
Speaker 2: is to pick up and carry the conversation forward. I'm
Speaker 2: actually looking at people that have single, have never been married,
Speaker 2: and don't have any children. And one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why I use a very strict measure for the book
Speaker 2: is because I wanted to think about, like, these are
Speaker 2: middle class folks, they have assets, they have wealth. How
Speaker 2: are they going to transfer their wealth? Because there's a
Speaker 2: subtle argument in the social science literature that's say, the
Speaker 2: black middle class is not going to be able to
Speaker 2: reproduce it self because we don't have a lot of
Speaker 2: black married couples. I think what's going to happen is
Speaker 2: that the black middle class is going to reproduce itself
Speaker 2: in different kind of ways. Because if you look at
Speaker 2: the numbers, the second largest household type and the Black
Speaker 2: middle class are people that are single and living alone.
Speaker 2: The second largest household type BETWY behind married couples. So
Speaker 2: the question becomes, how are they going to transfer their
Speaker 2: wealth if they own a house. Typically you transfer your
Speaker 2: wealth from parent to child. It's bequeathed to the child
Speaker 2: or to the partner. So I really wanted to talk
Speaker 2: to people who didn't have children, had never been married,
Speaker 2: and who were they going to transfer their wealth too.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to.
Speaker 2: Give away all the juicing nuggets in the book, because
Speaker 2: I really want you to buy the book. But they
Speaker 2: used innovative ways to transfer their wealth. They transferred it
Speaker 2: to nieces, to nephews, to god children, to friends, to
Speaker 2: the children of friends, which I think comes back to
Speaker 2: a really important conversation we were having earlier about this
Speaker 2: idea of childless cat lady and how just because you
Speaker 2: didn't biologically have a child, that you may not have
Speaker 2: this nurturing or you don't mother, and that's one of
Speaker 2: the things we kind of talk about in the book
Speaker 2: is that even though we didn't these people did not
Speaker 2: biologically have children, they were very nurturing, they were mothering,
Speaker 2: and in a lot of ways they decided to give
Speaker 2: their assets to their god children, nieces and nephews and
Speaker 2: so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, now can we talk about the fact that, going
Speaker 1: back to what you said earlier, that you're going to
Speaker 1: marry somebody that looks like you or matches you. So
Speaker 1: you have a lot of black women I guess they're
Speaker 1: middle class professional maybe high income earners who are looking
Speaker 1: for a partner can find a partner that looks like
Speaker 1: them just in terms of race, and then they go
Speaker 1: outside of their race, where do they fit in the cohort?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a whole section that's a really great question.
Speaker 2: There's a whole section that talks about interracial dating and
Speaker 2: interracial marriage, and so one of the things that's really important.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't I'm not going to value
Speaker 2: you judge about whether or not you want to interracially
Speaker 2: date or not. But there's a really great book that
Speaker 2: talks about the digital dating divide, and it talks about
Speaker 2: how racism and sexism plays out in the online dating
Speaker 2: process and black women are the least likely to get
Speaker 2: winked at or to get approached on online dating sources.
Speaker 3: And really we are.
Speaker 2: There's a whole it's a wonderful book by the colleague
Speaker 2: that read it, it's called The Dating Divide. And when
Speaker 2: we are looked at her with that, it's usually for
Speaker 2: these stereotypical ideas that were the hyper sexual, hot and
Speaker 2: top or something like that. So I think it's really
Speaker 2: important to think about interracial daty and how sometimes some
Speaker 2: of these stereotypical ideas can play out in any kind
Speaker 2: of relationships, but they also can play out dating relationships
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Now, now let me ask you a question, because are
Speaker 1: you looking primarily at women because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: single middle class men who aren't married.
Speaker 3: Are men in the cohort?
Speaker 2: Also, men are actually in the cohort? They are And
Speaker 2: that was really important to me because I wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure that men were not excluded from the conversation.
Speaker 2: And like I said earlier, I also wanted to make
Speaker 2: sure that I could send the book to everybody. So
Speaker 2: this is not just a book about black women, because
Speaker 2: there are black men that are single as well, And
Speaker 2: it's important that we don't get lost in the conversation.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: What also is important, though, is that women do dominate
Speaker 2: the category, but there are men in that group.
Speaker 1: I wonder, if you divorced or widowed, are you still
Speaker 1: considered single? Because when I check off the boxes on applications,
Speaker 1: I don't put divorced, I don't, I don't put widowed.
Speaker 3: I put single.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The other day I had what was that feeling out
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was, and it said married
Speaker 1: sing I put single, and then I wrote right next
Speaker 1: to it, by choice because I don't want because people
Speaker 1: really do think there's something wrong with you. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm a single middle I'm in a single middle
Speaker 1: class cohort. Okay, And I met a guy who let
Speaker 1: me go back to my bus driver. I met a
Speaker 1: guy who was a bus driver, very very nice to
Speaker 1: his mother, had great relationships with his siblings, and made
Speaker 1: probably two thirds less than I do. And we're having
Speaker 1: a wonderful time. If we were to get married, does
Speaker 1: he become middle class by choice? I mean by association?
Speaker 1: Does he become or do I become working class by association?
Speaker 1: Because in our culture, you become what the husband is.
Speaker 1: If he's Jewish, you become Jewish. If he's Christian, you
Speaker 1: become Christian. Most people don't live culturally, but I do.
Speaker 1: So does he become middle class by marriage?
Speaker 2: That's a really great question, and I don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: a really great answer, but what I will that's really
Speaker 2: something really interesting to think about, right, But what I
Speaker 2: will say is, like what we have to understand is
Speaker 2: that I want to go on record saying that I
Speaker 2: am pro marriage.
Speaker 4: I believe marriage is a good thing.
Speaker 2: I get people that email me, call me, send me
Speaker 2: hate mail all the time saying I'm bad for Black America,
Speaker 2: I'm bringing Black America down because I'm not promoting marriage.
Speaker 2: I get it all the time, Like you clearly have
Speaker 2: not read my book. But I want to go on
Speaker 2: record saying that I'm all about marriage when it's done
Speaker 2: right and it's a healthy marriage. Now, one of the
Speaker 2: things that we do know is that before marriage was
Speaker 2: almost like a vehicle to get into middle class status,
Speaker 2: especially for Black women. Marriage doesn't serve the same utility
Speaker 2: and the same purpose that it served before because you
Speaker 2: have a lot of black women who are now middle
Speaker 2: class and did not need marriage to get there.
Speaker 4: So because they did not need marriage or partnering to
Speaker 4: get there.
Speaker 2: It's a conversation of like, do they now want to
Speaker 2: partner or be married, and what's utility? What does marriage
Speaker 2: mean for them? And so it really becomes an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2: But I also think that people automatically assume just because
Speaker 2: two people get married, that's automatically go a catapulture and
Speaker 2: in middle class status. If two broke folks would high
Speaker 2: debt get married, that's just two broke folks married.
Speaker 4: What a whole lot of debt.
Speaker 2: People think marriage is a panacea, which I think becomes
Speaker 2: a really interesting conversation.
Speaker 4: But I want to take the law route to get
Speaker 4: to this comment real quick. I have a dear friend
Speaker 4: of mine who.
Speaker 2: Always used to say, like, I like leiskinned woman, I
Speaker 2: like leiskined woman, I like light skined woman. Though he
Speaker 2: used to be a friend, and so one day I
Speaker 2: just said to him, no, you don't. And I gave
Speaker 2: a real long, pregnant pause, and then I said, you know,
Speaker 2: I really respect you. If you would say I've been
Speaker 2: conditioned from a very young age to think white is
Speaker 2: right and closer to white.
Speaker 4: Is right, i'd respect you. But if you're sitting here
Speaker 4: saying that this is just your preference structure. That's just
Speaker 4: not the case. In a similar way, I admonish.
Speaker 2: People to ask themselves, why do you want to be married?
Speaker 2: It's a simple question, but it has some deep implications.
Speaker 2: We have been taught from a very young age we're
Speaker 2: supposed to have the white wedding, and I mean the
Speaker 2: white dress, and so on and so forth. Why do
Speaker 2: you want to be married? Ask yourself that question, and
Speaker 2: sit with that uncomfortable question and see what your answer is.
Speaker 2: Because we have a and I love the podcast because
Speaker 2: it's all about relationship. We put a lot of emphasis
Speaker 2: in the romantic relationship, but there are a ton of
Speaker 2: non romantic nurturing relationships and give us so much pleasure
Speaker 2: and are so rewarding to us that we're putting all
Speaker 2: of our eggs in the romantic basket and sometimes forsaken
Speaker 2: our non romantic nurturing relationships also known as friends.
Speaker 3: Listen, why do I want to be married? I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't, And even now when I do choose to
Speaker 1: be partnered a couple, we're going.
Speaker 3: To each have to have our own house.
Speaker 1: I don't want to live with anybody, you know, my
Speaker 1: closets are already full. I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: move closets. And another thing that I notice about women,
Speaker 1: they say they want to be in relationship, but there's
Speaker 1: no room in their life for a partner, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's man or woman, whatever, fruit nuts, berries, whatever
Speaker 1: it is you're choosing, there's no room.
Speaker 3: You don't have a.
Speaker 1: Dresser drawer for them, you don't have closet space for them. Ah,
Speaker 1: but maybe that means that you'll have to get a
Speaker 1: house together. Let me ask you, qu Let me ask
Speaker 1: you a question about these middle class people. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: a question for you. So you middle class and he
Speaker 1: middle class? Does he move in your house? Do you
Speaker 1: move in his house? Or do y'all get a house together?
Speaker 1: This is let me get let me get ready. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Because when you pour chances off,
Speaker 1: whoever got the best house, the other person moves in.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately most of the time that's the woman. The woman
Speaker 1: has the better house and he moves in there. But
Speaker 1: when you middle class and both of y'all he got
Speaker 1: a condo, you got a house where y'all go?
Speaker 3: What you do?
Speaker 4: I want to answer that in two ways.
Speaker 2: One I want to say whatever works best for them, right,
Speaker 2: I was like, don't worry about what nobody else says,
Speaker 2: like that's your house while you have person whatever works
Speaker 2: best for you.
Speaker 4: But the other way I want to answer that question
Speaker 4: two is I want to say, so.
Speaker 2: Often we police black women and what they do, what
Speaker 2: they say, how we talk how our hair is.
Speaker 4: How big our butt is or how big our butt ain't.
Speaker 2: How our hair is natural, how our ain't natural, How
Speaker 2: you coming for our eyelashes, how you ain't coming for
Speaker 2: our eyelashes. At the end of the day, that is exhausting.
Speaker 2: Let black women be and let them do what they
Speaker 2: want to do. If you and your bood decided you
Speaker 2: want to move into his house, fine, If you want
Speaker 2: to move into her house, that is perfectly fine.
Speaker 4: But just let black women be.
Speaker 2: Why are we constantly policing black women and tell them
Speaker 2: what they should and should not do. Well.
Speaker 1: I don't want to tell nobody what they should and
Speaker 1: should not do, But I want to be with somebody
Speaker 1: I know can pay the mortgage or at least contribute half.
Speaker 1: I'm good with the half. I'm good with the half.
Speaker 1: Can you pay half the mortgage, I'll split it with
Speaker 1: you okay.
Speaker 2: And see for some people it's like, you know, I
Speaker 2: just want a warm body. You ain't got to worry
Speaker 2: about the financers. Some people like, we come into this
Speaker 2: thing fifty to fifty whatever they want to do.
Speaker 4: I don't think what we shouldn't do is we shouldn't
Speaker 4: just judge them.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that anybody is doing that or
Speaker 2: people will do that, but just let people do whatever
Speaker 2: works best for them.
Speaker 3: Oh, people do do it.
Speaker 1: People do do it, and we dismiss people, the middle
Speaker 1: class people. We will dismiss people because they don't meet it.
Speaker 1: They may have the education and not the salary, or
Speaker 1: they may have the salary and not the education. I'm
Speaker 1: saying both ways. Men do it to women, women do
Speaker 1: it to men. Thank you so much, doctor Marsh. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in for listening today. I
Speaker 1: hope you got something here today. Go get the book
Speaker 1: The Love Jones Cohort. It's about being single, being middle
Speaker 1: class and living alone and how to make the best
Speaker 1: of that. Remember, doctor Marsh said, flip through them first
Speaker 1: two chapters. She's an academician. She is you know, she's
Speaker 1: an educator. So get through those first two chapters, get
Speaker 1: in the rest of them, Get to the home depot,
Speaker 1: go to the airport.
Speaker 3: No, I'm just season. Enjoy, Enjoy, enjoy.
Speaker 1: Thank you, doctor marsh, thank you for joining the community today,
Speaker 1: and y'all out there, I'm going to see you all
Speaker 1: next time. I hope that you know something now that
Speaker 1: you didn't know when you tuned in. And until we
Speaker 1: meet again, stay in peace and not pieces. I'll see
Speaker 1: you next time. Bye. The R Spot is a production
Speaker 1: of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.