A. Mixed Marriages--Racial Solidarity v. Class Solidarity

At the heart of the book is Banks's critique of what he terms “mixed” marriages. Banks's wordplay is intentional. Though the term “mixed marriages” traditionally has referred to interracial unions, Banks is not concerned with the prospect of interracial marriages--indeed, they are a core part of his prescription for the black marriage decline (pp. 179-81). Instead, the “mixed marriages” to which he refers are the intraracial unions of economically unequal partners who lack a set of shared values (Chapter Seven).

The critique of economically mixed marriages responds directly to the rash of public commentary promoting them. Numerous voices within the black community (and some outside of it) have pilloried middle-class black women for being “too picky” in their choice of mates. Instead of insisting on marriage to a college-educated, professional black man, black women should open their eyes to the loving, hard-working, blue-collar black men around them.

Banks usefully debunks this now-common trope, revealing the challenges these mismatched couples face. Chief among them is a lack of shared values, which Banks attributes to the couple's different educational levels and socioeconomic statuses. According to Banks, a common racial background may bring two people together, but in time, divergent educational and professional experiences will trump the couple's shared racial background, dooming the relationship.

This take on these mixed marriages is a sobering counterpoint to those who insist that black women can find good partners if only they would divest themselves of their outsized expectations. In making this point, Banks surfaces class as a salient factor in intimate life and in the intimate lives of African Americans.

But Banks's decision to prioritize class solidarity over racial solidarity is problematic. As an initial matter, the book gives the impression that economically mixed marriages are a recent phenomenon among African Americans-- that they are a response to the skewed dating market. But this account seems anachronistic. Professional black women have married non-professional black men for generations. During the Jim Crow era, it was not uncommon for a college-educated teacher to be married to a nondegreed tenant farmer, as black women often had greater opportunities than black men to pursue education and professional training.

If, as this history suggests, economically mixed marriages have long been part of the black community, the question is what has changed such that these class disparities now produce the relationship conflicts that Banks describes? One might speculate that today, the educational and professional opportunities available to black women and black men alike far exceed those available in past generations. Consequently, the gap between professional status and nonprofessional status may seem vastly wider than during the Jim Crow era. Regardless of their root cause, the differences between the economically mixed marriages of today and those of prior generations suggest the inherent instability of class as a social construct--a point that Banks does not explore, even as he touts the benefits of intraclass marriages.

Moreover, by prioritizing class solidarity, Banks sidesteps many of the same problems he associates with racial solidarity. For example, Banks correctly points out that black men and women, regardless of their shared racial background, often have wildly divergent life experiences, perspectives, and values (pp. 103-08). Banks assumes that these differences are primarily the product of class differences (and that a common race is insufficient to overcome them). But he resists the idea that the same sort of intragroup differences--and the challenges they present--might exist among those of similar socioeconomic or educational backgrounds. For example, he downplays the racialized disagreements that often arise in interracial marriages (even where the couple belongs to same socioeconomic class), suggesting that such disagreements are minor issues that a couple can--and should--overlook.

By presenting class as a unifying--and universal--experience, Banks risks reinscribing the rigid class distinctions that have plagued American society. More importantly, his notion of class solidarity smacks of an age when men and women were advised to “stick to their own kind.” This is ironic as it mirrors Banks's critique of racial solidarity in marriage. Banks rejects the idea that black women who marry outside their race are traitors. Indeed, he finds this proposition offensive, demeaning, and illiberal because it is tantamount to romantic segregation, forcing black women to “stick to their own (racial) kind.”But is the prospect of sticking to your own class more normatively appealing than sticking to your own race? Is the former less like intimate segregation than the latter? These kinds of questions make clear that though Banks is admirably committed to expanding the possibilities for intimate partnership, his interracial-marriage prescription actually reinscribes other undesirable limitations on the kinds of lives and forms of intimacy that we value, celebrate, and encourage.