Behind the Eight Ball

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

We are not the same person this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

How could my experience and that of so many other black women be so different from the official statistics? I wanted to find out — so I started digging. Because so many news reports repeat the 70 percent figure without citing a source, I went straight to the mother lode of demographic data: the U.S. Census. And what I found was shocking: While, according to 2009 data, it’s true that 70.5 percent of black women were never married compared with 45 percent of white women, look closer and you’ll see that the figure pertains only to women between the ages of 25 and 29. Not that surprising, right? Researching further, I found another U.S. Census statistic that may have sparked the frenzy. According to the 2009 data, only 30 percent of black women were married — but the data includes every female from 15 years old up to 90-somethings. So … my ba—By cousin and grandmother are single. Is that really a crisis?