From: krw@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (keith.r.smith)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: single blacks
Date: 12 Nov 92 23:55:54 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Nov12.204932.27215@cs.ucla.edu> gds@cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.190955.18351@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> krw@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (keith.r.smith) writes:
>
>>If you are gonna' paraphrase, then please strive to be just a wee bit
>>more accurate.  What Ronald said was more like:
>>The women complaining about a "shortage" of black men tend most often
>>to be women who are really heavy, or women who are single with lotsa'
>>children with differrent fathers.
>>This may or may not be true, but it sure sounds reasonable to me.
>
>Reasonable in what sense?

Reasonable in the sense of plausability.  What I mean is, in this society,
for good or bad, it is the men that pursue the women, and not the other
way about.  That being the case, a man is going to make a pass at a woman
who is reasonably attractive to him.  He is not going to spend much time
going after the really-heavy women, as long as there are women about that
are well-stacked.  He is not going to spend much time going after single-
parent women, much less, those with several children, as long as there are
single childless women.  Therefore, it seems reasonable to me to believe
that those women, who are in all probability getting fewer offers than the
others, would be the ones most likely to cry "sour grapes", otherwise
"shortage of black men".  This doen not necessarily mean that it is true,
but it just sounds reasonable (I did not say fair) to me.
>
>>On the other hand, I can see where one would have problems with
>>the way that Ronald chose to characterize these women.....  I mean,
>>there is is nothing to be gained by disparaging somebody.
>>BTW, I also believe that this "shortage of black men" business is
>>a myth, as Ronald stated.
>
>Hmmm.  Well, it may be a myth, and it may not be.  I think it is part
>of a larger societal situation, which blacks may be more subject to
>than other ethnic groups/nationalities.  A simple way of looking at
>this is, the fact that there are single, eligible black men and women
>posting to this newsgroup (and, likely, more readers who don't post),
>is a proof of the existence of eligible blacks.  On the other hand,
>few of us live in the same vicinity, and even if we did, we might not
>be compatible. Thus, there is more of a shortage of compatible
>individuals than available ones.
>
It's that the proponents of the "black male shortage" use all of the time!
The way that I heard it is that once you take the gross number of black men
and subtract out those who are gay or incarcerated, and then filter out the
others, based upon some sort of "desirability" factors, and compare that to
the gross number of black women, then you come up with a shortage of black
males.  I have yet to hear of anybody applying those same filters to the
women in these calculations.  From what I have heard (and granted, I may not
have heard everything), is that to be "eligible" the women need only to be
breathin'.

Simply put, while I accept that "compatible individuals" for a given person
may be in short supply, or even geographically separated, in some cases,
I also believe that this would apply just as much to men as to women.....
Therefore, no relative shortage in the supply of "compatible" black
women, vs. "compatible" black men.
>--gregbo

Keith