As we fall upon the intersection of Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, it is especially important to understand the complexities of Black love — and advocate for its well-being.
Black love is the celebration of unity between Black couples who choose each other daily. Black girls and women are often taught by their mothers and grandmothers that their ideal partners should be Black men. Black love embodies advocacy, self-care, protection, and a home-like feeling. It is a place to love and give love to each other’s Black bodies unconditionally, without judgment, and free of societal pressures. It is truly a revolutionary act in a society that does not value Black bodies as individuals or Black families as a unit. Black love is generational.
Black love takes various forms, shapes, and sizes and spans sexual and gender identities.
It is important to role model Black love for children as representations of Black families are powerful, especially due to the current traumas, like mass incarceration, and historical traumas, like slavery, that Black communities faced and continue to face.
Black love creates a space to be completely oneself without having to explain elements of your identity. Black love reinvigorates the idea that Black people deserve to experience healthy love that centers their identities wholly and unapologetically. Black love is breaking the odds and shattering statistics.
However, Black love takes intentional practice.
Black women are the most undervalued, least desired, and highly sexualized people, according to research, leading to lower rates of marriage than other racial groups. According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, more than 48 percent of all Black women and 51.1 percent of Black men had never been married in 2021. Research states that Black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all, and have higher rates of marital instability.
According to the 2019 American Community Survey, marriage among Black LGBTQ+ couples constitutes less than 2 percent of marriages in the United States. More married LGBTQ+ couples identify as Black than heterosexual couples. While 7.2 percent of respondents in heterosexual couples identify as Black, 8.8 percent of people in same-sex marriages identify as Black.
For heterosexual couples, stereotypes about Black women being strong and independent perpetuate a narrative that Black women don’t want or need a man. Black women prefer to date Black men and marry within their race as they report feeling more strongly connected to Black men due to historical and contemporary experiences of racism and discrimination. These racially bonded experiences of discrimination, sexism, and racism lead Black women to become strong, inhibiting them from being “soft,” sensitive, and feminine, which men desire.
Black men are twice as likely as Black women to have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity, and they are more likely to marry white women than Black women. This gender gap leaves many Black women wondering: If Black Love is a form of resistance and liberation for Black couples and communities, why don’t Black men aspire to have Black love?
In a study I (Crooks) conducted in 2020 with Black women, they described the aspiration to obtain and complexities of Black love. Black love often perpetuates an expectation that Black women should endure hardships or forgive men who betrayed them to achieve Black love. In conjunction with the shared history of racial oppression, this often kept them in abusive or unhealthy sexual relationships with Black men. Black women said they found it empowering to protect Black men because this was a way of keeping the Black family together so that their legacy, lineage, and culture would continue. However, this compassion compelled Black women to protect and stick by Black men, even during difficult circumstances, like cheating, physical and sexual abuse, or contracting sexually transmitted infections, and by accepting, forgiving, and providing for their male sexual partners. The power a Black man has for a Black woman is that he understands her and respects her body, her experience, and her goals like no other man can.
So how can we improve Black love and the love of Black women?
In the era of online dating, more data about the outcomes of Black singles using dating sites such as BLK and Black Gentry are needed. These sites could potentially play a huge role in changing the narrative about Black Love and how accessible it can be for Black singles. Removing the stigma, shame, and stereotyping from online dating, especially for Black women, is critical to improving Black Love.
The desire to protect and seek out Black women should be instilled in our little boys, just as little girls are told to aspire to date and marry a Black man. Black children should be socialized to understand, protect, and achieve Black love because Black love matters. The desire and protection of Black girls and women would allow them to be soft, sensitive, and desired.
Love, after all, is less laborious when you have a shared understanding.
Char’Lee King is an LGBTQ+ Reproductive Health Specialist, doula, and HIV Activist. Natasha Crooks is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.