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Singled Out
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Last year, the federal government reported that 44 percent of black men and 42 percent of black women had never been married. Black men and women surveyed this year in a national poll conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University said they believe the top reasons for the decline are the high incarceration and murder rates for young black men.
Robyn was uncharacteristically quiet through much of the preparty chatter. And before the night was over, she found herself sitting under a starry sky with her friend Emeka Onwezi, a Nigerian-born lawyer with his own firm. He reminds her of her father, hard-working and confident, and her girlfriends teasingly have dubbed him her African prince.
"Whoever marries him won't have to worry about anything," Robyn says.
Emeka has dated many black American women, but last Christmas, he met a Nigerian in his home town and started a serious long-distance relationship.
Still, Robyn and another friend have planned a trip with him to Nigeria near Christmas, and Emeka tells her she will return with a boyfriend.
Robyn laughs, but the irony of going abroad to find a husband is not lost on her.
* * *
Looking for Mr. 'Do Right'
She does not rule out such possibilities, but that is not her first choice. Though it has not been easy, wrestling with the frustrating mix of race, class and sexual politics is part of the black American experience. She knows how the subtle realities of race can eat away at you. And she also knows the tension that can come as black women succeed professionally.
For three years, she dated a man who installed high-end appliances.
They met in 2001, on a cold November night at the opening of what was the lavish club Dream in Northeast Washington.
A tall, bald man with honey-brown skin approached Robyn on the dance floor.
He befriended her, took her to Copeland's for seafood and to the movies at a theater in Rockville, near her two-bedroom condo. Soon, she was cooking him meals and watching college basketball games with him, though they bored her. They fell into an easy routine, chilling on weekends and after work.
