What's Love Got to Do With It?: Understanding and Healing the Rift Between Black Men and Women [Paperback]

Donna Franklin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2001

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN BLACK MEN AND WOMEN IN AMERICA ARE IN CRISIS. IT'S TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT'S GONE WRONG AND START THE HEALING PROCESS.

The current divorce rates for black couples has quadrupled since 1960 and is now double that of the general population, rates of domestic violence in black marriages are skyrocketing, and nearly half of married black men admit to having been unfaithful. In What's Love Got to Do with It? Donna Franklin, one of the country's leading African-American sociologists, speaks out on these painful, complex issues, providing an incisive and riveting analysis of the gender tensions that are the legacy of slavery and its aftermath.

Franklin breaks new ground in explaining why black men and women have trouble relating to each other and examines their profoundly different starting points, which are influenced by generations of racism and injustice. She shows how black women's strength and self-sufficiency can be used to nurture relationships. Likewise, she teaches black men how to support one another and their relationships with women without excluding women, as has happened with the Million Man March.

The challenge of mending the rift between black men and women is formidable, but can be made easier. Understanding is the first step on the path to healing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her provocative second book, Franklin (Ensuring Inequality) delves into the history of black heterosexual relationships, tackling slavery's impact on the black family and asserting that relationships between black men and black women are in crisis. No one knows this better, she says, than educated, young African-American women who find themselves in a state of desperation upon viewing the shrinking pool of eligible black men. A professor at Smith College's School for Social Work, Franklin posits that the same skills that make black women successful in the outside world are detrimental when it comes to building and sustaining successful relationships at home. For example, she asserts that some black men feel threatened by a black woman's pursuit of advanced degrees because that puts him lower on her list of priorities in a society that seeks to emasculate him at every turn. Franklin's book sets itself apart from similar how-tos with its trenchant historical arguments. For example, when discussing why so many of "the most eligible black men" marry white women, Franklin provides a cogent analysis of the way "oppressive Jim Crow policies and practices developed by white men to preserve the 'sanctity' of white women [established] 'conquests' of white women as signs of manhood." Similarly, she provides enlightening historical background on such issues as the misconception that black women lack femininity, the rise of repressive paternalism in black culture and the way that racial solidarity often overlooks gender inequality. Franklin's contribution to the dialogue about gender relations in the African-American community is sure to stir the pot, and her detailed analysis should get high marks both for its scholarship and its emotional intelligence. Agent, Faith Childs. Eight-city author tour.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This is no Mars-Venus examination of black male-female relationships. Franklin, a sociologist, looks at the historic impact of racism on the relationship between black men and women in the U.S. For black Americans, the past is prologue as couples struggle to deal with a legacy of dismantled notions of manhood and womanhood, vulnerability to broader social and economic forces, and internal discord rooted in perceptions of how black men and black women weathered the vicissitudes of slavery and racism. Franklin examines the rise and fall of black women's prominence in the struggle for equal rights, American images of female beauty, the women's movement, the rise in interracial marriage, and the continued impact of racism on the economics of the black community. She notes that race has trumped gender concerns for black women in responding to inequities they've faced based on their race and sex. Franklin cites troubling statistics showing lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates among black Americans and speaks eloquently of breaking the silence regarding the impact of slavery on relationships and of healing old wounds. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Touchstone Ed edition (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743203216
• ISBN-13: 978-0743203210
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,100,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brief Biographical Sketch

Donna l. Franklin

Upon receipt of her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, Donna L. Franklin was appointed an assistant professor at the University of Chicago. Six years later, she was promoted to associate professor. During her tenure at the University of Chicago she was the Co-Investigator of a multi-million dollar grant to study poverty and family structure.
Her book Ensuring Inequality emerged from this research project and won two major awards: The American Sociological Association's William J. Goode Distinguished Book Award for "outstanding scholarship on the family" and Choice Magazine's award for "outstanding academic book." She was the first African-American author to win the ASA award. Ensuring Inequality was hailed by the Washington Post as one of the "most important contributions to the study of the black family in recent years."

Her next book, What's Love Got To Do With It? Understanding and Healing the Rift Between Black Men and Women, is one of the first books to conduct a historical analysis of gender relations in the African-American community. In addition to the University of Chicago, Professor Franklin has also taught at Smith College, Howard University and she was appointed the John Milner Professor at the University of Southern California. When she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis she decided to leave the academy to focus attention on her health.

She was a member of the founding board of the Council on Contemporary Families and selected to be the National Co-Chair from 1998 to 2000. CCF is a premiere national organization addressing the needs of families and has a membership consisting of noted family scholars and researchers, political scientists, economists, psychiatrists, sociologists, mental health practitioners and clinicians (www.contemporaryfamilies.org).

Her incisive commentary has appeared in newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. .

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let's Talk!!, September 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: What'S Love Got To Do With It?: Understanding And Healing The Rift Between Black Men And Women (Hardcover)

Donna Franklin provides an excellent basis upon which African American men and women can talk about the history that currently effects our relationships. This fabulous book is one to share with your partner. I shared this book with my mother. She, as I, was able to relate to the entire book. It allowed us to share different experiences and talk about our experiences from a generational perspective. Kudos to Donna Franklin for having the courage and vision to write this needed book!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's Love Got to Do With It?, September 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: What's Love Got to Do With It?: Understanding and Healing the Rift Between Black Men and Women (Paperback)

I doubt that I would even consider another relationship, unless I knew that we were both conscious of the information provided by Donna L. Franklin's book.

It contains well written and informative validation to theories and facts that serve to answer the largely ignored phenomenon of why it has been so difficult for too many black couples to enter into and remain in stable relationships.

Even the therapy sessions I once attended, in an attempt to save my family eluded this dynamic. The therapist was seemingly unaware or otherwise unable to implement this information in addressing the unique circumstances associated with black couples...

As a matter of fact, I realize later, and as a black woman herself, she was probably struggling with many of these dynamics in her own relationships...

The answer begins with awareness!!!

This book should be standard required reading for all African Americans and Americans in general need to be aware of this information also. It's just part of the healing process for the whole country.

There is no more time to ignore the combined effects of racism and genderism.

I apologize to no one for being strong, but I sure am sick of being strong all of the time, especially while being resented and disrespected for it in the home...that I bought....

Thank You Donna!

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Can't We Just Get Along ???, October 10, 2000

By 

Kweku Bediako (Asante Land, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What'S Love Got To Do With It?: Understanding And Healing The Rift Between Black Men And Women (Hardcover)

Donna Franklin's new book, What's Love Got To Do With It, is a passionate,unequivocal indictment of racism and white supremecy in American society. Impeccable scholarship becomes a tool for her laser-like examination of what has gone wrong with black male/female relationships, and no stone is left unturned. No-one is let off the hook. Not white males. Not white females. Not black males or black females.

A crime has been committed. Who is guilty of this crime? Who must pay? Who must be held accountable? For the destruction of black male/female relationships? The destruction of the black family? The destruction and denigration of African culture and consciousness? The insanity of homocide, suicide and fratricide in the black community? Slavery is Donna Franklin's answer. Miss Anne and Uncle Charlie out back, in the cabin, in the bushes, in yo bed room, in de school room, in yo mind.

Insanity passing for sanity. Black man walkin' down the street mumblin' to himself, holdin' himself like he gotta piss. Black woman standing on the street corner with a blond wig on her head charging two dollars. Apein' mr charlie. Apein' miss anne! Playing in the dark, writin' blues for mister charlie, wearing black skin and a white mask, with no name in the street!! Because - Nobody knows my name!!! Not even me! What's yo name Boy??

Franz Fanon said it best: "The Negro is a slave who has been allowed to assume the attitude of [the] master. The white man is a master who has allowed his slaves to eat at his table." "Relationships between black men and women in America are in crisis," says Donna Franklin. "The current divorce rate for blacks is four times the 1960 level and double that of the general population." "Interracial marriages have risen from a reported 51,000 in l960 to 311,000 in l997." "The rates of violence between black men and women are higher than those of other races." ". . .Seventy-two percent of the African American husbands reported using a confrontational style of dealing with marital conflict. . ." "Forty-four percent of married black men admit to having been unfaithful to their wives, almost double the percentage for whites." Sixty percent of young black males between the ages of 18 and 24 are caught up in the criminal justice system.

In the end Donna calls for healing. But healing in this instance must be spiritual as well as social. The cancer has spead too far. The community is too sick for surgery or psychotherapy. To heal the rift between black men and women will take time. But time alone won't do the job, as Donna implies. We must understand the history and place today's black male/female relationships within the context of that history. This book goes a long way toward helping us to understand -- to understand that history and context. Holding up a mirror to American society, Donna Franklin reveals strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree. No matter how painful, America, you must have the courage to read this book!!!!