Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Let me put this out there first before we even begin to have this discussion: I am a huge fan of Eboni K. Williams. I have appeared on her show on theGrio, and we actually had a brief phone conversation Thursday about this week’s current trending video clip.
For the record, when I saw a short clip of what Eboni said, I immediately disagreed with it. I took her message as blanketly encouraging young Black women to seek out suitable marriage partners while they are in college, and as someone who believes we need to know our full selves before we commit to others, I felt that advice in that context was wrong.
I think a lot of people made the same mistake I did, and maybe it’s because we all saw the clip outside of the context of the greater discussion Eboni was having that day.
During a segment of “TheGrio News with Eboni K. Williams,” Eboni spoke with Dr. Anjerrika Bean, assistant director of the Center for Women, Gender, and Global Leadership at Howard University, after showing a clip from a viral TikTok video featuring a group of white women education majors wearing their caps and gowns and showing off their engagement rings during what is presumably their graduation ceremony.
Eboni explained that this practice has been dubbed “the MRS. Degree” — where women seek to lock down a fiancé by the time they graduate. She noted that there are distinct cultural differences in the goals Black female college students have versus the goals white female college students have.
Eboni asked, “So why has this not been a thing for us, and should it be?”
As she introduced Dr. Bean, she said, “Now culturally, I think I speak for a lot of Black women when I say that we were taught to focus on our education; boys could be a distraction; don’t get…
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