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‘Newsweek’ Writer Defends Deleted Article: ‘Bachelorette’ Rachel Lindsay Proves Black Women Like Non-Black Men

Published on: May 24, 2017 at 2:17 PM
By Paula Mooney

The brouhaha began with a Newsweek article titled “Unlike New Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay, Single Black Women Rarely Date Outside Their Race,” written by Janice Williams, published on Wednesday, May 23. As of this writing, the Newsweek piece about Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay can still be viewed via Google’s cache, even though it has been deleted from the Newsweek website. Also deleted from Twitter but still able to be seen via Google’s cache is the following tweet that once existed to promote the article.

“Newsweek: Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay is proving black women actually do like men outside their race.”

So why was Janice’s article scrubbed from the Newsweek website and Twitter? Well, the Twitter Moment (which also got deleted but is still in Google’s cache) titled “ Newsweek may want to reconsider this Bachelorette/race angle” might have something to do with it. The subtitle of the Twitter Moment explains the melee.

“Proclaiming ‘new Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay is proving black women actually do like men outside their race,’ isn’t going over well, naturally.”

However, some of the most popular Twitter tweets featured in the Twitter Moment about the controversy are downright confusing, especially considering that the writer of the Newsweek article is a black woman. Screenshots show the Newsweek article as captured by readers before it was deleted.

“How can one highlight her accomplishments as a black ‘first’ without white low-key contempt being etched in articles like this?”

Perhaps that’s the reason Janice has taken to her Twitter account to defend her Newsweek article’s statistics about black women, as seen below.

About 13 hours ago, when Williams posted the following tweet to her own @ManhattanJan Twitter account, joking about readers reading her Newsweek piece about the Bachelorette whilst either taking a meditative reflective time in the bathroom, or digesting the article as such, Janice couldn’t have predicted the backlash that would arise as a result.

Beginning with the kiss between Bryan Abasolo and Rachel displayed on the premiere episode with the 31-year-old Lindsay starring as The Bachelorette , Janice’s Newsweek piece noted that it was Rachel’s first kiss on the show and notably the first time the black bachelorette kissed a Colombian man on the show.

Because Lindsay is the first black woman to star as The Bachelorette , race would naturally come into play in the Newsweek article.

Williams quoted stats about the uptick in interracial relationships. Backing up her words with Pew Research Center findings , Janice noted that about 17 percent of American newlyweds were united in holy matrimony in 2015 with someone outside their race, up from 12 percent in 2013.

“Lindsay stands out, however, not only because she is the first non-white woman to helm a Bachelorette season, but because black women so rarely date beyond their own cultures. While 25 percent of black men married someone of a different race in 2015, only 12 percent of women did. When it came to marrying white men, only three percent of black women said ‘I Do’ in 2015. To further complicate matters, marriage isn’t always an option for black women looking for a black partner. While roughly 90 percent of all white people were married by the age of 46, only 68 percent of black people had jumped the broom, according to a 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.”

Despite the stats, some folks just weren’t happy with the Newsweek report, and since Janice’s photo wasn’t readily findable attached to her article, one can’t help but wonder if all the backlash came because detractors didn’t realize Williams was writing about a black woman as a black woman.

Perhaps it was the Newsweek article’s highlights about black women who’ve obtained their college degrees or beyond, like Lindsay with her law degree, being more apt to marry interracially than those with merely “some college” experience, with Williams also citing the Pew report findings.

Lindsay is engaged, and while fans of The Bachelorette have to wait and see if the show will feature their first interracial wedding, Rachel has noted that “race didn’t play a factor when it came to choosing men along the way. In my final decision, I just went with my heart and the person I found my forever with.”

Meanwhile, Janice has a message for the members of the “stay woke” and “too black, too strong” or “my bad, we didn’t realize you were black” crowd on Twitter who like to bash the so-called “not black enough-ness” of others. With Janice quoting the statistic of only 12 percent of black women being married to men outside their race, in comparison to the more than double 25 percent of black men in 2015 who married outside their race, Williams noted that she’s not the one that needs to #StayWoke by writing, “but I’m sleep tho.”

With Rachel telling the Hollywood Reporter she wasn’t going to bow to the pressures of black America and that she would choose a man for herself, it seems Lindsay and Janice might have some things in common when it comes to controversy over the type of choices that black America feels a black woman should make — or the words she should write.

Rachel Lindsay [Image by David Becker/Getty Images]

[Featured Image by David Becker/Getty Images]

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