The Love Jones Cohort: Single & Living Alone in the Black Middle Class

About the book:

Drawing from stratification economics, intersectionality, and respectability politics, The Love Jones Cohort centers on the voices and lifestyles of members of the Black middle class who are single and living alone (SALA). While much has been written about both the Black middle class and the rise of singlehood, this book represents a first foray into bridging these two concepts. In studying these intersections, The Love Jones Cohort provides a more nuanced understanding of how race, gender, and class, coupled with social structures, shape five central lifestyle factors of Black middle-class adults who are SALA. The book explores how these Black adults define family and friends and decide on whether and how to pursue romantic relationships, articulate the ebbs and flows of being Black and middle class, select where to live and why, accumulate and disseminate wealth, and maintain overall health, well-being, and coping mechanisms.

About the author:

Dr. Kris Marsh received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2005. She was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina before joining the faculty of Maryland where she has been tenured since 2014. Dr. Marsh’s general areas of expertise are the Black middle class, demography, racial residential segregation, and education. She has combined these interests to develop a research agenda that is

divided into two broad areas: avenues into the Black middle class and consequences of being in the Black middle class. Currently, Dr. Marsh has a book forthcoming with Cambridge University Press that examines the mental and physical health, wealth, residential choices and dating practices of an emerging Black middle class that is single and living alone. Dr. Marsh is also in the beginning stages of a book that interrogates navigating racism, sexism, and classism among Black golfers. Professor Marsh teaches courses on Research Methods, Critical Race Theory, Racial Residential Segregation, and Intersectionality. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Johannesburg. Dr. Marsh has served as a contributor to CNN in America, the Associated Press, NBC Washington, and Al Jazeera America and is frequently asked to contribute to the Washington Post. She served as the Secretary of the District of Columbia Sociological Society and the Managing Editor of Issues in Race & Society. Dr. Marsh was awarded the Jacquelyn Johnson Jackson Early Career Award from the Association of Black Sociologists in 2015 and received the

Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar award for 2017. Dr. Marsh was elected Chair of the Section on Race, Gender and Class of the American Sociological Association in 2019. Since late 2015, Dr. Marsh has been the driving force behind an implicit bias training with various police departments in the State of Maryland. Dr. Marsh was appointed to the Prince George’s County Police Reform Task Force in 2020 and was the Chair of the subcommittee on recruiting, hiring, training, promotions/evaluations, human resource, and mental health. Dr. Marsh also served on the President’s University of Maryland Task Force on Community Policing. Dr. Marsh serves on the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity Metro Maryland and Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership.

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