Shortly after I sent Townhall.com’s editor my review of Star Parker’s White Ghetto, I read an op-ed called First comes baby, then comes marriage?, by Maryann Reid. As if the dire statistics in Parker’s book hadn’t depressed me enough, the op-ed disheartened me even more.
Black liberals have serious personal problems with me and my blogging. I write too much about negative things going on in the black community and too little that’s positive, they say.
My typical response was, “Start your own blog and write about positive things,” or “Stop reading my blog if it upsets you so much.” I’d already explained here and there why I blog the way I do, but I decided to confront the question head on.
A post called Do You Hate Black People may give the most straightforward answer to why I focus on certain topics.
Some have argued that as a high-profile and “educated” black blogger, I should do something to uplift blacks instead of always condemning them. I approach the controversy from a totally different perspective. I’m not condemning anyone; my sin is airing dirty laundry in front of a mostly white readership. There are plenty of black bloggers, writers, politicians, educators, etc., writing and talking about positive things going on in the black community. But too many for my taste gloss over what ails us.
Too many avoid the harsh truth. “Racism” is a cop-out and too absurdly childish for serious discussion. That’s why I skip it. You’ll never hear me say or write that racism doesn’t exist; I choose to focus on what we bring on ourselves.
So let’s talk about the scandalously high illegitimacy rate. There are numerous theories floating around about why the black out-of-wedlock birth rate is so high. In one camp, you have your economists arguing about “incentives” and lack of a living wage. In another, you have your “legacy of slavery” crowd who insist that because some slaveowners broke families apart, subsequent generations of blacks repeated the pattern by having babies without the benefit of marriage (never understood that one, given the numbers that indicate otherwise). Others say our ancestors came from a matrilineal society, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with strong matriarchies. I don’t think Africa is the best role model for family life, do you?
(Some say female-headed households may be better for children!)
Back to the op-ed. Reid wrote a novel called Marry Your Baby Daddy. Three unmarried women must marry their “baby daddy” to receive their grandmother’s inheritance. Disappointingly, the publisher chose to highlight a quote calling the book “full of steamy sex scenes” to sell it. But whatever. I’m not endorsing the novel; I hope Reid compliles her research into a thoughtful non-fiction book.
Reid discusses something I’ve blogged about: the weakened stigma against illegitimacy in the black community:
Through my interviews with hundreds of cohabiting but unmarried black couples with children across the economic spectrum, I learned about something we rarely discuss anymore: The motivation from peers or families to get married is gone, and so is the stigma about having a child out of wedlock. In fact, children without married parents have become so common in black communities that the term “baby daddy,” an unwed father usually stereotyped as a ghetto caricature, has gone mainstream.
“Mainstream” is an understatement. It is the norm to see black children without residential fathers. Every time I run across a black child whose parents are married — to each other — I want to burst out in tears of joy. That’s a shame. 
Stigma matters. Stigma is effective. That’s why I make the distinction between widowed, divorced, and unmarried mothers. To mask what’s really going on and remove the shame and righteous judgment against illegitimacy, many prefer to lump unmarried mothers into one category: “single mothers.” It is an insult to women who’ve lost their husbands to death or divorce to equate them with women who didn’t bother to prepare a stable home for their children first.
This isn’t simply about women exercising their “right” to have babies how and with whom they wish. Their choices aren’t isolated events. Weak family formation affects us all. In general, strong families create strong societies. Weak families burden the whole system, social services in particular. People who get married, especially men, are more dedicated to and invested in their children, which is extremely important to a child’s well-being and for society. Children reared in such homes are much better off than children who aren’t.
But these days family instability is funny in popular culture. It is celebrated and emulated. Song after degrading song glorifies sexuality without responsibility. “Baby Mama” and “Baby Daddy” songs, movies, TV shows, and comedy routines are standard fare. What was considered indecent and scandalous is now an insidious, widespread, and everyday reality. There’s at least one generation of blacks who have never and will never know what it’s like to live with two married parents: a mother and a residential, biological father. Sadly, some believe that marriage is unnecessary:
The attitude that marriage is not necessary to nurture and raise our children is actually a new one in the black community. Historically, blacks have valued the institution of marriage and the traditional two- parent household. In 1890, 80 percent of African-American families were headed by two parents, even though many had started life in forced family separation under slavery. Even in the 1960s, when black Americans were in the height of civil rights strife, 23 percent of black babies were born out of wedlock, a modest figure compared with 70 percent today. And today’s single moms aren’t just welfare teens, either. Most out-of-wedlock black babies are being born to women in their 20s and 30s across the economic spectrum.
To argue that female-headed households are not harmful to children, despite formal studies and informal observation to the contrary, is to open yourself to ridicule. I don’t think reasonable people make such claims; they just downplay it. It is my contention that weak family formation has devastated the black community socially, economically, and spiritually, and we’ve only begun to bear the fruit. From the article:
While the stigma against children born out of wedlock has diminished, the impact on community bonds has not. A recent study for the journal Criminology has revealed that “neighborhoods with larger portions of adults who are less ‘invested’ in marriage and residential stability are more likely to see higher rates of assault by African-American males.” Children raised in fatherless homes are more likely to be delinquent, do poorly in school, have lower self-esteem, become chemical abusers, and reproduce the same family pattern in their own lives. In most cases, no matter how strong or diligent a mother may be, children have a subconscious knowledge of what is right and wrong in a family set up. Boys turn to their fathers for their sense of masculinity and manhood. If their dad isn’t around, the streets and group aggression are the next best thing for most.
Those are the typical and most publicized pathologies associated with fatherless homes. The lack of spiritual development is most harmful, and simply going to church every Sunday won’t repair the damage. What can we teach our boys about being godly men when all around them they see no godly men? There are men and women who call themselves “Christians” who have baby after baby out of wedlock. Are we reading the same Bible? What can a father who occasionally sees his son teach him about headship and his place in God’s divine order? What can his father teach him about selfless love, sacrifice, and holiness when the boy doesn’t see him living it?
How can he teach him about financial responsibility and taking care of a home while he’s laying up with his other “baby mama?” And let’s talk about how ungodly and unmanly it is to have another man take up the slack for you. In racial terms, you have courts and government — the “white man” — chasing down black men to compel them to be men and take care of their own children! A disproportionate number of black women are taken care of by the “white man” because black men are taught that being a man means impregnating and abandoning as many women as they can.
And what about the women? I’ve argued in Black Marriage that the fault rests with men and women, not just the men. Although God created men to be leaders and heads of their families, women also have godly responsibilities.
Nothing makes me angrier than to be chastised by Christians who have absolutely nothing to say to those who’ve doomed black children to ungodly living. The condemnation goes not to those who deserve it — the shiftless, the lazy, the permissive, the immoral — but to those who dare name the disgusting thing. Unbelievable.
And this is what really gets my blood boiling: There’s a legion of jackasses who think I’m a dangerous self-hater for blogging about this. They send nasty e-mail and try to leave foul comments on this blog. The ones who consider themselves too sophisticated to send e-mail or comment spend a whole lot of time criticizing my blog posts and write nary a word about the immorality that has gutted the black community and cheated future generations of strong and safe homes.
Brought into this world not of their own accord but by the decisions of their parents, children have a right to be safe and feel loved. They deserve the very best we can give them. Too many black children get the very worst.
If only my critics (and the black community in general) spent as much energy stigmatizing and chastising those responsible for our children’s plight instead of hating on me and blaming “racism” or “economics,” imagine the potential to improve the lives of black children in broken and/or low-income homes — from their general well-being to their academic performances to their spiritual development.
But obsessing over a “black Republican” blogger is easier and safer.
(Image credit: Pacific Products)
Sources:
- A Portrait of the Black Family (PDF)
- The Legacy of Slavery Hustle
- Understanding the Black Family: A guide for Scholarship and Research
- Black Marriage Day
- Divorce Statistics: Effects on Black Community
- The Marriage Movement and the Black Church
- Marriage Market Decisions of Black, Hispanic, and White Women
- Marriage: A social justice issue
- Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States
- Can Married Parents Reduce Crime? (PDF)
- The Age of Unwed Mothers: Is Teen Pregnancy the Problem? (PDF)
- Do Mothers and Fathers Matter? (PDF)
- Welfare reform at 10
Father absence is the bane of the black community, predisposing its children (boys especially, but increasingly girls as well) to school failure, criminal behavior and economic hardship, and to an intergenerational repetition of the grim cycle.
…
The absence of fathers means, as well, that girls lack both a pattern against which to measure the boys who pursue them and an example of sacrificial love between a man and a woman.
…
Interestingly, they blamed the black church for abetting the decline of the black family — by moderating virtually out of existence its once stern sanctions against extramarital sex and childbirth and by accepting the present trends as more or less inevitable.
(Emphasis added)
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LaShawn:
It is unfortunate that you receive all of the criticism that you do because you write about topics that the black community is aware of but fails to embrace. There are inherent realities of problems that we bring upon ourselves, such as illegitmacy that creates a whole set of problems that have been documented by you. The real challenge is to help and spur people on to deal with their responsiblities as adults, so that their childern will not have to face a world that is harder than the world their parents have to face.
It does not matter to me whether you are a liberal or not, the fact that you have the courage to write about issues that other people avoid is admirable. The thing that the African American community has to do is just accdept responsiblity for their actions and if they do not know how to help themselves, seek out people who can help them become better role models in the communities that they live in…
Wow! Read it and weep. And then get serious about why so many of these kids fall so far behind in school.
Well said. I agree entirely.
The sense of self respect that comes from believing oneself made in god’s image is sexually attractive in a positive, permanent, non-superficial way. Religion provides useful fictions even if the “good books” are full of mythology.
Some other sobering statistics:
In 1939, New York hosted a World’s Fair. In that year, there were only 40 murders in New York City. (More recent figures would probably be up to around 1000 per year, with a peak figure higher than that).
In Harlem, people sometimes slept out on their rooftops in summer and left the doors to their apartments unlocked so they could go back inside without fishing for their keys.
Life was different. Murderers, thieves, et.al., were considered “bad” (a term almost impossible to use culturally today). If criminals died during an attempted crime, “they got what they deserved”, was how the media reported it.
Nobody used the excuse that because there was racism and discrimination, people had no choice but to take drugs to escape the horrors of life.
That would have been ridiculed from every pulpit,
not to say in the media.
In the whole of the USA, there were (tops) maybe 20,000 hardcore drug users.
Today, of course, we live in a much more ‘tolerant’ society; we ‘tolerate’ everything; but the lamentable fact is that people growing up today have no standard by which to judge how far we as a society have fallen–and I don’t think they can even imagine how different things once were.
Hi LaShawn:
I just gave you shout out on my blog and while I was writing I realized you are doing something uplifting for black people and even you don’t realize it.
What you are doing is saying DON’T THROW OUT WHAT WORKS. That the point of all of you post whether its using affirmative action as a crutch or abandoning marriage, or making sure your child gets a good education.
http://tswe.blogspot.com/2006/04/la-shawn-has-mellowed.html
Anyway remember the good old days when a bastard was called a bastard. Take it home Diana Ross
http://www.lyrics007.com/Diana%20Ross%20Lyrics/Love%20Child%20Lyrics.html
“Don’t think that I don’t need ya
Don’t think I don’t want to please ya
But no child of mine will be bearing
The name of shame I’ve been wearing”
My best friend mentors several kids. Among them is a group of boys, same mother, 4 different fathers, parents never married. They’ve come a long way under her, but one of the areas they still wrestle with is lapsing into foul language.
She told me that the other night as she was taking them home, she heard one call the other a bastard. She pulled the car over, (standard response for this kind of thing: address it immediately) and told him that he had no business using that kind of language.
She said he looked at her with honest pleading on his face (she can tell when they’re scamming), and said…
“But it’s true! That’s what he is! We all are.”
She said that it still didn’t show any love between them to use that kind of language, and managed to get them home before starting to cry.
The kids know, even if the parents deny it.
since the 1930’s, America has gradually moved rightward when it comes to business regulation and taxation. Tax rates have dropped precipitously since the 1930’s, and regulation has also been eased. You don’t hear that much about the common good, but you do hear things about the ownership society, and Individualism. In accordance with that rightward shit toward Individualism, you have also seen the disappearance of sexual abd behavioral stigmas.
[Deleted - On second thought, the remark wasn't gratuituous. It was false and irrelevant. I must have had a 60s flashback. - Admin]
What about marriage in general? People are getting divorced left and right, or don’t want to get married because individual desires (sexual and financial) overpower their desire for the common good. I guess we would all agree that it is in the common good to have stable families. Marriage as an institution is in shambles in this country, and there really isn’t a stigma on divorce. Some of the most pro-family politicians have been through as many as three divorces, so I guess it’s no surprise that there is no stigma there. Interestingly, statistics show that the number one reason contibuting to the institution’s decline is finances. As the minimum wage has been stuck at its present level for 8 years, and not keeping pace with inflation, working three jobs to pay for health care and other essential costs doesn’t allow you to focus on your marriage, and it isn’t that conducive to raising children the right way since you don’t even have time to spend time with them. Is it even possible for a majority of American’s to have one stay at home parent to raise kids anymore? When you read about that fact that 40% of middle income families are choosing to go uninsured, you see what individualism is accomplishing.
I think that is why the solutions you offer: less regulation, less goverment spending, a free market that is unchecked and unregulated, and more of a focus on individualism will not alleviate these problems or help to recreate old stigmas. When I think of the conservative cause, and the politicans who respresent it, I think, me me me me. Sure, its okay to send people to war, but I’m not going to share in the sacrifice or the costs of it, I want my damn tax cut on dividends even if that means we have to spend less on protecting our troops, or don’t send enough troops in the first place. I don’t care about the air my children breathe in the future, or the air their grandchildren breathe, I want to drive my gas guzzling SUV now. We can talk about sexual stigmas all we want, but I sure as hell can look the other way when the Corporations who are donating to my campaign and taking me out on golf getaways are the same Corporations who sell smut on the side.
LaShawn
Great blog and it didn’t even get my blood boiling like your earlier blogs I’ve read in your archive.
I agree that the root cause needs to be found and corrected instead of blaming “the man” and not do anything about it. Racism does exist. It may not be as blatant as it was 40 to 50 years ago. But what matters is taking on individual responsibility and not looking for an excuse or others to blame for your trouble. Do something about it. If you’re a man, be a man! If you’re a woman, take responsibilities.
Also we can not be “closed” minded and pigeon holed people in unfair stereotypes. Because we are black does not mean we share the same opinions. It’s ok for a black person to be conservative and voice valid opinions. It’s ok to be black and a person of faith, and agree to disagree with others. But claiming to be a God fearing person and a Christian, yet sending hateful messages to others, or partaking in activities that you just denounced on Sunday, is hypocritical.
Bless you, LaShawn.
Children are our future. They should be nurtured and protected, not handed a key before they’re old enough to even cross a street. (Does anyone bother to teach a child how to cross a street anymore?)
Two items. First for Sondra. I think if you have any interaction with conservatives/libertarians (capitalists) you will find that they are probably more of a true liberal than progressive/liberals. I think you will find a consensus that we want every person that wants a job to make a livable wage, that we want every child to have a quality education, that we want those that are destitute or unable to care for themselves to have help, that we want a livable planet for future generations, that we want everyone that needs health care to have access to it, etc.
Where we differ is in the methods to achieve these goals. We realize that there will never be economic equality (for a myriad of personal resposibility reasons) so we strive for equality of opportunity for all; we advocate for voluntary contributions to organizations that provide temporary help for those that are destitute, we believe that the best way to insure quality education is to improve our schools by fostering competition among educational institutions via portable vouchers, we want a policy of environmentalism that partners with industry via technology and economic growth, we think that creating an artificial demand for health care (medicaid, medicare, national health) acually drives up the costs of services and limits access to the extremely poor and extremely wealthy, excluding those in the middle.
You see we think that capitalism will provide the solutions to social problems without creating additional problems to solve. Those on the Left want socialism to solve all of our social problems. History has shown that the only thing that socialism does is create dependence and expand an already burgeoning entitlement society.
Lashawn,
This post is spot on. The answer (if there is ONE answer is education. We just need to provide a quality education for those students who want to learn and an option for those parents who are interested in their children’s education. It is a long, slow process probably taking several generations, but we need to break this circle of uneducated young men with no future prospects, uneducated young women whose only career option is to become mothers.
We need to work for school vouchers. We need to save these young people one at a time, as there is no “instant cure”.
Minimum wage is not the problem. The fact that one is qualified to only work a minimum wage job it. Minimum wage jobs are for high school and college students, or retired people for spending money. If you want to earn more than minimum wage to support a family, get an education so you can get a better job. Don’t go blaming “the man” for holding done the minimum wage – it just doesn’t hold up….
Thanks LaShawn, like any thinking person I do not always agree with you or what any of the bloggers I enjoy reading blog about. It’s unfortunate that there are those in the Black community who have an intolerance for diverse points of view or lack courage to speak truthfully about the ways black people sometimes disserve themselves and humanity. I understand a bit better that your focus is not on racism or economics, but character and culture (perhaps I am misunderstanding?)which are of utmost importance. I’d don’t find labels such as “liberal” or “conservative” particularly useful myself. If something is true, it is true regardless of the political philosophies of people. As you have acknowledged, there are real social, political and economic challenges in America that are preventing this nation from fulfilling its true God given potential, but as you point out there are serious spiritual and moral challenges facing us as well.The family is the foundation of civilization. Any nation or people who neglects it will never advance even if all other factors are favorable.
Tell them to start doing positive things, and you will blog about them
Well I have quite a bit to say on this issue of single parent families. All of the posts thus far are really good, but they seem to focus on the outside entities to affect the trends in the African-American family. Things like economics,education, and mentoring programs are all good on the surface of things, but I think the issues in the black community are much deeper. I think many would agree that this is a “vicious cycle” and it is not something that is going to turn around overnight…or even in one generation. I hope that there are some in the people (black, white, etc) who will truly look at this problem and be honest about what is fueling this problem.
I am not so quick to blame anyone, or anything. I do think that it is a combination of things that have come together to affect a segment of our population, that was already weak in its state in the first place. But we have to look at this issue, as one about race, gender, and culture. I will post on some of this hopefully later.
May God bless Maryann Reid richly for doing something positive to turn things around. At times the problems in our society seem so huge that no one can solve them. However Maryann made an impact in the lives of at least 10 couples, and who knows how far the ripples of this one act will go.
I think the lesson here is to not ignore the problem, but to do something, however small, to fix it.
One of the first steps is to accept that there is a problem. Thanks to La Shawn for trying to get that into our thick heads.
Tell them to start doing positive things, and you will blog about them
So black folks don’t do positive things?
Thanks for keeping it real, LaShawn. I have no doubt that your are routinely pilloried by so-called “progressive” whites and blacks who cannot bring themselves to look into the ugliness that is the #1 thing holding blacks back in America today; more than racism and Old Whitey and all the other usual suspects.
Like you, whenever I chance upon a black child whose biological mother and father are wed, I feel like doing a jig and clapping for joy. I wish it were not so. I wish I could take such a circumstance for granted.
I’m in an interracial marriage and I can tell you I make being a quality dad and husband my utmost priority. You can’t take wealth or fame with you, but if I can meet God knowing I have acquitted myself well as a son, then a husband, then a father, I think I will have done quite well, other sins and shortcomings aside.
I also want to reaffirm that bad fathers and absent fathers are a problem for all of society. As I move through my 30’s I keep coming back to how much of a hero my dad is for me, if for no other reason than that he was THERE and he WORKED HARD and he LOVED US and he NEVER LEFT and he was FAITHFULL TO MOM and did all the things every child should take for granted, but can’t, because too many dads don’t rise to the standard.
Again, thanks for keeping it real. Too bad the folks sending you nastygrams can’t get it through their skulls that the only thing that is going to rescue the African American population from its 21st centuries, is the African American community! Starting in the home!
Whoops, I posted too quickly! I meant to say,
The only thing that is going to rescue the African American community in the United States from its 21st century problems, is the African American community; starting in the home!
This is a great post! God bless you for your courage to speak the truth.
>>Interestingly, statistics show that the number one reason contibuting to the institution’s decline is finances.>>
Interesting. You know, 60 years ago, it was normal to have only one income in the family. Marriage was the norm, divorce was scandalous. How then, can it be that finances are the contributing cause? It’s incorrectly said that “money is the root of all evil”…the actual quote, I think, is “the _love_ of money is the root of all evil. It isn’t so much what you earn, it’s what you spend. Expressed in percentages, what was the average amount of taxes paid by the average family 60 years ago? I don’t know, but I’d bet it was a lot lower. The dollars earned increase with inflation, but the brackets for taxes don’t nearly keep up.
The state of Virginia has a means of calculating state tax that allows a two income family to separate their earnings, assign deductions to either income, then figure taxes on each and combine them for a total tax owed. The federal tax – and other states – combine incomes for calculating tax. So if the husband earns 50K, he doesn’t start paying tax until 35K, for example (making up numbers here), but 100% of wife’s income is taxed because it’s added to the 50K.
Taxes make up a huge burden. It’s a chicken and egg sort of thing – which came first. Cut taxes and people would have more money.
Why do we have Moms working? Is it because they want to or because they _have_ to? Why would any woman carry a child for nine months, go through childbirth and hand their offspring over to a stranger to raise? If we cut taxes, maybe we would have more moms at home. Kids need stay-at-home moms.
And I forgot….
Yay LaShawn!!! Good article.
re: Comment #8 (Gerald).
As LaShawn has pointed out, OOW births were much lower in the Black community in the 1950’s & ’60’s than they are now. I wonder if the Civil Rights movement would have had as much impact as it did if the Black community was in as much disarray then as it is now?
If Black society was functional on the family level, then we could assess how much racism truly remains in American society.
There’s a lot of effort being made to lower our shamefully high infant mortality rate in Shelby County, TN. The governor’s getting involved, and so forth. A major, major problem is poor black teenagers getting pregnant, getting NO prenatal care (for many reasons) and delivering babies prematurely. Causes being identified: racism, poverty, lack of education, lack of access to medical care (this one is contradicted in the same newspaper articles that outline the heroic efforts being made to shove health care down these kids’ throats), lack of transportation. Solutions being identified: empowering grandmothers to talk about nutrition (who’s stopping them?).
No one is suggesting finding out who is knocking up these children and putting their butts in jail.
I’m white. I raised 2 children, a boy and a girl by myself from the ages of 2 and 3. We did not have much money either.
I never had a speck of trouble with either. They were totally angels, well mannered, did chores without asking, had dinner ready when I got home by the time they were 10 and 11 never got in trouble in school, did the laundry, cleaned house, received many compliments from neighbors, teachers and their friend’s parents on their beautiful manners, worked through their teen years to supply their own spending money etc.
They were just a joy to raise. Basically they did it themselves. I was continually shocked at how good they were without direction and input from me.
By the time my son was 14 I noticed that although he was a perfect gentleman and did everything he should have, including a great deal of house cleaning and laundry, he was completely independent of me. Basically he did what he wanted to do.
He wanted to do the right thing. He did all the right things, not because I ordered him to clean house, go to school, work after school etc, but because he wanted to.
When he got older he and I talked about this a few times. He basically told me “Mom, boys choose to obey their Mothers and if boys choose not to obey their Mothers there’s nothing single Mothers can do to make them obey”.
Many of his friends were also the sons of single Mothers. They all talked about this and came to the same conclusion, Mothers have no control over their sons after the age of 12. If the boys want to be good they will be. If the boys want to be bad they will be.
James Q. Wilson, the conservative scholar famous for his advocacy of “Broken Windows” policing, published a fascinating article in the City Journal in 2002 that explores the decline of marriage in Western societies. see: http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_1_why_we.html
Suprisingly, he blames slavery and segregation, for the decline of the black family:
“But there is another part of the cultural argument, and it goes to the question of why African Americans have such high rates of mother-only families. When black scholars addressed this question, as did W. E. B. DuBois in 1908 and E. Franklin Frazier in 1939, they argued that slavery had weakened the black family. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan repeated this argument in 1965, he was denounced for “blaming the victim.â€
An intense scholarly effort to show that slavery did little harm to African-American families followed that denunciation; instead, what really hurt them was migrating to big cities where they encountered racism and oppression.
It was an astonishing argument. Slavery, a vast and cruel system of organized repression that, for over two centuries, denied to blacks the right to marry, vote, sue, own property, or take an oath; that withheld from them the proceeds of their own labor; that sold them and their children on the auction block; that exposed them to brutal and unjust punishment: all this misery had little or no effect on family life, but moving as free people to a big city did. To state the argument is to refute it.
But since some people take academic nonsense seriously, let me add that we now know, thanks to such scholars as Orlando Patterson, Steven Ruggles, and Brenda E. Stevenson, that this argument was empirically wrong. The scholars who made it committed some errors. In calculating what percentage of black mothers had husbands, they accepted many women’s claims that they were widows, when we now know that such claims were often lies, designed to conceal that the respondents had never been married. In figuring out what proportion of slaves were married, these scholars focused on large plantations, where the chance of having a spouse was high, instead of on small ones, where most slaves lived, and where the chance of having a spouse was low. On these small farms, only about one-fifth of the slaves lived in a nuclear household.
After slavery ended, sharecropping took its place. For the family, this was often no great improvement. It meant that it was very difficult for a black man to own property and thus hard for him to provide for the progress of his children or bequeath to them a financial start in life. Being a tenant farmer also meant that he needed help on the land, and so he often had many children, despite the fact that, without owning the land, he could not provide for their future.
The legacy of this sad history is twofold. First, generations of slaves grew up without having a family, or without having one that had any social and cultural meaning. Second, black boys grew up aware that their fathers were often absent or were sexually active with other women, giving the boys poor role models for marriage. Today, studies show that the African-American boys most likely to find jobs are those who reject, rather than emulate, their fathers; whereas for white boys, those most likely to find work are those who admire their fathers.
What is astonishing today is that so many African Americans are married and lead happy and productive lives. This is an extraordinary accomplishment, of which everyone should be proud. But it is an accomplishment limited to only about half of all black families, and white families seem to be working hard to catch up.
Great post, La Shawn! I am really impressed with you. My husband and I have both done/do work in inner-city Boston and I find the moral decay there frustrating. So many dads are absent. My husband leads a Boy Scout troop there and he’s the father figure for all of the boys. I find that really sad because he simply can’t be there for them like a dad should be, but they don’t have anything better.
I don’t think moral decay necessarily has to do with church–it has to do with respecting and caring for your family, your neighbors, and yourself. Many people don’t have this respect for anyone, and their children suffer for it.
You writing is like lightning. Very fresh and crisp, as well as on point.
I found myself driving up Mack Ave. from downtown Detroit…
That area is a blight on the US that must be ignored by liberal blacks for some reason, maybe it’s just so large an area that it’s not really seen, if you know what I mean. How many people in that section of Detroit can read? And whose fault is it? I fear nothing will get better down there…
Hope you enjoy your vacation. All the best.
And to you post I say…AMEN!
La Shawn, count me as a sister in Christ holding you up in prayer as you continue to speak the truth!
I look at my own son, only 1 year old, and he is already watching his daddy so closely. He imitates the faces he makes and follows him around the house. When he is hurt or hungry, he turns to me for comfort and kisses. I could be a parent without my husband, but I would always know that I was not enough for my child. He, like all children, needs both of us, man and woman, with our unique gifts and characteristics, to learn what he needs to know to be a whole person.
When the most primary unit of society, the family, is broken down and spit upon, how can a society survive?
My heart breaks for all of the precious children who do not know the security of having a loving and commited mommy and daddy to support and love them. My mind is spitting mad at the parents (and I hold women even more responsible then men, as we are the ones who can ultimately control whether or not we leave a baby fatherless) who think so little of their children and so much of themselves that their children pay the price for their selfishness and foolish behavior.
I would like a greater emphasis on single mothers letting their children be adopted by loving stable 2 parent families. It is possibly the greatest example of sacrificial, parental love to give up your own wants and needs to give your child the best chance at a stable, loving home. The women who do this should be applauded by society, not seen as unloving or selfish.
Very few women are going to be willing to marry a man with children from a previous relationship as long as the law allows that mother unrestricted access to his paycheck or, in the rare cases where the father has primary residential custody, prevents him from moving out of the area.
No one mother of a man’s multiply mothered children is going to legally tie to herself to a man who is going to be paying out to those other mothers.
Should these women have not had these children to begin with? Maybe, but here they are now. A legal marriage provides them no legal benefits – but, oho, giving them legal benefits penalizes the other children.
I don’t know how to solve this. Right now, it’s insoluable. I repeat: very few women are ever going to be willing to marry a man who is required by the state to pay out for children that the state will not require the other mother even let him see. As long as there are men having multiple children by multiple women, all of whom have an equal financial claim on him, there is no incentive for any one of those women to marry him.
I live in the UK, near London, and over here this phenomenon is by no means confined to black people. In fact, I would say in my particular area the opposite is true – most of the young unwed mothers are white (although the father of their child might be black).
Though I think in America you don’t have so many welfare incentives to stay a single mother. A couple of my friends with children had long periods of declaring themselves single because they would have been financially much worse off had they moved their children’s father in – indeed one girl I know (who I wouldn’t call a friend) refused to marry the father of her two daughters when he proposed because they’d be losing too much in state handouts if their relationship was made official.
“although the father of their child might be black”
Very telling. – Admin
In my teaching career, I witnessed the end of segregated schools, the problems of integration, the growth of special ed, the turmoil of riots, assassinations, black power, and much more. None of us in the schools had a playbook: we improvised on the run.
We also saw the growth of a type of neighborhood that bred problems: the “projects.” We learned that how the school day would go depended largely on how the kids on the busses from the projects were feeling.
We carefully chose teachers to meet the busses and to spot problems when they got off the bus. Sometimes, the fights would erupt before the wheels stopped rolling. This was not between the races, it was between the apartments.
Mostly, there were no parents to call. We just herded the worst problems away and dealt with them until “old yeller” arrived to ferry them back to the projects.
In the late 60’s, we took pregnant girls out of the school when they “began to show.” We had a special location and teachers who gave them “home bound” instruction and also helped prepare them for motherhood.
Community forces, such as the ACLU, put an end to this practice. Soon, we had girls walking the halls “styling” with their bellies swollen up like ticks. Before long, the trend spread from the 12th grade down to the 8th grade. Often, we learned, the “father” was a rogue in his 20’s or 30’s who was seeking legend status in the neighborhood.
75% of the black males who came into the high school in the ninth grade had vanished from the rolls when graduation time rolled around. Black senior girls would import cousins in order to go to the prom. (We had lots of interracial couples, but there were never enough available guys.)
When I would talk with the young, black mothers about men I mostly heard the same things. “Men can not be trusted.” “I don’t know a man I would want around.” “I have enough to support without supporting a man.” “I want a BMW. (Black Man Working.)”
When I talked with a black male with the locket from Sears with the picture of his baby (sometimes babies) I would hear: “Hey, if she lays, she pays.” “I just shoot bullets, she runs the farm.” “I support my baby, I carry Pampers to her every week.”
I would see girls engaged in some deep conversation only to discover they were pouring over a long list of lyrical names they were inventing for the baby they were producing or thinking of getting started on.
I learned to resent and even fear the “village people.” Every time we had bad press, the school board would assemble local pastors, race activists, university researchers, political types and parents to conduct endless meetings to study “the problem.”
We were almost always patted on the back for being hard working, dedicated professionals, BUT….. More money was needed. We needed to educate the children out of their misguided ways. We needed to find ways to make the children want to learn. We needed to reach out and get the parents more involved. Etc.
I retired in my fourth decade of teaching and I say some positive changes. Welfare reform did reduce the pregnancies. There is a much more relaxed set of day to day relations between the races. There is a substantially larger black middle class who send much more grounded kids off to school. Many black and white students have been able to escape to private schools. They stopped building projects and spread the housing out around town. (However, many apartment complexes have become de facto projects.)
I have always felt that economic class is a major force in children who don’t achieve. But often, these kids go “home” to the most awful situations imaginable. I think often of the bright young lady I helped get started at the University of Virginia who left after six weeks. Her alcoholic mother was trying to prostitute her seven year old sister. The courts were of no help in our attempts to get the child removed from the home and she was a welfare ticket for the mother who fought like a tiger to keep her benefits.
I have met a lot of pastors who will rail about race, but their outreach within their troubled community is slim to none.
I have sat through endless sessions of denial when the subject is unwed mothers.
I have steamed while the schools endlessly dumb down in order to accumulate higher stats.
LaShawn has shown the strength of character to address the issues associated with out-of-wedlock children and a number of comments above give very important information about the legal risks couples take when they bring children with them to a new marriage.
These problems are largely cultural and the culture has been very accepting of pushing the boundaries of what has been normal and respectable.
There are so few black voices speaking truth to the soothing strains being sung by the chorus of race pimps.
This isn’t really about race at all. It is about believing in one another. Race is just a distraction in dealing with the fundamental problems of living a moral life.
“These problems are largely cultural and the culture has been very accepting of pushing the boundaries of what has been normal and respectable.
There are so few black voices speaking truth to the soothing strains being sung by the chorus of race pimps.
This isn’t really about race at all. It is about believing in one another. Race is just a distraction in dealing with the fundamental problems of living a moral life.”
Well said Heliotrope
>>This isn’t really about race at all.>>
Great post, Heliotrope!
You’re absolutely right…the “race card” is nothing more than a way to say “it’s not my fault. I’m not responsible.”
From Lizzy
although the father of their child might be black
Why do you say this?
Because the father may be black. Inter-racial relationships seem to be far more prevalent in the UK.
La Shawn–
I’m about to become a stepfather through marriage to a black (biracial) girl who was abandoned at birth by her father. And I have a (white) stepdaughter who grew up in a housing project and saw much of the same irresponsible behavior you’re talking about here. Men lazing around drinking beer in the morning, not even bothering to look for a job, talking about the “ho’s” they’d knocked up.
God bless you for speaking up. I only hope that there are many ears to hear you.
Love your blog, by the way.
Pete
The #1 problem in the black community is demographics.
http://www.issues.org/13.2/courtw.htm
Almost all other major problems including mysoginistic rap music stem from the demographic problem.
The article even suggests a solution. LaShawn will not like it.
Because the father may be black. Inter-racial relationships seem to be far more prevalent in the UK.
So the out of wedlock children of black British women may have white fathers.
Indeed, baby-daddyism is so prevalent that when I mention I’m “going to visit my mother” I feel compelled to add for the listener’s comprehension ” … who lives with my father. They’ve been married for 25 years.”
I’m a fully functioning liberal, and I’m not convinced that marriage is natural or is a generally “great thing.” I don’t agree with the “immoral” argument since I believe morals are subjective. But I’ve interviewed a lot of socioeconomically jacked up black women and I notice one singular characteristic: all have kids. Alone. Hate to say it, but a kid can completely RUIN your entire outlook. These women get trapped into a series of low wage survival jobs; by the time they get on their feet (somewhere around age 45) BAM – now their kids are having kids. The cycle replenishes. I have a friend who had her first grandchild at age 37; I have another friend who is my age, 26, and has a 13-year-old son. If he repeats her pattern, she’ll be a grandmother before she’s 30.
What completely infuriates me is that not getting pregnant is easy! My god, there’s a birth control sticker, A STICKER folks, that you can slap on your butt and not get pregnant. What else does it take?
The answer is stable, financially prepared homes – whether there’s a marriage or not – and people who understand that keeping a child alive is NOT the same as properly raising them. The latter involves intellecutal enrichment, cultural nurturing and a whole slew of things that can hardly be done when you’re making it work on $5.25 an hour and a box of pampers (why do all these ghetto baby mama types always get hung up on who’s buying pampers…).
I’m troubled by these things. Truly troubled.
I agree with your comments.
I find it appalling that so many “saved” women openly live with their “boo” and or have babies out of wedlock.
A looooong time ago, one could readily tell a “saved” woman from one who had not confessed such a belief.
Now a days, however, many spend a great deal of time convincing others of their righteousness and their salvation.
However, one is not to question their lifestyle. They believe so long as they profess their belief in Jesus, pretty much everything is okay.
Others will passionately argue that there is NO real advantage in having a “residential” father.
They point to their child good grades and the fact that he/she sings in the youth choir.
My question to you and other faithful Christians; why doesn’t the church speak out against this lifestyle?
So the out of wedlock children of black British women may have white fathers.
Yep, although it’s not as frequent. (I think that may be in part due to the apparent fact that black women don’t seem to find white men attractive as often as black men find white women attractive, you know?) But I was talking about the white single mothers, not the black ones.
Round where I live, we have a large Zimbabwean refugee community, who mostly live in council housing, and the children of the Zimbabwean families (whose parents are usually still together) are pretty much all impeccably behaved and happy. The same can’t be said for most of the white children who live on the same council estates.
Don’t let the critics get you down. We love ya.
Wow! Reading comments 38, and 40 is certainly a good reality check. If the locked up (mostly for drug crimes) males were only available (38)……..I guess I lost the point. And morals are subjective, so if its OK by you, then (40)……..I guess I lost the point.
Hi La Shawn, thanks for calling it as you see it, and not being afraid to point out that some of the failures of a certain segment of the black population are self-inflicted woes. I read an article a few weeks back which looked at statistics about poverty and pointed out that if people stayed in school, didn’t have children in their teens, and didn’t have children out of wedlock, statistically they were many times less likely to end up in poverty. Why do so many so-called “civil rights activists” find those simple facts so hard to understand.
On a somewhat different (but still related) note, your post reminded me a bit of this Peggy Noonan piece from the Wall Street Journal where she wrote about a new production of the play “A Raisin in the Sun.” At one point in the production, a reference to abortion is not seen as a tragedy (as it had been intended), but as a triumph, something that Noonan comments is an ominous sign of our times.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110005014
An observation: sometimes when successful blacks are pointed out, liberals poo-poo their success or impugn their character. So Condoleezza Rice gets called a “toady” and Ken Blackwell gets called a “white-collar crook”.
What these libs don’t like isn’t the reporting on the “negative things going on” – they love to trot out the stories that bleed and point out poverty. What they hate is when you draw a connection between behavior and these negative things, which are merely the result of the behavior. Bill Cosby has found himself “in trouble” with some of these usual suspects for the same reason. I’m glad he doesn’t seem to be backing down.
Keep up the excellent work, La Shawn, and don’t let anybody tell you what or what not to write about. Or talk about.
Lashawn, this is where I partly disagree…
I refuse to get into the “us as black people” mentality. Or how to “uplift the black community”. Why exclude others? I want to uplift people no matter what race, by being a witness. Either by telling them about Christ or letting them see my example and start wondering about this God I serve.
“Us” to me is my Christian family, who can be white, black, asian or whatever. I dont care what the issue is. “Them” is anyone who doesnt consistently uphold the holy name of Jesus.
To me, there is no such thing as “problems affecting the black community.” That’s the hypocritical pharisee mentality. Pointing out one race’s problems while totally ignoring another’s. Or worse, refusing to classify another race’s “problems” as the same thing. I see it all the time.
There are such things as SIN problems.
Every race is lying, engaging in sexual immorality, stealing, using God’s name in vain, etc. etc.. All are diabolically opposed to the holy nature of God.
There are very few stressing the simple truths of the Word of God. Even fewer declaring that Jesus is the ONLY way. The fact that you do declare this is what drew me to your blog.
We get so caught up in race based issues. We as Christians need to focus on simple truths and solutions, based solely on God’s Word.
lukeNC, fine point on how important it is to focus, as Christian, on the Universal truths and the reality that “Every race is lying, engaging in sexual immorality…”.
However, if there are two groups of people, White and Black, and one group has 60%* of their children living with married bio-father and mother, and the other group has 20%* of their children living with married bio-father and mother — then it IS appropriate to look at group differences.
[* estimated numbers; La Shawn, a great reporter would have these different numbers and include them -- they are part of the "facts" that Leftists in the MSM don't like to publicize.]
Every sin can be looked at as half a glass of water, with respect to responsibility. Half of the responsibility is the individual; half the environment around them — they are half-victims.
It’s arguable whether it’s half; 3/4; 1/10…
What is NOT very arguable is this: the half that is the individual’s responsibility is the half that the individual can change. By himself. By different behavior.
And it must be clearly said — changing behavior is difficult. )
But as long as the Dem Party uses the terrible results of irresponsible black behavior to claim that blacks are “victims” of others, their victimhood is used as shield to avoid the shame of not changing.
Why are people in America poor?
1) Having kids out of wedlock; getting pregnant; having sex.
2) Not graduating from high school (it’s terrible that many black boys say studying is “too white” — more white boys are starting to say “studying is for girls”)
3) Not keeping a job for a year.
There are virtually no poor Americans who have no kids, have graduated, have been working for over a year. The black-white problem is that far more blacks have these 3 poverty-causing behaviors.
But Dem Party supporting teachers refuse to teach these behavior lessons.
“I’m not convinced that marriage is natural or is a generally “great thing.†I don’t agree with the “immoral†argument since I believe morals are subjective.” D. #40
I’m wondering what real world evidence there is for this “belief” that morals are subjective?
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