Sunday, May 24, 2015

The Ills Of Blacks are Due To Government, Not Racism

Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today's black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination.
The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history. Let's look at some of it.
Today, the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85% of black families were.
One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, the children had the same mother and father.
Today's black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75% is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14%. It had risen to 25% by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" and was widely condemned as a racist.
By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56%, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.
Much of today's pathology seen among many blacks is an outgrowth of the welfare state that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual. Having children without the benefit of marriage is less burdensome if the mother receives housing subsidies, welfare payments and food stamps.
Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished. Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems. Ignored in all discussions is the fact that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in the single digits since 1994.
Read the rest of this Walter Williams op-ed HERE.

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