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That's because Black women with children get more benefits from the government when there's no husband/father around. Government public assistance benefits have effectively rendered Black men unnecessary other than to serve as sperm donors.
Well if the black man was traditionally able to secure well paying jobs there would be no need to leave the household so that the women could get benefits. I can almost guarantee you that if black men were economically on par with white men the last 100 years, that the rates of marriage and divorce would almost be identical today.
I'm sorry, but am I'm supposed to believe that one LBJ era welfare program is responsible for collapse of the black family. No, because it's not true.
As another poster mentioned, the spatial distribution of jobs was changing rapidly at the same time African Americans entered the industrial workforce. Employment followed a wave of FHA subsidized housing, moving to suburbs inaccessible by urban workers. The dismantling of public transportation and continued predatory loan practices prevented urban workers from accessing employment and housing in the suburbs.
"It's the economy stupid," to somewhat misrepresent James Carville.
Yeah. I don't really blame it on Great Society programs, and I have written about this before.
First, I think, was when marriage among Black people was accidentally destroyed by government policy. That thought goes back to FDR and the very beginning of what became welfare. The table was badly tilted in the beginning, and mostly White women qualified. Men didn't often qualify. Black women sometimes did, but it was up to the states.
When Black women were finally included, there was still a "Man In The House" rule, which meant that both incomes were to be counted. That seemed - at least to most people - to imply that being married was a very good and normal thing.
But in 1968 the Man In The House rule was ruled unconstitutional. Now, being married actually worked against women, Black and White. Black women still qualified for welfare in greater numbers than White, but if the woman lived with a man instead of marrying him she didn't lose her welfare qualification. She could live with a wealthy man and still qualify for welfare in most states.
So, Black and White, they stopped getting married. And that's the way it is today. Many women who exist on the margins, economically, have children before marriage because the government will pay for the birth. Later, if there is any interest, they get married. But, often, they never do. And children grow up fatherless.
Black women bore the brunt of this action simply because they qualified for welfare more than White women. All society today suffers from this absence of fathers, but it had its start in government policy that was meant to help and a Supreme Court ruling that had unintended consequences.
As noted by the OP, black families have never been typical of white families in America due in part to the enslavement of black families and the inability to have "in tact" families for hundreds of years. FWIW even "free" blacks were much less likely prior to 1860 to live in homes with "in tact" families.
Also, I wonder in regards to the OP and the discussion, why such a focus on family structure of blacks only when those of whites has been "destroyed" to a greater extent since the late 1970s to today. If all the ails that one believes exists amongst black families were truly caused by single parenting, why have these ails not become much more pressing for white families and children in the 21st century considering the rates at which this increased for whites since 1965 is greater than it has for blacks?
Oftentimes when these discussions come up, they are not based on the fact that all statistical measures of blacks in America have increase in a positive way in the 21st century versus the 20th century.
This is more to do with the decrease of over racial oppression (systematic racism) than family structure. Black families in America have always done well even when heavily oppressed. Social welfare programs excluded blacks for decades after they began and even after blacks were admitted into them, that time period of the mid 1960s coincided with the climax of the Civil Rights Movement and the decreases of systematic racism. As a result education attainment improved for blacks as did employment opportunities. On crime metrics, the 1970s through early 1990s was the highest amount of crime ever recorded in America and that coincided with those of us born durng that generation to black single mothers being the highest percentage of black children born to single mothers. Yet we are much better off on a variety of factors versus our parents. FWIW I was born out of wedlock but both of my parents were not - neither of my parents finished high school - I have a master's degree - neither of my parents made much money while I was growing up and really didn't until they were near or past 40 years old. I made more than they did in my 20s. My story as a black American of my generation is similar to the majority of all other blacks in this country. We are much better off today statistically than our parents generation were. So how do you all reconcile these facts?
IMO many of you ignore them due to enjoying thinking about and obsessing over black people being "at-risk" but you never look at the facts of what is occurring with the vast majority of the population.
I'll write a separate post below, but Indentured Servant is/was right in regards to a decrease in marriage being due to the fact that women no longer see a need to have a man for financial purposes or protection all the time. However, women still want to get married overwhelmingly and most women will - even black women will - at one point in their lives. Black women in particular get married at later ages than white women. By age 40 about 70% of black women will have been married at least once in her life and the average age of the first marriage is 30-31 years old, white women's average age is lower, last time I checked in was 25 to 26 years old.
Well if the black man was traditionally able to secure well paying jobs there would be no need to leave the household so that the women could get benefits. I can almost guarantee you that if black men were economically on par with white men the last 100 years, that the rates of marriage and divorce would almost be identical today.
And the only way to secure well paying jobs is through education.
Marriage is a social construct. A man being allowed to have only one wife is also a social construct enforced by law. The only thing biological and a prime directive by nature is sexual intercourse between a man and a women. Societies have had success with all different types of arrangements. Success meaning that the children, the product of intercourse, were well taken care of and had both male and female role models.
The issue is really not marriage, but providing offspring with what they need to survive and prosper. Women traditionally raise the children. Men, traditionally, provide and protect so that the women can raise the children. Whatever the arrangements between men and women where, whether the man had several wives or a single wife, the children were always looked after and uncles and or elder men took a role in raising young boys and women raised young girls.
In many traditional African societies today, the language of family is different. In such societies, my brothers kids are considered my sons and daughters. An older person that is unrelated is refereed to as your Uncle or Auntie, or Father or mother. There are no words in these languages for concepts like "Step son", "Step mother", "Step Father", "Step brother", "Half brother" etc. In traditional African societies, everyone in the village is seen an refereed to as family, regardless of how "Marriage" is defined. Kids are looked after by the community/village.
In America and the West, gender roles have changed. The glue holding the social construct of marriage together has been gender roles and dependency. Women were dependent upon a man financially and for protection. If a women wanted to be successful, she had to marry a successful man. Over time, in the West, women gradually became less dependent upon men for marriage as a means of success and protection. Now, marriage is simply advanced dating to carry on a tradition. Given that women are less dependent upon men, there is not much glue to keep a marriage together when the marriage gets old or the man cheats. In the past women had to put up with whatever a man did because they were financially dependent. Today, divorce is much more common and accepted and the reason is born from the same phenomenon of why people are less inclined to get married.
I say that to say that as a general rule, the structure of the traditional family in the West has declined because gender roles has changed. Women are not dependent upon men as much and without that dependency marriage do not form or are not held together like they used to. That having been said, white males still have the most power and income in this society, much more so than the white women. That makes marriage stronger in the white community because the women is still dependent upon the white man to "reach the top" and live the best lifestyle. In the black community its different because the black man has the least economic power in this society. The fear of the black man has led to his suppression in this society and impeded his ability to be the dominant provider in the black community, which places a big strain on marriage.
You have to consider first that society in general is declining relative to the traditional family. Then on top of that you have to look at what racial oppression has done to the black family and the two of those things together explains the current condition of the black family.
As referenced above, the bold is very correct.
I think that many of you like to focus on black people because you like to "problemize" us without looking at the actual facts of the situation. Black people and women like white people in general and white women in this country, we all have seen (if we pay attention) the fact that gender roles in our country have changed and this is the reason for higher out of wedlock birthrates and more divorces today. Women are not dependent on men like they used to be and have a choice of whether to include men whose behavior they do not want to accept as a part of their lives, either remain in their lives or if they want to leave them. Women can chose to be mothers without having a husband. Social norms and gender roles have changed. This is nothing really to do with black people having our families "destroyed" lol.
On that topic, black families cannot be destroyed as a family is a family no matter the structure. As noted above and during this thread blacks have always had less traditional husband/wife families, alway at least two times as many single parent lead families. This has not changed really since 1880.
A good summation of this is included in real sociological studies. One that provides a good background and statistical review of the black family from 1850 to 1980 is The Origins of the African American Family Structure published in the American Sociological Review by Steven Ruggles.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 11-01-2017 at 09:52 AM..
It's true that monogamous marriage was not part of the culture in the parts of Africa where African-American slaves came from. But it's also true that by 1960, white cultural norms imposed on blacks in this country produced huge changes such that only 20% of black kids were born outside of marriage. The Great Society undid all those social incentives and replaced them with incentives to have children outside of marriage.
So, yes, the Great Society destroyed the black family.
That's because Black women with children get more benefits from the government when there's no husband/father around. Government public assistance benefits have effectively rendered Black men unnecessary other than to serve as sperm donors.
Why would you not say the same about white women.....?
Their out of wedlock birthrates have increased much more than black women since the 1970s. Are white men now unnecessary to white women to serve as anything other than sperm donors as well?
FWIW note previous post in that gender roles have changed. Women in general do not feel the need to be with any man no matter his skin color who is just a "sperm donor."
The Great Society, and the War on Poverty where specifically designed to buy votes, and keep the inner city, and other poor people (white or black) dependent on the government, and thus continue to vote DEMOCRAT. It was not intended to help poor blacks, whites, or anyone. Dependency equals control.
In the 1960s two times as many black children were born to single mothers versus white women. The difference in percentage is the same today as it was then and per previous post has been the same in regards to that percentage gap since the 1880s.
Marriage is a social construct. A man being allowed to have only one wife is also a social construct enforced by law. The only thing biological and a prime directive by nature is sexual intercourse between a man and a women. Societies have had success with all different types of arrangements. Success meaning that the children, the product of intercourse, were well taken care of and had both male and female role models.
The issue is really not marriage, but providing offspring with what they need to survive and prosper. Women traditionally raise the children. Men, traditionally, provide and protect so that the women can raise the children. Whatever the arrangements between men and women where, whether the man had several wives or a single wife, the children were always looked after and uncles and or elder men took a role in raising young boys and women raised young girls.
In many traditional African societies today, the language of family is different. In such societies, my brothers kids are considered my sons and daughters. An older person that is unrelated is refereed to as your Uncle or Auntie, or Father or mother. There are no words in these languages for concepts like "Step son", "Step mother", "Step Father", "Step brother", "Half brother" etc. In traditional African societies, everyone in the village is seen an refereed to as family, regardless of how "Marriage" is defined. Kids are looked after by the community/village.
In America and the West, gender roles have changed. The glue holding the social construct of marriage together has been gender roles and dependency. Women were dependent upon a man financially and for protection. If a women wanted to be successful, she had to marry a successful man. Over time, in the West, women gradually became less dependent upon men for marriage as a means of success and protection. Now, marriage is simply advanced dating to carry on a tradition. Given that women are less dependent upon men, there is not much glue to keep a marriage together when the marriage gets old or the man cheats. In the past women had to put up with whatever a man did because they were financially dependent. Today, divorce is much more common and accepted and the reason is born from the same phenomenon of why people are less inclined to get married.
I say that to say that as a general rule, the structure of the traditional family in the West has declined because gender roles has changed. Women are not dependent upon men as much and without that dependency marriage do not form or are not held together like they used to. That having been said, white males still have the most power and income in this society, much more so than the white women. That makes marriage stronger in the white community because the women is still dependent upon the white man to "reach the top" and live the best lifestyle. In the black community its different because the black man has the least economic power in this society. The fear of the black man has led to his suppression in this society and impeded his ability to be the dominant provider in the black community, which places a big strain on marriage.
You have to consider first that society in general is declining relative to the traditional family. Then on top of that you have to look at what racial oppression has done to the black family and the two of those things together explains the current condition of the black family.
Whooooa yourself. Racial "oppression" was worse in the 50's and 60's and we had intact Black families and a lower crime rate.
Forks and spoons do not cause obesity! Behavior does.
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