Tantalize single moms with an array of juicy economic incentives,
cripple the Black family, and blame the whole mess on those stingy
Conservatives.
Going back to LBJ's Great Society, that's been the essence of the Left's
social welfare program.
The
end result was to disenfranchise the male and marginalize fatherhood.
Now we're paying the price for four decades of the Nanny State.
When a girl is raised without the guiding hand of a father, she is at
greater risk of engaging in sexual experimentation - with its
all-too-predictable consequence of unwanted pregnancy. One analysis
found that young women with divorced parents were three times more
likely to have an out-of-wedlock birth.
Researchers Lorraine Blackman and colleagues recently combed through 125
social science studies and
concluded
that when fathers are absent, the
harmful effects on boys are also traumatic.
According to one study,
Black teenager boys from broken homes were more likely to be suspended
from school and get into trouble with the police. And they were six
times more likely to run away from home.
But when fathers are allowed to stick around, good things begin to
happen.
According to Blackman's review, boys from father-present homes benefit
from three times higher parental involvement. As a result the boys have
a much higher self-concept. They are more likely to be prepared for
school. And to no great surprise, they are more likely to aspire to a
college education.
Overall, father absence harms boys more than girls. Blackman concludes,
"The marriage benefit appears to be much stronger among African American
boys, who receive considerably more attention when their father is
married and in the home."
Of course no parent is surprised by these commonsense findings, but now
we have scientific proof.
Some pessimists look at the pattern of intergenerational poverty, crime,
and broken families. They wonder whether we will ever find the formula
to lift Black men from the bowels of hopelessness and despair.
The simple answer is "yes."
Yes, we need strong educational development and job training programs to
help break the cycles of social pathology. And certainly we must do away
with misguided welfare policies and lock-'em-up child support
enforcement. But book-learning, jobs, and policy reform will only be a
start.
The real answer will be found, I believe, in the hearts of Black men. It
is there that an indomitable spirit and an unquenchable thirst for
dignity still resides.
It was that spirit that in 1968 compelled 1,300 men in Memphis to go on
strike. Weary sanitation workers picked up placards on which they had
etched the phrase, "I AM A MAN." Think about those four words for a
minute. It was that march for dignity that brought Martin Luther King to
Memphis, only to be felled by a sniper's bullet.
That same spirit animated a group of brothers to come together to
establish an organization known as 100 Black Men. Forty-odd years later,
the group has grown to over 10,000 members working to improve the social
and economical opportunities for all African-Americans.
That animus drove the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity a few years ago to
organize its ambitious Prostate Cancer Global Awareness Campaign. That
campaign inspired Anheuser-Busch to pledge $250,000 in support of the
effort. Prostate cancer, of course, is far more lethal in Black men than
in Whites.
It's that ineffable character that drove the survivors of a tragic
syphilis study to establish the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights
Multicultural Center. Chipping in their worn-down dimes and quarters,
they hoped that future research projects would never repeat the same
mistake.
That spirit is evinced every week in small town churches that dot the
countryside, where all-male gospel groups give their distinctive
rendition of soul-sound. It's the same spirit that guides a group of
Baha'i Black men to come together once a year to chant prayers and
recommit themselves to a life of service. I chanced across these men a
few years ago while grieving the loss of a family member.
Relieved of artificial impediments, the physical body has a remarkable
ability to heal itself and regenerate its functions. So too the souls of
Black men.
Carey Roberts has
been published frequently in the Washington Times, Townhall.com,
LewRockwell.com, ifeminists.net, Intellectual Conservative, and
elsewhere. He is a staff reporter for the New Media Alliance.
