That the problems of today’s black Americans are a result of a
legacy of slavery, racial discrimination and poverty has achieved an axiomatic
status, thought to be self-evident and beyond question. This is what academics
and the civil rights establishment have taught. But as with so much of what’s
claimed by leftists, there is little evidence to support it.
The No. 1 problem among
blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from
fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have
behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are
also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black
family a legacy of slavery? In 1960, just 22 percent of black children were
raised in single-parent families. Fifty years later, more than 70 percent of
black children were raised in single-parent families. Here’s my question: Was
the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or
might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?
According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia
of the Social Sciences, that year 11 percent of black children were born to
unwed mothers. Today about 75 percent of black children are born to unwed
mothers. Is that supposed to be a delayed response to the legacy of slavery?
The bottom line is that the black family was stronger the first 100 years after
slavery than during what will be the second 100 years.
At
one time, almost all black families were poor, regardless of whether one or
both parents were present. Today roughly 30 percent of blacks are poor.
However, two-parent black families are rarely poor. Only 8 percent of black
married-couple families live in poverty. Among black families in which both the
husband and wife work full time, the poverty rate is under 5 percent. Poverty
in black families headed by single women is 37 percent. The undeniable truth is
that neither slavery nor Jim Crow nor the harshest racism has decimated the
black family the way the welfare state has. American Contempt for ...Best
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The black family structure is
not the only retrogression suffered by blacks in the age of racial
enlightenment. In every census from 1890 to 1954, blacks were either just as
active as or more so than whites in the labor market. During that earlier
period, black teen unemployment was roughly equal to or less than white teen
unemployment. As early as 1900, the duration of black unemployment was 15
percent shorter than that of whites; today it’s about 30 percent longer. Would
anyone suggest that during earlier periods, there was less racial discrimination?
What goes a long way toward an explanation of yesteryear and today are the
various labor laws and regulations promoted by liberals and their union allies
that cut off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder and encourage racial
discrimination.
Labor
unions have a long history of discrimination against blacks. Frederick Douglass
wrote about this in his 1874 essay titled “The Folly, Tyranny, and Wickedness
of Labor Unions,” and Booker T. Washington did so in his 1913 essay titled “The
Negro and the Labor Unions.” To the detriment of their constituents, most of
today’s black politicians give unquestioning support to labor laws pushed by
unions and white liberal organizations.
Then there’s education. Many
black 12th-graders deal with scientific problems at the level of whites in the
sixth grade. They write and do math about as well as white seventh- and
eighth-graders. All of this means that an employer hiring or a college
admitting the typical black high school graduate is in effect hiring or
admitting an eighth-grader. Thus, one should not be surprised by the outcomes.
The most damage done to black
Americans is inflicted by those politicians, civil rights leaders and academics
who assert that every problem confronting blacks is a result of a legacy of
slavery and discrimination. That’s a vision that guarantees perpetuity for the
problems.
Walter E. Williams is
the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason
University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
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