Kay S. Hymowitz * in City Journal;
Read through the megazillion words on class, income mobility, and poverty in the recent New York Times series “Class Matters” and you still won’t grasp two of the most basic truths on the subject: 1. entrenched, multigenerational poverty is largely black; and 2. it is intricately intertwined with the collapse of the nuclear family in the inner city.
By now, these facts shouldn’t be hard to grasp. Almost 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers. Those mothers are far more likely than married mothers to be poor, even after a post-welfare-reform decline in child poverty. They are also more likely to pass that poverty on to their children. Sophisticates often try to dodge the implications of this bleak reality by shrugging that single motherhood is an inescapable fact of modern life, affecting everyone from the bobo Murphy Browns to the ghetto “baby mamas.” Not so; it is a largely low-income and disproportionately black phenomenon. The vast majority of higher-income women wait to have their children until they are married. The truth is that we are now a two-family nation, separate and unequal – one thriving and intact, and the other struggling, broken, and far too often African-American.
So why does the Times, like so many who rail against inequality, fall silent on the relation between poverty and single-parent families? To answer that question�and to continue the confrontation with facts that Americans still prefer not to mention in polite company�you have to go back exactly 40 years. That was when a resounding cry of outrage echoed throughout Washington and the civil rights movement in reaction to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Department of Labor report warning that the ghetto family was in disarray. Entitled “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” the prophetic report prompted civil rights leaders, academics, politicians, and pundits to make a momentous�and, as time has shown, tragically wrong�decision about how to frame the national discussion about poverty.
To go back to the political and social moment before the battle broke out over the Moynihan report is to return to a time before the country’s discussion of black poverty had hardened into fixed orthodoxies�before phrases like “blaming the victim,” “self-esteem,” “out-of- wedlock childbearing” (the term at the time was “illegitimacy”), and even “teen pregnancy” had become current. While solving the black poverty problem seemed an immense political challenge, as a conceptual matter it didn’t seem like rocket science. Most analysts assumed that once the nation removed discriminatory legal barriers and expanded employment opportunities, blacks would advance, just as poor immigrants had.
Conditions for testing that proposition looked good. Between the 1954 Brown decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legal racism had been dismantled. And the economy was humming along; in the first five years of the sixties, the economy generated 7 million jobs.
Yet those most familiar with what was called “the Negro problem” were getting nervous. About half of all blacks had moved into the middle class by the mid-sixties, but now progress seemed to be stalling. The rise in black income relative to that of whites, steady throughout the fifties, was sputtering to a halt. More blacks were out of work in 1964 than in 1954. Most alarming, after rioting in Harlem and Paterson, New Jersey, in 1964, the problems of the northern ghettos suddenly seemed more intractable than those of the George Wallace South.
The essay provides an excellent overview of 40 years of the liberal, revisionist, feminist approach – and failure – towards solving the problem of poverty in the inner cities of America.
Other black pride inspired scholars looked at female-headed families and declared them authentically African and therefore a good thing. In a related vein, Carol Stack published “All Our Kin”, a 1974 HEW-funded study of families in a midwestern ghetto with many multigenerational female households. In an implicit criticism of American individualism, Stack depicted “The Flats,” as she dubbed her setting, as a vibrant and cooperative urban village, where mutual aid-including from sons, brothers, and uncles, who provided financial support and strong role models for children created “a tenacious, active, lifelong network.”
In fact, some scholars continued, maybe the nuclear family was really just a toxic white hang- up, anyway. No one asked what nuclear families did, or how they prepared children for a modern economy. The important point was simply that they were not black. “One must question the validity of the white middle-class lifestyle from its very foundation because it has already proven itself to be decadent and unworthy of emulation,” wrote Joyce Ladner (who later became the first female president of Howard University) in her 1972 book Tomorrow’s Tomorrow. Robert Hill of the Urban League, who published The Strengths of Black Families that same year, claimed to have uncovered science that proved Ladner’s point: “Research studies have revealed that many one-parent families are more intact or cohesive than many two-parent families: data on child abuse, battered wives and runaway children indicate higher rates among two-parent families in suburban areas than one-parent families in inner city communities.” That science, needless to say, was as reliable as a deadbeat dad.
That there are striking parallels in this essay with issues related to First Nations poverty in Canada goes without saying – high rates of illegitimacy, absentee fathers, the pervasive messaging that the so-called “extended” family can compensate for, or is even a superior structure to, the nuclear two-parent household.
Set aside time for it.
Via Jeff Goldstein who has additional comments on “identity politics”;
[R]ace-based affirmative action perpetuates the very problem it purports to be addressing by making color-and not all color, either (in California, for instance, Asians are excluded from “minority” status) politically operable, and so, predictably, socially foregrounded.
[…]
The failure to forthrightly address the social problems in this country out of fear that we might wound a particular identity group’s self-esteem is yet another argument for dismantling the kind of identity politics that create “group feelings” in the first place.� Which is not to say that group data, in a purely descriptive sense, shouldn’t be gathered and deployed; but rather to remind people that belonging to a particular descriptive category is a passive empirical data point and does not necessarily commit you to any kind of emotional or intellectual bond with said group.
Unfortunately, one who advocates for the dismantling of identity politics on the grounds that it acts as a foundation for an abundance of destructive social policy, is often met with charges of “racism” or “sexism” or “homophobia,” etc, from those who are able to use such faulty, anti-individualistic (and in that way, decidedly anti-American) essentialist impulses to gather and wield political power-something we see today when politicians pander to particular identity groups in order to shore up overwhelmingly large percentages of, say, “the Black vote” or the “women’s vote.”
The cycle is self-fulfilling, and it begins and extends from our fear of offending – as history continues to show us, even as we continue to ignore that history and reframe its lessons in newly evasive narrative maneuverings that do nothing but defer solutions and increase power to those in whose interests it is to keep the problems alive.
I commend your daring Kate with regards to the posting of this extraordinarily insightful essay. Most enlightening and I am sure will generate more hate mail and invectives against you (all of which are unfair, freedom of speech being considered a Liberal only prerogative). But not to fear, we are here!
The essay can be boiled down to a simple saying that poverty and impoverishment are profoundly different states of being. One is a matter of monetary concern, the other a cultural short coming.
Let me pop open my umbrella.
In other words–there is poverty but it is poverty of initiative. Wealth does not make a person a better person but who and what you are does. They are blaming lack of wealth for their poverty–similar to the mentality that blames guns for crime. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear–these people have to work with what they have–that will make them better people, be better for their children. Their victimhood is their own fault and the fault of the social engineers who so Liberally believe that throwing money at an issue will change things.
There is a two-prong failure in lower income areas. Education, the resistance of Teacher’s Union to innovation, and the failure of families to enforce discipline among their children to study and learn.
Education has broken down to a point where vouchers enabling some parents to move their children out to other schools is a political possiblity where it had been laughed at before. Teachers unions have steadily resisted this effort as eroding their political power based on the fact that most parents would move their childre to private schools with the new monies available them. Yet these unions resist testing of their members to ensure competency and a host of other attempts to improve schooling.
Families, the vast majority of families, allow their children to totally abstain from studying, encouraging them to seek “getting out” through sports, in addition, one parent family often find it impossible to require discipline in their children toward studying because they are either working one or two jobs, or they just don’t care.
Worse is the fact that a student attempting to learn and do well in school is ostracized by his peers, including verbal and physical assault.
Politicians also take no action in fear of teacher unions, black organizations that do not want to see money or power shifted from them and an apparently sleeping constituency that doesn’t care how much of their money is wasted.
Hell of a post, Kate, sorry to have filled up the space. Subject makes me angry.
Way off topic but Michel Fragasso is being charged with fraud in Quebec in regards to his mutual funds. A quick search on Andrew’s handy dandy site pulls up a $4,000.00 donation to the Libs for 2004.
Read this article. 40 years of lies about marriage and how it has affected the black community in the US.
Now try and imagine what the effects of gay marriage and adoptions by gays are going to be. Is it going to take 40 years before we realise the damage we will be doing to our society and the children?
Interesting to note that the writer mentions teen pregnancy and the furor raised by Jimmy Carter holding a conference on this being the event that galvanized religious conservatives. Is the same sex marriage debate going to be the event that finally drags Canadian religious conservatives into the political arena? Now all we need is our own Reagan Revolution. Is Stephen Harper our Reagan?
We were in trouble the day we made motherhood on welfare a viable career choice for unwed, illiterate 17 year old girls.
The 17 year olds produced generation after generation of fatherless, wild young men who continue to impregnate new generations of single mothers.
Wow, definitely an interesting if not controversial post. Certainly not one that a line or two comment would do justice to. Being a logical and technically minded individual I sometimes have troubles understanding �social engineering�. For as long as man (err humanity) has been around, we have been trying to change society, generally with the often-misguided idea that this will improve life. Trouble is that it usually fails to live up to expectations.
People have to want to change and no amount of opportunities given will not help if that person doesn�t want to change. Welfare, UI and National Daycare are all considered rights these days. There are generations of families that have known nothing else. And yes, there are those who use welfare or UI to help them during a tough time and are off it a little while later but for a lot of folks it is a way of life.
The Indian Act is another big social engineering failure. The amount of money per man, woman and native child that is spent is obscene and yet poverty abounds. Why? Why does a band of 3,000 souls west of Calgary and with 13 million a year in oil royalties and lumber revenue plus another 12 � 15 million in Indian affairs handouts still manages to go into debt for 5 million? And have two thirds of them on welfare?
Not everyone fails though, there are a lot of examples of people actually moving ahead and being successful. So what makes these people different? Is it opportunity or motivation? The answer is there somewhere.
Kate and friends,
Moynihan’s work prior to this essay was the book Beyond the Melting Pot, written with sociologist Nathan Glazer. I read it years and years ago. It spoke of a two-pronged attack on the problems of the inner-city blacks… yes, government has a role, but so do the so-called “community leaders” (read: the private sector). The “lords spiritual”, the small businessmen who developed in the days of segregation, the educated, etc. within the community also had a vitally important role in the Moynihan-Glazer vision of improving life in the ghetto. What happened? Government moved in, muscled in, and the private contribution to the total restructuring of the community vanished, leaving an imbalanced approach that only worsened the situation and calcified it. I think Dr. King’s assassination only made matters worse — his “spiritual successors”, for the most part, were more interested in self-aggrandizement (Bill O’Reilly’s take on Jesse Jackson — “he came to do good and did very, very well — is appropriate) than in total uplift of the community. I’m sure the parallels exist in the First Nations communities, too.
Moynihan, at least, was perhaps the last of the great liberal thinkers spawned from the New Deal liberalism of FDR. On both sides of the border, what passes for contemporary “liberal” thought is hardly liberal, but statism in the extreme. (Statism is a step or six beyond everyday socialism.)
I apologize for turning this comment into a long-winded philosophical “rant”. Thank you.
When will people realize that when you feel sorry for someone,make excuses for them, you are actually seeing them as a lesser person and also fueling the situation. Now if that is done to a large identifiable group of society, is THAT not racist? Does that not show that you feel that you are better than them, and they can’t help themselves?
What an insightful essay, Kate – what an inlightened post Colin P. The need to own something in this world is essential for mental health -rich or poor, black, white or purple; all people need to have the dignity to tell a person they do not want in their face to “Get OUT!”. Childern need the stability of their own parents and their own siblings living in their own home to give them the ability to feel pride, love and compassion. Caring for and loving your own family is the first step to being a good citizen who is not afraid of government or authorities who would try to undermine a person’s independance. ‘Poverty is’, as my grandmother always said ‘a state of mind’.
Hey Kate, you’re an Angry White Male. 😉
Absolutely right Jema, poverty is a state of mind, but a state of mind is only changed through education, whether at school or at home.
Does anyone (but statists and leftists) think that we can achieve a new state of mind with the education they receive at school and (lack of) education at home in single parent households? No. The Statists and Leftists think is will all be solved by pouring more money into programs, daycare, victimology, etc.
But it’s all relative, right? Who are we to say that growing up with one (uneducated, unmotivated, unenlightened) parent is bad? We should ALL have two gay married men raising us, right? /moonbat off.
“Who are we to say that growing up with one (uneducated, unmotivated, unenlightened) parent is bad? We should ALL have two gay married men raising us, right?”
I don’t think two gay men could have been any worse than what I grew up with. 🙁
Well, I doubt that you could have turned out any worse, sean.
I’ve got a bet going on how long it takes Warren Kinsella to seize on this post to slander Kate as a racist. I’m not taking bets on Megan Moonbat Water Walker; her sober intervals are simply too unpredictable.
Sean,
Sorry for your situation. I was raised by a single mother and I see now how it affected the outcome of my life. I carry no grudges or anger about it though. Must move on and make the best of what we are given.
My point was, as the Moonbat Left continues to ram the portrayal of Homosexuals as “better” than the rest of us, leading to ludicrous conclusions such as SSM, what affect will that have on scoiety as a whole? What effect on society as a whole is having anyone raised by gay men?
What an excellent link, Kate. Hymowitz is abolutely world-class. She is one of those few writers who re-remind us that the truth is like a diamond — it can be hidden, and stolen, but never destroyed. It has it’s own pure merit.
When you read something that speaks the truth so plainly, it feels almost like physical relief, but that relief is tempered with the sad realization that the truth will never, ever be given voice in the mainstream media, or by any politician, because the only allowable narrative has already been written and enforced by the squalling left.
Under the rules of political and media engagement, anyone can be silenced, at any time, on a whim, by the mere suggestion of racism. The “R” word is the big one, the one that arms mobs, the one that forbids people from noticing the elephant in the room.
EBT: I love you too. 😉
BTW, it may interest you to know that:
a) My wife and I kept separate households before we married.
b) We didn’t buy the cot until we had tied the knot.
c) We plan to instill those same values (as best we can) into our daughter.
Still hate my values?
Doug: I was also raised by a single momma, albeit one who liked to date violent, perverse, sadistic men. She may have done the occasional thing right, but I think that was mostly by accident.
Some of us grow strong in spite of our upbringing, not because of it
�Read through the megazillion words on class, income mobility, and poverty in the recent New York Times series “Class Matters” and you still won’t grasp two of the most basic truths on the subject 1. entrenched, multigenerational poverty is largely black; and 2. it is intricately intertwined with the collapse of the nuclear family in the inner city��
While in Toronto there are those who are just unwilling to accept the truth on the subject:
Aug. 27, 2005
TWO VERSIONS OF A MURDER VICTIM
Daring `a wonderful, wonderful guy’. Not `completely upstanding,’ police say
There are two versions of Delroy George Daring, the father of 10 shot dead in the courtyard of a Scarborough housing complex Thursday night, and one is not so pretty.
The first, from people who knew him, is that he was a good man who pulled a troubled life together to organize “No drugs, No violence” summer barbecues for low-income kids. The group called itself the “out-of-pocket club” because nobody would help them raise money…
…Toronto police detectives, while denying the informant story, have a different take on the unemployed furniture mover who emigrated from Kingston, Jamaica, 20 years ago and had convictions for drug possession and trafficking dating back to 1986. “I have reason to believe that the idea he was, say, a completely upstanding person promoting non-violence, non-drugs and non-guns is not fair,” said Det. John Biggerstaff, at the crime scene yesterday. “The activities which brought him to this courtyard are inconsistent with someone promoting (such ideals).”…
…People are angry about more than the murder. They say their complaints about their living conditions and violence are ignored…
…”He was living proof that someone could turn their life around, that somebody could make a change and be a role model,” said one man…
…there was concern yesterday at police headquarters, beginning with Chief Bill Blair, about initial reports of the murder describing Daring in glowing terms as a community organizer who was an innocent victim of crime…
…Last night Global TV reported he was found with 10 dime-sized bags of marijuana, but police couldn’t confirm the report…
…”He was a wonderful, wonderful guy and he was like a brother to me,” said one young man…
…He had 10 children with at least three different mothers and apparently looked after all his kids. At the time of his death he lived with his two youngest and his mother in Pickering. “He was a ladies’ man,” said one woman. “He liked to take care of business.”…
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1125094213434&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
See also Christie Blatchford’s article in the Globe, August 27: “�Anti-gun activist shot’? It’s ironic, but untrue”.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050827.blatchford27/BNStory/National/
Excerpts:
‘…by dawn, local radio stations had drawn it indeed, and the airwaves swelled with outrage at the slaying of the alleged activist, with everyone, from Mayor David Miller on down, duly noting with sadness that the deceased was also father of 10.
It appeared for all the world that Canada’s biggest city had lost another stellar citizen � and most cruelly, lost to the gun violence that has plagued Toronto this summer one who had dedicated himself to solving the problem.
Alas and alack, there is rather less to this touching portrait than it may seem…
…he had a significant criminal record that spanned a decade, beginning in 1986 when he was but 22 and one of those arrested in a major-for-its-time narcotics bust (four people were charged after an eight-month investigation into the sale of marijuana, hashish and cocaine in Scarborough) that even made one of the local papers.
By the time of his last conviction, in 1996, Mr. Daring had acquired a total of seven criminal convictions, six for drugs (both for possession and possession for the purpose of trafficking) and one for assault with a weapon.
Now to be fair, in the intervening years, it is of course possible Mr. Daring turned his life around, and developed a distaste for the criminal life…
…at the time of his death, he was carrying 13 �dime� bags of marijuana � an amount that could be interpreted as being either for his personal use or for selling � hints that this rehabilitation, if it was under way, was hardly complete.
Neither, I think, could Mr. Daring be put forward as a candidate for father-of-the-year.
His 10 children are apparently shared among four different so-called �baby mothers,� one of whom lives near the complex where he was shot and killed. Unless he led a quadruple life, it is probably safe to say that there are not enough hours in the day to have allowed him, or anyone else for that matter, to be an involved and faithful parent to children spread out among so many disparate households…
This was what the police call a �targeted� shooting, not a senseless act of random violence, and at least at first blush, it may have been drugs-related…
Mr. Daring’s slaying was witnessed, police say, by an estimated 20 people who were �on the ground� and an unknown number who may have seen it unfold from their balconies. As of yesterday, one person had come forward to detectives.
That just isn’t good enough…
But a good start, it seems to me, is in speaking about the issue � victims, gunmen and witnesses � in plain and straightforward language. Surely it isn’t necessary to believe Mr. Daring was heroic in order to be angered and stricken by his death…’
Mark
Ottawa
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/1303-.html
From Kate at small dead animals:Government officials and elected leaders urge the citizens to evacuate to save their lives. They warn of the scope of the impending storm and the potential of devastation. They mobilize and priorize. Hospital staff stay on