Last night I was in a group discussion concerning racism in the U.S. I argued that many government policies (welfare state, public schools, drug war) have had detrimental effects on African-Americans in particular, and that racism and outright discrimination can’t explain the continued lack of economic progress in the inner cities among African-Americans since the Civil Rights era.
I mentioned in particular, the lack of two-parent families among blacks in the inner city has led to increased rates of incarceration, dropping out of school, and poverty rates. I know the statistics indicate extremely strong correlation between high rates of teen age pregnancy and single-parent households leading to the above outcomes in children. The people I was discussing this with disagreed, saying that you cannot prove a cause and effect relationship, i.e. single-parent families leading to poverty, incarceration, etc., rather that the proliferation of single-parent families is due to poverty.
Someone mentioned that in the Scandinavian countries, there are high levels of single-parent households and that those are some of the richest countries. Logically, it makes sense to me that single-parent families are much more detrimental to the development of a child and subsequent higher rates of dropouts & poverty. Does anyone have any statistics that can prove this cause and effect relationship?
Afroamericans are discriminated because the government holds a million or so of them locked up because of drinking tea. Or if it was for smoking marijuana, I can’t remember the difference. When your husband gets locked up by the government for years for doing no harm to anyone, then your children will be growing up in a “singel parent household”.
Taxation in Scandinavian countries is burdensome and makes living as a “normal” family household increasingly unattractive. Thus, there is a high financial incentive to break up an existing relationship if things don’t go that smooth anymore, or to not found one in the first place.
“Fortunately”, the state provides universal free all-day education from cradle to college so you can work all day while keeping your children in a state facility. Needless to say, all the hip leftist ideologies of the day are tested on these children, from Gender Mainstreaming to pre-kindergarten sex ed.
That’s what I’ve been hearing about Scandinavia. Dunno whether being a “rich country” entails being forced by punitive taxation to make your child a human guinea pig for social engineers?
In the case of single parent families I believe that while it is difficult for a lone mother or father to raise their child it does happen in many countries and the outcome isn’t always the same as that which you imply for African-Americans. Usually a family network of say a grandmother or Aunt/Uncle are there to assist in raising the child.
I think you should consider other things that may be more of the root cause of poverity for African-Americans. Have you considered things such as minimum wage, trade unions and welfare?
Still not enough to explain the high rate of illegitimacy among blacks.
And that would be “baby daddy,” not “husband.”
Basically, the government enables women to have kids without having to bother with marriage, and the feminized culture just eats this stuff up. Rates of illegitimacy are going up among whites as well.
First of all, comparing Scandinavian single parents and African American single parents is a false analogy. Scandinavia as a region is quite liberal with a high divorce rate. Living with a single parent doesn’t mean that you lack a father, it means that your parents are divorced. My parents are divorced, yet it never meant that my father was absent from disciplining me, playing soccer with me, going to my wrestling meets, etc. The issue with African Americans is much different. If you’re poor, African American, and live in a single parent household, you most likely have no fatherly guidance.
How I despise that term! As if there would exist any need of “legitimacy” (i.e. state rulers) for human beings to reproduce and bring up their offspring? How absurd a concept that is!
And I still think that it matters for your family building attractivity if you have on your resume that you spent a few years in jail for drinking tea (or for smoking it, I never can remember which one of’em is illegal and “waged war upon” by the government). How many 10s of percent of African Americans haven’t at sometime been jailed for exercing that part of their culture?
We’re rather more arms length away from taking all that church mumbujumbo seriously. Marrage is only a ritual show off for friends and family. Everyone understands that (except maybe the fool in black clothes doing the talk). Noone really believes in God and all that hell. Most Scandinavians as a matter of fact reserve their personal freedom to choose their way of life even after going through that ridiculous process.
Sure, “if”! But the median african-american has higher personal income than the median income of a Swede in Sweden. So it would be the exception rather than the rule that an afroamerican would be poorer than a Swede. Now recently things might have started to change. US GDP collapsed by about 6% last quarter, on a yearly basis. Swedish GDP by only -5%, so things might even out a little bit if this trend continues…
socialism creates the expectation in women that they will be taken care of if they go squeezing out 3 or 4 pups. They are exhonerated of responsibility for raising these kids because they are victims of socisety…or something.
if you have kids you are 100% responsible for them until they support themselves. until then any costs they incur on others should be your responsibility.