Zone1 Is Black Fatherlessness caused by Racism? By the Welfare System? By Something Else?

[Fueri]

What is the reason for this seeming epidemic of black or mixed children growing up without a father?

This article from UCLA Law argues that requiring fathers to pay child support is the cause:

This one argues that it is the welfare system:

https://www.fatherhood.gov/research-and-resources/unnecessary-tragedy-fatherless-children-welfare-reforms-opportunities-reversing

Historically, federal and state laws and welfare regulations have created barriers and disincentives for the involvement of fathers in the lives of their children. Federal assistance for the poor often focused on children and custodial parents, elderly persons, and disabled persons. Able-bodied men, including noncustodial fathers, were not eligible for benefits such as public or subsidized housing, Medicare, or food stamps. These policies lead to situations in which fathers were too poor to support their children financially and subsequently too ashamed to maintain contact or involvement with them.

The Absent Black Father: Race, The Welfare-Child Support System, and the Cyclical Nature of Fatherlessness - UCLA Law Review

Through media representations and policymaking, the absent Black father narrative has taken shape over the past fifty years, giving rise to the belief that fatherlessness is a distinctly Black issue. To safeguard against misplaced assumptions, this Comment proposes a new, cyclical model by which...

www.uclalawreview.org

Rather than a linear process that ascribes the blame for Black plight to Black fathers, this Comment posits that socially constructed notions of race and stringent welfare-child support laws perpetuate the absent Black father stereotype. This cycle begins with a Black father being absent from the home; he then has child support enforced against him, irrespective of his ability to pay; consequently, the child takes on the identity of being fatherless and the father who cannot pay child support is rendered deadbeat.
This interview argues that it is the child welfare system, i.e. CPS and other family investigation agencies:

One in Ten Black Children in America Are Separated From Their Parents by the Child-Welfare System. A New Book Argues That’s No Accident

"By blaming the parents you're diverting attention away from the structural reasons," argues scholar Dorothy Roberts

time.com

quickly discovered that Black children were grossly over-represented in the system. There was this huge racial disparity, which I then came to see as Black communities being targeted by what I’m now calling “family policing.”

In other words, it’s not just that there are statistical disparities. There are Black communities—especially segregated, impoverished Black neighborhoods—where there is intense concentration of child-welfare-agency involvement, and children are at high risk of being subjected to investigation, to being removed from their homes, to spending a long time in foster care, and for their parents rights to be terminated.

Honestly, I found a hard time reading anything from a reputable source that blamed racism. Yet that seems to be the go-to when the issue is discussed.

What say you?

Self perpetuating cycle.

Kids without father's get validation and follow other kids without fathers, rejecting the family unit and in higher- than-average numbers dropping out of school, doing drugs, ending up in jail etc., as well as having children out of wedlock.

No mentors at home, so they find their own. Not the least bit complicated.

 

[IM2]

I'm quite sure Hector the whhite supremcist added fact base critical opinion to this d8iscussion.

Yes, there are plenty of counter-examples if you are allergic to statistics.

But the stats are still their, whether you like them or not.

Otherwise I could slam dunk your argument about black men and women getting paid less by citing all the wealthy blacks in sports, rap, government, and whatever Al Sharpton does for a living.

You are te one allergic to stats. The fact is you argument is pure garbage. I'm black, I have been a social worker. I worked with black families and couples with children. These women have boyfriends that are there if the father is not around. So in most cases there is a man in the lives of these children. The problem is not illegitimate births, it is economics and racism allows whites to pay blacks less or refuse them employment.

I have seen cases where black men were denied so many jobs that they turned to temporarily selling drugs in order to feed their children.

And Whites do not face stuff like this:

“I can say for sure that happens because I did it. Before retirement, I was an Engineer. For the last 20 years of my career, I was a Manager and Director and I hired hundreds of people. I reviewed well over a thousand resumes for all kinds of positions. Everything from Secretaries to Engineering Managers. Both Salary and Hourly. I always culled out the resumes with Black Ethnic names. Never shortlisted anybody with a Black Ethnic name. Never hired them.”

Illegitimate births didn't deny blacks jobs with this company for 20 years. And yet, the denial of jobs here probably caused at least 1 black man to leave his woman and children because he could not provide for them the way he wanted to.

 

[IM2]

While it is true that correlation does not equal causation, the facts you cite do show that welfare did not lift blacks up as it was supposed do.

At least that's the way it was sold. I've long suspected that it was nothing more than a vote-buying scheme.

Notice that Democrats try to buy the votes of black folks with welfare and Affirmative Action, while Republicans offer then jobs and equality of opportunity.

Two very different approaches.

Again, whites have got what is now called welfare since 1910, This is a fact you have chosen to ignore.

 

[Hector12]

While it is true that correlation does not equal causation, the facts you cite do show that welfare did not lift blacks up as it was supposed do.

At least that's the way it was sold. I've long suspected that it was nothing more than a vote-buying scheme.

Notice that Democrats try to buy the votes of black folks with welfare and Affirmative Action, while Republicans offer then jobs and equality of opportunity.

Two very different approaches.

I doubt Democrats win many votes with more and bigger welfare checks. In 1994 the Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress. A reporter in San Francisco knew this was bad news for welfare recipients, so he visited several welfare offices in the area to see what welfare recipients thought of the election. None of the welfare recipients he talked to had voted. Most were unaware that there had been an election.

Helping the unemployable is like helping endangered animal species: they don't help back.

 

[IM2]

Self perpetuating cycle.

Kids without father's get validation and follow other kids without fathers, rejecting the family unit and in higher- than-average numbers dropping out of school, doing drugs, ending up in jail etc., as well as having children out of wedlock.

No mentors at home, so they find their own. Not the least bit complicated.

Again, most of these women have boyfriends So a man is around. This is a racist narrative that has been long debunked.

“In 1965, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, attributed racial inequality as well as poverty and crime in the black community to family structure, particularly the prevalence of families headed by single mothers. Not only did research at the time cast doubt on this causality, but evidence over the last the 50 years demonstrates that rates of child poverty, educational attainment, and crime do not track rates of single parenthood. Thus, even though the share of children living with a single mother rose for all racial and ethnic groups through the mid-1990s and has remained high since then, school completion and youth arrests for violent crimes have declined significantly, while poverty rates have fluctuated according to economic conditions. Family structure does not drive racial inequity, and racial inequity persists regardless of family structure.”
-Amy Traub, Laura Sullivan, Tatjana Meschede and Thomas Shapiro, DEMOS, “The Asset Value of Whiteness: Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap.”

This opinion was debunked nearly 60 years ago. If I was to tell you the earth was flat, you would laugh because that theory has been debunked. Yet there are whites who continue to cling to this long-time debunked tale.

 

[Fueri]

Again, most of these women have boyfriends So a man is around. This is a racist narrative that has been long debunked.

“In 1965, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, attributed racial inequality as well as poverty and crime in the black community to family structure, particularly the prevalence of families headed by single mothers. Not only did research at the time cast doubt on this causality, but evidence over the last the 50 years demonstrates that rates of child poverty, educational attainment, and crime do not track rates of single parenthood. Thus, even though the share of children living with a single mother rose for all racial and ethnic groups through the mid-1990s and has remained high since then, school completion and youth arrests for violent crimes have declined significantly, while poverty rates have fluctuated according to economic conditions. Family structure does not drive racial inequity, and racial inequity persists regardless of family structure.”
-Amy Traub, Laura Sullivan, Tatjana Meschede and Thomas Shapiro, DEMOS, “The Asset Value of Whiteness: Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap.”

This opinion was debunked nearly 60 years ago. If I was to tell you the earth was flat, you would laugh because that theory has been debunked. Yet there are whites who continue to cling to this long-time debunked tale.

Who mentioned race?

You, as usual.

And these things have been studied- Repeatedly, your racist sputterings notwithstanding.

 

[Seymour Flops]

I'm quite sure Hector the whhite supremcist added fact base critical opinion to this d8iscussion.

You are te one allergic to stats. The fact is you argument is pure garbage. I'm black, I have been a social worker. I worked with black families and couples with children. These women have boyfriends that are there if the father is not around. So in most cases there is a man in the lives of these children. The problem is not illegitimate births, it is economics and racism allows whites to pay blacks less or refuse them employment.

Those are not statistics, those are anectdotes, either true ones or apocryphal.

Please get an education and come back to the board able to carry on an adult conversation.

I have seen cases where black men were denied so many jobs that they turned to temporarily selling drugs in order to feed their children.

Oh my freakin' GAWD!

You have to be a parody troll.

And Whites do not face stuff like this:

“I can say for sure that happens because I did it. Before retirement, I was an Engineer. For the last 20 years of my career, I was a Manager and Director and I hired hundreds of people. I reviewed well over a thousand resumes for all kinds of positions. Everything from Secretaries to Engineering Managers. Both Salary and Hourly. I always culled out the resumes with Black Ethnic names. Never shortlisted anybody with a Black Ethnic name. Never hired them.”

That's one guy giving anectdotes that may or may not be true.

Please read some books. A mind is a terrible thing to waste!

Illegitimate births didn't deny blacks jobs with this company for 20 years. And yet, the denial of jobs here probably caused at least 1 black man to leave his woman and children because he could not provide for them the way he wanted to.

Really? A black engineer, in the age of Affirmative Action, particularly in STEM, left his woman because one internet poster claims that he denied blacks jobs in an engineering company?

Please tell me you're kidding.

 

[JoeB131]

If those 400 years were so terrible, why are American Negroes more affluent and in better health than Negroes living in black majority, black run countries?

Why do you keep asking the same stupid questions after they've been answered... Short answer- Colonialism and genocide.

When Aid to Families with Dependent Children was introduce during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt during the 1930's it was specifically restricted to deserted wives, widows, and their legitimate children. Back then the Democrats refused to subsidize immoral behavior.

Then we realized that moral scolds shouldn't make policy.

Also, you have it in reverse. AFDC was only restricted to white people, no matter their marital status. what happened is that the tradition of the Shotgun wedding ended when women realized they didn't need to marry a guy they just weren't that into.

 

[JoeB131]

I doubt Democrats win many votes with more and bigger welfare checks. In 1994 the Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress. A reporter in San Francisco knew this was bad news for welfare recipients, so he visited several welfare offices in the area to see what welfare recipients thought of the election. None of the welfare recipients he talked to had voted. Most were unaware that there had been an election.

Helping the unemployable is like helping endangered animal species: they don't help back.

I think you are confused about the meaning of the 1994 election. Gingrich and his crew coopted a lot of the message of Ross Perot on balanced budgets and international trade. Welfare reform was barely on the radar in 1996. He also played on a lot of the frustration of how entitled Congress was at the time. For instance, the House Credit Union that allowed members to run up huge debts.

Of course, they delivered on very little of that, which is why they lost ground in the house in nearly every election that followed that until 2006.

 

[Seymour Flops]

I have seen cases where black men were denied so many jobs that they turned to temporarily selling drugs in order to feed their children.

So, let me see if I understand that story you're selling. Does it go like this?

A black man, wearing conservative clothes, including a suit and tie, with a standard corporate haircut (because that is how you appear at job interviews, if you really want the jobs), walks home after a long day of pounding the pavement and being rejected, in spite of suitable education/training for the jobs applied for and a good record of working at unskilled jobs while getting that education.

He's sees the neighborhood drug dealer (because in your stereotype-driven fantasy of being a black man, every "hood" has a drug dealer), and says, channeling Carlton Banks, "excuse me. I understand that you are an entrepreneurial distributor of recreational narcotics, opiods, and prescription medications. I understand it is a risky endeavor, but quite lucrative. How does a normally law-abiding, but currently unemployable, family man go about joining your sales staff?"

That's how it works? You've seen cases like that?

 

[JoeB131]

“I can say for sure that happens because I did it. Before retirement, I was an Engineer. For the last 20 years of my career, I was a Manager and Director and I hired hundreds of people. I reviewed well over a thousand resumes for all kinds of positions. Everything from Secretaries to Engineering Managers. Both Salary and Hourly. I always culled out the resumes with Black Ethnic names. Never shortlisted anybody with a Black Ethnic name. Never hired them.”

Illegitimate births didn't deny blacks jobs with this company for 20 years. And yet, the denial of jobs here probably caused at least 1 black man to leave his woman and children because he could not provide for them the way he wanted to.

Actually, sound like their parents did them a disservice by giving them Ethnic names. I've worked with a lot of black people.

None of them had names like Jamal or LaKeisha.

they had names Tracy and Edgar and Paula.

So it doesn't sound like he wasn't hiring blacks, just people with stupid names.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Sounds like there's some women who consistently make poor choices in men.

If the point of your apocryphal (made up) story is that white children are often fatherless also, of course that is true. But by percent, black fathers are far more likely to abandon their offspring.

Sounds like some people may only be able to get women who make poor choices in men. I don't know how many girlfriends he has had, but his choices reflect on him. The ladies I have been with have always been at least my equal in intelligence and morals. Those are qualities I looked for in a woman.

 

[AZrailwhale]

I'm quite sure Hector the whhite supremcist added fact base critical opinion to this d8iscussion.

You are te one allergic to stats. The fact is you argument is pure garbage. I'm black, I have been a social worker. I worked with black families and couples with children. These women have boyfriends that are there if the father is not around. So in most cases there is a man in the lives of these children. The problem is not illegitimate births, it is economics and racism allows whites to pay blacks less or refuse them employment.

I have seen cases where black men were denied so many jobs that they turned to temporarily selling drugs in order to feed their children.

And Whites do not face stuff like this:

“I can say for sure that happens because I did it. Before retirement, I was an Engineer. For the last 20 years of my career, I was a Manager and Director and I hired hundreds of people. I reviewed well over a thousand resumes for all kinds of positions. Everything from Secretaries to Engineering Managers. Both Salary and Hourly. I always culled out the resumes with Black Ethnic names. Never shortlisted anybody with a Black Ethnic name. Never hired them.”

Illegitimate births didn't deny blacks jobs with this company for 20 years. And yet, the denial of jobs here probably caused at least 1 black man to leave his woman and children because he could not provide for them the way he wanted to.

Is there anything you haven't done? You've been a social worker, run two businesses. worked for and run organizations for blacks.

 

[JoeB131]

Is there anything you haven't done? You've been a social worker, run two businesses. worked for and run organizations for blacks.

He's also been an astronaut and a firefighter...

 

[IM2]

Who mentioned race?

You, as usual.

And these things have been studied- Repeatedly, your racist sputterings notwithstanding.

I know, because I have studied them. And that's why I can say this argument is garbage.

IS Black Fatherlessness caused by Racism? By the Welfare System? By Something Else?​

This is the title of this thread.

 

[IM2]

So, let me see if I understand that story you're selling. Does it go like this?

A black man, wearing conservative clothes, including a suit and tie, with a standard corporate haircut (because that is how you appear at job interviews, if you really want the jobs), walks home after a long day of pounding the pavement and being rejected, in spite of suitable education/training for the jobs applied for and a good record of working at unskilled jobs while getting that education.

He's sees the neighborhood drug dealer (because in your stereotype-driven fantasy of being a black man, every "hood" has a drug dealer), and says, channeling Carlton Banks, "excuse me. I understand that you are an entrepreneurial distributor of recreational narcotics, opiods, and prescription medications. I understand it is a risky endeavor, but quite lucrative. How does a normally law-abiding, but currently unemployable, family man go about joining your sales staff?"

That's how it works? You've seen cases like that?

Yes. And this doesn't happen after only one job application. It happens after a man is rejected over and over and over. Furthermore, drop the racist belief that blacks don't go into interviews dressed appropriately. Last, the example I showed you was where a white man denied blacks the chance to get to the interview. Learn to read.

I don't have a stereotype, I know full well there are also drug dealers in every white community also. community. I knew a white guy who was a car salesman who sold drugs as well. So you can drop the stupidity. As a social worker, I dealt with the real world and real-world human problems. My opinion is not based on some long debunked claimed that people like you cling to about black illegitimacy.

Your argument was debunked long sago. It us a worthless argument that has no merit and it's really only used by racists. So, if you aren't that stop repeating silly simple-minded garbage that racists believe.

 

[Fueri]

I know, because I have studied them. And that's why I can say this argument is garbage.

IS Black Fatherlessness caused by Racism? By the Welfare System? By Something Else?​

This is the title of this thread.

Sure you found some things that support a completely illogical position. I have seen countless studies that take the position that a fatherless household is detrimental in a myriad of ways- and it makes perfect sense.

My post. IDGAF what anything or anyone else in a thread says, when you respond to my post that's what you're addressing.

Please show me the reference to race in the post of mine to which you originally responded in this thread. And good luck.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Yes. And this doesn't happen after only one job application. It happens after a man is rejected over and over and over. Furthermore, drop the racist belief that blacks don't go into interviews dressed appropriately.

What are you talking about? I offered a scenario in which a black man DID dress appropriately.

Last, the example I showed you was where a white man denied blacks the chance to get to the interview. Learn to read.

That wantvresl, though. It was message board sruff. It could have been you posted it.

I don't have a stereotype, I know full well there are also drug dealers in every white community also. community. I knew a white guy who was a car salesman who sold drugs as well. So you can drop the stupidity. As a social worker, I dealt with the real world and real-world human problems. My opinion is not based on some long debunked claimed that people like you cling to about black illegitimacy.

Your argument was debunked long sago. It us a worthless argument that has no merit and it's really only used by racists. So, if you aren't that stop repeating silly simple-minded garbage that racists believe.

Nonsensical.

 

[IM2]

What are you talking about? I offered a scenario in which a black man DID dress appropriately.

That wantvresl, though. It was message board sruff. It could have been you posted it.

Nonsensical.

Look, the premise of black unwed births or the fatherless home was debunked almost immediately after the Moynihan report in 1965. Therefore any argument making such a claim in regard to the things blacks face is just an unworthy argument.

 

[Hector12]

I think you are confused about the meaning of the 1994 election. Gingrich and his crew coopted a lot of the message of Ross Perot on balanced budgets and international trade. Welfare reform was barely on the radar in 1996. He also played on a lot of the frustration of how entitled Congress was at the time. For instance, the House Credit Union that allowed members to run up huge debts.

Of course, they delivered on very little of that, which is why they lost ground in the house in nearly every election that followed that until 2006.

The widespread contempt for welfare recipients and hatred for criminals has always benefited Republican politicians.

I have only voted for two Republicans in my life. I forget their names, but I remember that they advocated harsher treatment of criminals.

When Ronald Reagan convinced Republicans that tax cuts for the rich are more important than balanced budgets he gave me additional reasons to vote against the G.O.P.