I wanted to mention the importance of the Washington Post article from last week entitled Marriage Is for White People, by Joy Jones (a black woman). While teaching a class of young black students, she was asking what they wanted to be when they grew up. One boy responded "I want to be a father." She mentioned that they being married and having children is a great goal, to which he responded something along the lines of "oh no, I don’t want to be married, just a father." Another boy in her class remarked that he thought "marriage was for white people." Terrible stuff.
Joy’s article discusses the the decline in marriage in the black community, and the value system that has arisen behind it – one where sex, marriage, and parenthood are seen as a la carte items, not one package. And where black women are now more often self-sufficient and responsible, they are not willing to marry a man who is not able to contribute financially or emotionally – and a greater number of black males fit that description.
Many poverty analysts are now correctly pinning the main cause for poverty in the black American community not on slavery or institutional racism, but on the absentee and irresponsible fatherhood, and a cultural value system that is antisocial* and anti-virtue (hard work, sacrifice, honesty, abiding by law, respect for authority, etc.).
* refusal to integrate into mainstream society by maintaining separate language and customs.
