Author: Black fathers in home are crucial to black progress
by Kelli
… [B]lack political gains are not the panacea that the black left has claimed they would be. When you look at income, unemployment, poverty, incarceration rates and other metrics, wide black-white disparities persist notwithstanding the ever-growing number of black elected officials.
The reality is that a black man in the home is much more important to black progress than a black man in the White House.
~ Jason L. Riley, author and member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, addressing issues of race in an interview about his new book, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed, as quoted by Encounter Intelligence, June 10
[HT: Susie Allen]
Jun.26, 2014 1:00 am |
Obama |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
This book sounds like a great read, similar to Star Parker’s Uncle Sam’s Plantation. I will see if I can get a copy.
This does sound like a good book for people of all races. Ive read that children need a father in the home. I can tell you that since my 4 year old lost his father he has been having some behavioral issues. He can point to a picture of 8 people and say “daddy” with his finger on his dad every time. Most people around here are single mother homes. Less people are getting married.
America is dying because the American family is dying. Contraception, divorce, abortion, cohabitation, hook-ups, and same-sex relations have dominated our imagination.
We are laughed at for insisting that traditional, faithful marriage — with both parents working together to raise their own children, unhindered by public school indoctrination — is the only good that can save our culture.
But we can see what happens when the family breaks down throughout the culture: It is the ghetto. Widespread poverty and dependency. Fatherless homes. Young men turn to gangs to get the affirmation they cannot get from absent fathers.
It is not just a problem among Blacks and ethnic groups. It is everyone’s future, if we continue to push social policies that discourage stable families.
Looking far enough forward, we can imagine a return of the Dark Ages: Groups of Christian families struggling to survive and living in fear of the raiding barbarians.
Pro-lifers are working toward the healing solution. But we will not be a Culture of Life until we are a Culture of Families again.
I’d like to read this book too.
Del, your post would have been a great introduction to this book!
I hope Jason sells many, many copies.
I am the product of a fatherless home, through no fault of my mother’s. My dad decided to leave and pretend he never even had a daughter.
So when I talk about how important it is for a child’s mother and father to be a part of his/her life, I have personal experience.
My high school age daughter was asking me some questions about some current events the other day and I told her that the breakdown of the family as God created it, with sex being misused from how God intended, is the cause of a huge host of problems we see in our society today. (I think I basically gave her Del’s speech, above. :D )
As someone who works with juvenile offenders, I can attest that caring, committed, connected families make all the difference in a young person’s life.
Heather, I think you mean fewer people are getting married.
“As someone who works with juvenile offenders, I can attest that caring, committed, connected families make all the difference in a young person’s life.”
I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t do home visits anymore, but when I did, I could count on the fingers of one hand the families I worked with where the father was in the home. But many people don’t feel this way. I sit near the hotline people (my agency has a 24 hour hotline)and I overheard one of them say to a caller “You don’t need a father in the home, In fact that does more harm than good sometimes.” Another one said “theres nothing wrong with having babies by different men, as long as they’re not in jail (the men, not the babies). Umm, okay.
I remember in social work school my classmates were sitting around talking about how terrible the traditional nuclear family was(sexist, oppressive, etc). One young woman bragged that her parents were never married and she turned okay. I just had to raise MY hand and say my daughter was getting married and I was happy for her. Someone also said that a marriage certificate was “just a piece of paper,” but then one professor, an openly gay male, told us that we should all be “fighting for marriage equality.” If it’s just a piece of paper, why is it so important for gays to get married? I couldn’t wait to get out of there!
I had a case with a 14 year old who was very bright but kept on getting in trouble with the law. His father had been released from prison in California and had no contact with his son. The kid was very angry about this. His mother begged us to help, but what could we do if Dad didn’t want to be bothered? I see this over and over again “father incarcerated,” or “whereabouts of father unknown.”
He has a good point about voting. Here in Philly we have a black mayor, DA, police chief, etc., yet we are one of the poorest large cities in the country. 50 percent of black males do not finish high school, we have the highest rate of black on black crime in the country, and one third of the black population belongs to the underclass. I am not saying people shouldn’t vote, of course, but politicians can’t solve everyone’s problems.
phillymiss, I’ve said that for a while now – if marriage is “just a piece of paper” that really doesn’t mean anything, then why, suddenly, do gay people want it so badly? Interesting how the mantra has changed.
Yes mojoanne thats what i meant.
I hope he does sell many copies.
Might be because some homo or bisexual people see marriage as important and some don’t. It’s not like the exact same people with the exact same views even if they’re all the same type of bad people.
I agree fathers are important and them abandoning their kids has caused tons of issues.
“if marriage is “just a piece of paper” that really doesn’t mean anything, then why, suddenly, do gay people want it so badly?”
Not all of them do, to start with. Some do, some don’t, same as heterosexual people.
There is also more than one thing at stake (of course). There are the personal feelings of the people involved – and this is where it may indeed just be “a piece of paper,” or not. Then there is the societal treatment of married people, and as long as there are economic concerns, etc., that are altered by one’s status then (here too, of course) people are going to want the right to be accorded that status.
Hi Jack. I never said anything about “bad people.”
The prevalent “pop culture” attitude, before the gay marriage push, was “marriage is just a piece of paper.” We had Brangelina even pushing the idea that they didn’t need a piece of paper to be a family. Fine. But then suddenly the mantra changed to “we’ll get married when ALL people are allowed to get married.”
It’s all about changing the mantra to suit whatever whimsical idea society has about marriage at the time. One day, it’s crap, the divorce rate is so high, blah blah blah, and the next, it’s so sacred and awesome that we must. have. it. Ok. Whatever.
I didn’t say you did? I was talking in general. It may be the same sin and all but everyone is different and has their own views.
I don’t understand how it came up in the first place, seems like it’s always the go to when we’re talking about how bad society is. I get its horrible but it’s not really a factor much in the fatherless rate.
Can we discuss the ridiculous rate of imprisonment of black males and the effect on their children instead of homosexuality?
I think it came up just in the mentioning of the breakdown of the traditional family, Jack. A lot of things seem to have that at their “root”, if you will. And we do see with certain agendas that motherhood and/or fatherhood seem to be irrelevant when we’re talking about the “commodity” of children.
What I don’t understand is why people have such a ridiculously hard time admitting that kids need their mothers and their fathers. I’m not insulting my mother, who raised me by herself, when I say that I would have liked to have had my father in my life. It’s not an insult to say that kids need moms and dads – not just Mom, not just Dad, not Mom & Mom or Dad & Dad, or Dad & Dad’s live-in girlfriend, or whatever. Instability is HARD for kids.
I have a friend who is a teacher and most of her students are minorities. She is also African American. Once, she mentioned to me that she never realized how impossible it is for kids to learn in school when they come from broken homes, or homes where there is an unstable “partnership” happening. She told me of more than one student whose mom had a live-in boyfriend, and despite that, the kids were just having great difficulty, and they felt very insecure about their home lives. It’s so sad.
One thing I am very thankful for is that my mother never had any live-in boyfriends. Honestly, she didn’t even look for anyone to date. She focused on raising me and finding gainful employment, and she found good friends and some constructive hobbies. She was not focused on finding a man. And I think that’s why I never felt like my home life was unstable, despite being raised by a single mom. I had stability, even with just one parent, due to the very deliberate choices she made about her own relationships.
Fathers are hugely important, but I also believe that even if a father (or mother) is not present in the home, stability in the home is essential.
I agree that stability is important regardless of whether it’s a nuclear family with married parents or not. The quote was about black community though, which has some unique issues in regards to structural racism both past and present and severe intergenerational poverty, among other things that affect black people disproportionately. Obviously black people are affected by the general cultural changes but there are unique issues here as well. I think it’s a shame that the conversations always go to the same place and I honestly think it’s irrelevant to bring up certain issues like homosexuality, it’s certainly not the most pressing issue in the black community and other issues need some attention that they wont get if other more popular issues keep overtaking the conversation.
And I’m not saying that gay and bi people are good or that it doesn’t need to be discussed but I don’t think it needs to be in this conversation, no more than contraception does. Other issues are affecting the black fatherless rate far more and need immediate attention.
I didn’t bring it up. Phillymiss did. She wrote: “I remember in social work school my classmates were sitting around talking about how terrible the traditional nuclear family was(sexist, oppressive, etc). One young woman bragged that her parents were never married and she turned okay. I just had to raise MY hand and say my daughter was getting married and I was happy for her. Someone also said that a marriage certificate was “just a piece of paper,” but then one professor, an openly gay male, told us that we should all be “fighting for marriage equality.” If it’s just a piece of paper, why is it so important for gays to get married? I couldn’t wait to get out of there!”
Notice that her comment was in relation to the devaluing of marriage by some and yet the sudden valuing of it as soon as the idea of marriage/family strays away from the traditional/nuclear definition.
Nobody said it was the most pressing issue in the black community. But we are allowed to discuss issues that we believe relate to the issue of the breakdown of the nuclear family, whether it upsets you or not.
I never said anyone wasn’t allowed to talk about something, that’d be your call as the mod lol. I’m just wondering why it always, always immediately goes that direction and the other issues get pushed aside and never really get discussed. My hurt feelers or lack thereof are irrelevant.
I am in awe of the parenting my husband does, truly. If he was suddenly gone, I could double the amount of mothering I do, but there’s no way I could ever father them. His role isn’t merely helpful or a bonus; it’s absolutely essential. He is teaching my boys how to be men and my daughter how to be valued by men. He blows me away, and I’m so grateful God in his wisdom designed the family so thoughtfully and perfectly.
In this country we are allowed to agree to disagree. I go with scripture and I am very anti gay marriage. A man is not to lay with a man. I know this might upset some ppl but so what? Also @ Kel…now that Charleze Theron is dating Sean Penn she has said the same thing. She will not marry anyone until all people can marry. It sounds like shes cheating herself. Sean Penn dumped Scarlette Johanson after a few months of sex without marriage. Careful Charlize. You say you love Penn so you just might be the next to get your walking papers.
Also here is an example of why a dad in the home is important. A friend of mine was put in the county jail for a PV. She has a drug problem and dropped a dirty urine. While in county she told me she was in a pod with 2 murderers. One woman was Camilia Terry. She had 3 children by the age of 18. She called the police to report her youngest son went missing in the park. No father in the home! Just one problem with Camilias version. Her other son could talk and told police “My brothers in the garbage.” And he pointed to a dumpster. Sure enough they found the body of her son. My friend told me that after her sentence all she did was sit on her bunk and cry. My friend hugged her. She said “Dont think bad of me for doing that. The woman was so overwhelmed and she kept saying how sorry she was.” She received a 30 yr sentence in prison. She also cried harder when other inmates went home. She told my friend through sobbing ” You get to go home. I dont.” She was 21 at the time of her sentence. Shes now in prison starting her sentence. Idk how to post a link but you can always search engine it. Very sad.
Heather, Sean Penn also tied Madonna to a chair and beat her with a baseball bat, so I think it’s extremely weird when he tries to paint himself as some liberal defender of women. I sure hope Charlize stays safe, I think Penn is an dangerous man.
And again, I wasn’t saying ANYTHING about LGBT people being okay or gay marriage being okay or positive or that people shouldn’t be allowed to discuss it and I don’t get how people got that out of my comments. I simply don’t know why these things get brought up at every opportunity even if it’s only tangential to the subject under discussion. It’s frustrating to me because I feel like other issues are being ignored when they seem to be much more influential and important to the subject.
Hi Deluded…that wasnt aimed at you and I agree with you about Penn. If im not mistaken the wimp went to jail for a while and cried like a little kid. a Then he had his picture taken with his arm around Castro. Id read that he had tied Madonna to the chair. She wrote about it in a book. Personally I think hes nuts. Ive also read that although he voted for Obama hes still not happy about the way hes running the country. He dumped S Johannson telling her she needed to “brush up” on her politics. That and she was his daughters age. I guess his daughter was pretty upset about the fling. Now hes with Charlize. Stay tuned. Funny how Spicoli is now such a self proclaimed expert. Perhaps he will run for president next time. Shoulda stuck to acting. At least youre half good at that!
Also Deluded despite Penn hitting Madonna while she was tied to the chair she continued to gush that he was ( And always will be ) the love of her life. Shed also had multiple abortions from Penn. Also during the course of the marriage thats when Madonna was also two timing Penn with Sandra Bernhard. Sounds like there was a lot of dysfunction going on in that marriage. Penn and Madonna remain friends.
Sean Penn has trashed America for several reasons. Hey Sean…hate America? I will help you pack.