Who Blesses The Fatherless Child?

Them thats got shall get
Them thats not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Billie Holiday/Arthur Herzog Jr.

I recently read a piece that said 70% of black children are living with single-mothers. [1] This is outrageous and even more outrageous is the lack of discussion in the black community that it gets. Let me give you some statistics before I go on:

* Children from fatherless homes are five times more likely to be poor, and ten times more likely to be extremely poor.
* Seventy percent of juveniles in reform school and long term prison inmates come from fatherless homes.
* Children from fatherless homes are twice as likely to be high school drop outs.
* Fatherless children have more emotional and behavioral problems.
* Girls from fatherless homes are three times as likely to be unwed teenage mothers. Adolescents in mother-only families are more likely to be sexually active, and daughters are more likely to become single-parent mothers.
* Boys from fatherless homes have a higher incidence of unemployment, incarceration, and noninvolvement with their own children.
* Ninety percent of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
* Seventy-one percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.
* Seventy-five percent of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes.
* Eighty percent of rapists come from fatherless homes.

These statistics are horrific and should be frightening to all of us. This is not an essay to denigrate or in any way to belittle the single mothers in our community nor is this an essay to espouse any religious viewpoint. This isn’t about morality or social norms; it is about the self-destruction taking place in our communities. The numbers don’t lie, as more and more of our children are being raised in the single mother environment it is proving detrimental to us as a people and as a nation.

Why is it that whenever this subject is breached we bristle at its fundamental conclusions and become defensive, wanting to change the subject. Until we come to grips with this as a people, even if we do overcome all of the external pressures coming against us, we will still remain entrenched in poverty and violence. Our communities are broken, because so many of our homes are broken. As the number of single mother households has increased so has the degradation of our neighborhoods, schools, and social fiber. Do the math; there is a correlation in the rise in crime, the level of violence, and the gang mentality and the rise in single mother households. Are we to conclude that these results are from happenstance? It is this attitude of denial that has allowed this epidemic to go unchecked.

This is not a slam at women. The last time I checked making babies required both a male and a female under natural conditions. There are those who claim that the importance of the father in the home is overstated, I completely disagree and believe the research bears me out. In 13 studies conducted on children from single mother homes, 11 of the studies reported negative results. It is difficult to discuss an issue this personal, but the consequences of these decisions affect us all.

We must begin to demonstrate to our children the benefits of waiting to have children. We must convince our young men and women that it is in their best interest as well as in the interest of their future children to wait. We need to show them the consequences of not waiting and how it will negatively impact their lives. We must begin to stress the importance of education and personal responsibility in the growth of their lives. We cannot expect others to do what we are not willing to do for ourselves. There is a host of issues that our children face that are external, but in the end these won’t matter if we continue to send them out into the world unprepared for the world that awaits them. We must stop teaching about how the world should be and start preparing them for the world that is.

The raising of children requires both a man and a woman involved in the child’s life. I don’t care how many women I have been with, I don’t know what it takes to be a woman. I may know what I like about women, but I don’t know what it is to be a woman. I could not raise my daughter to be a complete woman because I don’t know, not because I don’t want to. We cannot continue to keep this circle of unwed mothers, children in poverty, and angry young men unbroken. Somehow we have to break the cycle or racism will be the least of our worries.

[1] http://www.fatherabsence.com/article3.html

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How Do We Fix This

Over the past few weeks there has been story after story of murder and violence in the blogosphere and in the MSM. It seems like everywhere you turn there is another story more horrendous than the last one. I can’t even do any political stories because of all the murder and mayhem going on in my community. I for one am sick and tired of it. But unlike many of my brothers and sisters, I can no longer just sit back and complain about it. For some reason we Black folks do a lot of complaining, but very little action.

Even though arrests have been made in the Newark case[1], it will only be a matter of a few days before the next atrocity grabs the headlines. This story isn’t about who is at fault, because God knows there is enough blame to go around. Playing the blame game has not resulted in one less murder, so let’s try something different. Let’s look at the problem, let’s define it in a way we can all agree on, and then let’s come up with some solutions that we all can take and implement. It is unfortunate that in order to get attention I will eventually have to post this on some white progressive blogs, but I am willing to do whatever it takes.

I will try to frame the problem as I see it and hopefully with feedback from all concerned citizens regardless of their race or gender, we can come to define the enemy. Unless we know what we are fighting, we have no chance of defeating it. The killings in Newark are not isolated incidents, but a growing pattern of lawlessness that has been brewing in our communities for years. Ask any “old school” person in the neighborhood and they will tell you that the level and the gruesomeness of the violence is at a place they have never seen before. How have we allowed things to get so bad?

The problem as I see it is we have groups of angry young blackmen who are unemployed and many who are uneducated wandering our communities with guns that have been too easy to acquire. These youngmen, many of whom are selling drugs have created an atmosphere of fear and terror. They have no hesitancy to use these guns not only on themselves, but anyone who would stand in their way. There does not appear to be any code of honor, in that everyone is a target. These youngmen appear not to value their lives or the lives of others.

Feeding this problem is a mass media that promotes violence in movies, games and videos. We are being bombarded by this prison, gangster mentality that life has no value. There is this get them before they get you attitude. There is this street code that rewards violence and punishes those who would obey the law; hence no snitchin. These gangs are hiding behind the mask of racism, that by reporting a crime you are turning another young blackman over to the white majority regardless of what he has done. You have these stars in videos and on cds promoting this gangster lifestyle of slinging dope and killing folks. Today’s youth are unable to distinguish the hype from reality.

Many of these youngmen are being raised without fathers. Many of their mothers are either too busy or too tired to supervise their behavior. I know in my city that late at night there are groups of youngmen and women roaming the streets, some no more than 12 or 13. These children do not have enough opportunities to better their lot in life and many have given up. How sad it must be to know that your life is over at 13 or 14, no wonder there is such rage. There appears to be an I don’t give a f**k attitude towards everything that is not gangster related.

Many of our youngwomen have now taken to imitating the youngmen, not only in their dress but behavior as well. I guess if as a girl the best you can hope for is to be a bitch or a hoe, it’s better to be one of the guys. Some of these youngwomen have demonstrated just as much fury and brutality as the youngmen.

Now at this point I would like to hear if anyone has anything else to add to the problem. Again, I hope we can frame the problem without playing the blame game. Let’s just define the problem first. The question is why is there so much violence in our communities? What is the cause?

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/09/AR2007080900417.html?hpid=topnews

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Crisis Of Conscience

We in the Black community are at a crossroads. We are coming to the place where we are becoming irrelevant in America in any meaningful way. What has created this crisis and how did we get here? There are many factors that have led us to this place. Slavery, racism, complacency, institutionalized inferiority, self-hate, moral degradation, personal irresponsibility, are all contributing factors and I’m sure you can name more. For too long we have been looking backwards and not forwards. We have been too preoccupied with the past thanks to our so-called leaders and not the future. We have had a failure of leadership at the highest levels. Those who have been placed in positions of leadership should look at the state of affairs in Black America and feel ashamed, I know I would. Instead of positioning us to move forward through education, self-sacrifice, and hard work they have promised us a panacea of worthless dreams. However, for themselves and their families they have created a future full of promise. There are those who have achieved their modicum of success on the backs of their brothers and sisters.

Though we have more Black people with money than ever before, we are worst off as a people than we have ever been in our history. Why has achievement as a people eluded us even though we have more material wealth? There is a disconnection between those that have achieved material success and the average Black person on the street. There is a growing gap between those that have and the have-nots. The rising tide has not raised all boats.

While we spend tremendous amounts of time and energy annihilating the outsiders who dare to use the same words we use to describe ourselves and yet we do nothing against those in our community that dispense the vile vermin that poisons our minds and the minds of our children. Where are the protest marches outside of Sean Combs studio or any number of other hip-hop artists that poison the air waves with violence, sexism, and the worst attributes of our communities? We have no trouble picketing CBS over Don Imus, yet where is the outrage for those who we really should fear? Who should we be more afraid of a few washed up white media personalities that most of our children have never heard of or those who invade our homes and our air waves everyday with all manner of mental pollution?

There will be those who speak about artistic expression and the “language of the street”, but those arguments hold no weight. There is more going on in our communities than the “thug life” that these so called Black artists are portraying. When has our community been about nothing, but drug dealing, dope smoking, and killing other Black men? These so called Black men are more responsible for other young Black men being killed than any racist white men. The Klan no longer have anything to do, we are finishing the job ourselves. These men who profit from the misery of their brothers and sisters are worse than any racist. At least with an outsider you can see it coming, but these people they are doing from the inside what no outsider could do. It is a known fact that what you listen to is what you become. This isn’t about some musical expression; this is about the intentional internal genocide for the sake of fortune and fame. Is everyone in the Black community selling drugs, smoking dope, and killing? When did this become our only story? This is not my story. Is it yours?

Why have we allowed this “gang and prison mentality” to become our story? Why have we abdicated the responsibility of raising our children to these clowns? If these were whites saying these things there would be full scale riots, but because they are Black there is silence. It is this silence that is killing us. It is not just killing us physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well. We have allowed this to continue for too long. There should have been an outcry at the very beginning, yet we allowed this genre to define who we were and what we believed. We should all be ashamed. We may have lost a whole generation of children because of our inaction and complacency.

Instead of extolling the values of education and hard work we have allowed them to believe that if they live this thug life they can be successful. I work in the community and all the time I talk to young men and I ask them why they won’t take a starting job. They tell me that they should be earning 15.00 an hour, I ask what skills they possess worthy of earning this money and they say none or I can rap. They spend hours and hours listening to these lyrics, teaching them that education is for sell-outs and that women are just to be used and disposed of like yesterdays garbage. I remember when I was young there was a movie called, “Superfly” and it depicted the life of a drug dealer/pimp. To this day it still amazes me the number of people that tried to make this movie reality. You had men changing their hair to match the actor’s hair and the whole nine. This was just a two hour movie; imagine what listening to this garbage hour after hour is doing to the psyche of our children. You would think that the only things happening in our communities are these things depicted in these songs and videos. There is a concept known as “self-fulfilling prophesy” and it is a prediction that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true.

“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come 'true' This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.^”[1]

What we are witnessing is the fulfillment of this in our communities, these thugs would have you to believe that our neighborhoods are as they describe and our children in an effort to imitate these thugs bring about the very environment these thugs rap about and then they say, “See this is what is happening in my neighborhood.” Anyone who disagrees with their scenario is labeled a sell-out or out of touch with reality. I submit that these thugs are out of touch with reality. They will never define me with their stereotypical clown roles for the Black man. Their perception is not my reality and it never will be.

We have a rich heritage in the Black community of overcoming all types of obstacles, both internal and external. It is time we rid ourselves of this cancer, before it is too late and we lose another generation of Black kids.

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[1] Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, 1968, p. 477, ISBN 0-02-921130-1.

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“If you knew that happened, would you stay here?”

(This is a follow up to “The Silence is Killing Us”

What I am about to write about has got to be one of the most horrific crimes I have ever heard about and as I was reading it I couldn’t believe it. What this crime says about us as people is startling and damning. How could we have let places in this country get this bad? This neglect of the poor has to stop; this silence to criminals must end.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., July 16 — The single mothers and children who fill most of the apartments at Dunbar Village — a housing project on the poor, black, north side of this city — are used to nightly gunfire. They are used to theft, assault, murder and the indifference of federal and local authorities.

But nothing could have prepared them for the awfulness of the attack that took place last month, which the local prosecutor called “the worst crime I’ve seen in 37 years in the business.

After dark on June 18, the police say, as many as 10 armed assailants repeatedly raped a Haitian immigrant in her apartment at Dunbar Village and then went further, forcing her to perform oral sex on her 12-year-old son. They took cellphone pictures of their acts. They burned the woman’s skin and the boy’s eyes with cleaning fluid, forced them to lie naked together in the bathtub, hit them with a broom and a gun and threatened to set them on fire.

Neighbors did not respond to her screams, and no one called the police. The victims ended up walking a mile to the nearest hospital afterward.[1]

Being poor is no excuse for this to happen to you. This should be an outrage to all Americans who value decency. There is so much blame in this story; I don’t know where to start. Should I start with a system that raises teenagers this merciless and depraved, or should I start with the neglect of the city officials elected to serve and protect that turn a blind eye to this neighborhood, or should I start with the neighbors who sit there for three hours listening to this woman and her child screaming and did nothing?

There have been 3 arrests made in this case and they range in age from 14 to 16, these are kids. Where do they get this level of cruelty? It would be just a sad commentary if it was an isolated incident, but these types of crimes are becoming all too common place in our communities. As more and more of these kids gain access to guns, drugs, and “gangsterism” these crimes have escalated. They are happening in all of our Black communities, the value of life in the hood has never been cheaper. It is as though respect for life is missing from a large proportion the current generations. Many of these little thugs and hooligans believe that their drug money and thug lifestyle gives them carte blanche in our neighborhoods and the more we fear them the stronger they become. They rely on silence and fear to perpetrate these atrocities. If this type of behavior was being documented anywhere else in the world, there would be outrage. Yet these types of crimes are committed with impunity against our women and children. Where are our men?

The next obvious question is where are the city officials elected to protect all of its citizens. How the mayor of this city is able to sleep is beyond me, but not just this mayor but a lot of other ones. Have our city officials taken the stance that we should just let the poor, black people kill themselves, so long as it doesn’t spill over into the suburbs. The whole government of this city has let this women and her child down. There is obviously an attitude in this city that contacting the authorities is a waste of time and if this is in fact true then anarchy is not far away. There is a growing belief in many communities that the police will not protect and the DA’s will not convict so what’s the use. Many are living in fear that they will be hung out to dry if they come forward. It is as though the police have conceded parts of our cities to these thugs and that the residents of these neighborhoods are on their own against these gangs. The police chief of this city should resign in disgrace or be fired for allowing this attitude to take place. There is a crisis situation in our neighborhoods that require more than our current political leaders and police officials are doing. This is racism at its worse. You won’t protect the citizenry against these gangs, but you also don’t allow the citizenry to protect themselves.

And finally for the residents that did nothing, you deserve the biggest condemnation. These residents listened to this woman and her son scream for three hours and did nothing. Noone even bothered to call the police while this atrocity was taking place. This isn’t some war torn village this is a city in the richest country in the world and in one of the richest places in that country. What breaks my heart is that these residents have to be so detached from the violence around them that they could witness this attack, not respond and can face themselves in the mirror. Are they so jaded by the lack of concern of others that the screams of a mother and a child go unheeded? What does that say about us as a nation? As a community?

Outside another unit, Calvin Jones, 71, said he would leave with his 13-year-old granddaughter this weekend. They came to Dunbar Village from Gulfport, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Jones said, and now they were going back — though with no home.

“If you knew that happened,” he asked, “would you stay here?”[2]

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/us/19palm.html

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/us/19palm.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

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Back in Da Hood

A federal grand jury in Richmond indicted Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and three other men yesterday on charges related to their alleged operation of a dogfighting ring based at a property Vick owns in southeastern Virginia.

Vick, one of the NFL's most exciting players, was charged with competitive dogfighting and conducting the venture across state lines. The 19-page indictment alleged Vick was highly involved in the operation, alleging that he attended fights and paid off bets when his dogs lost. It said he also was involved in the executions of dogs that did not perform well.[1]

Many people will wonder how a man under contract to make 130 million dollars, not to mention millions more in endorsements, could be involved in something so cruel as what has been alleged in this case? A man who arguably is one of the best athletes in the NFL and a public icon in Atlanta is being indicted for such a heinous crime. Why is it that so many Black superstars continue to find themselves on the front pages accused of criminal activity, some of it imitating “gangster” behavior publically? Are Black stars different from White stars?

In order to get a better understanding of what is taking place; one must look into the history of many of these stars. It is in looking at their backgrounds that their behavior begins to not seem as bizarre as we would like to think. Many of us cannot understand how men who are making ungodly amounts of money are willing to throw it all away to ride around carrying guns, smoking pot, and assaulting women. Let me start by saying that the majority of athletes both Black and White are not criminals. Because we live in a celebrity driven society the media will continue to highlight the ones that they consider newsworthy. This may not be fair, but everyone who signs on for their 15 minutes are aware of the rules and consents to them. You can’t accept the money and the perks from having celebrity status, but then whine when they use it to sell newspapers, because you got caught doing something stupid. It may be something that Joe Sixpack may do all day long and nobody says anything, but that’s because he is not considered newsworthy. Again, it isn’t fair but its how the game is played.

Having read a number of articles concerning this particular case and others that are similar in recent weeks, I can’t help but notice that there are those who will defend a Black man no matter what he is accused of, convicted of, or confessed to doing. I understand the desire to do so, but at the same time it is this blind race defending that cheapens the times when there really is racial outrage. It is not a secret that Black stars are targeted by the media, law enforcement, and an angry white public. There are those who would like nothing better than to see the frailties of Black men and women exposed and make it stereotypical of all Blacks. Again it doesn’t make it right, it just makes it real. Every Black person in America is aware of these harsh facts at an early age and lives their lives accordingly. Having said that, it would be foolish of me to acknowledge that I am being profiled and still continue to do stupid behavior. When I smoked pot, if the police were behind me I wouldn’t pull out a joint and light it. I don’t care how many white boys were driving down the street doing it, I knew better.

We should stop confusing how things should be, with how things are. Sure in a perfect world we would all be judged equally and based on our character and not our color, but we don’t live in that world. We should be able to condemn the behavior of criminals and deviants no matter what their race. Why does it have to be an either/or scenario. Why can‘t we be able to acknowledge that there is prejudice and that we have some criminals worthy of punishment.

Black stars are different from many of their white counterparts. Most black stars come from poor, single mother households. This is not an indictment against being poor or single mothers, it is merely a fact. They grow up in bad neighborhoods and are surrounded by the “ghetto” lifestyle, these are there realities. Poor people live by different rules. The things that people value changes as their economic status changes, but the rules are much harder to change. Because so many of the Black stars grew up poor and most were not just in situational poverty, but generational poverty the rules they live by are still the same no matter what their economic circumstances. The difference in situational poverty and generational poverty is that when one has situational poverty, it occurs due to some unforeseen circumstance, a medical catastrophe or a layoff. The family was making ends meet until the incident occurred and usually given a change in economic circumstances the family regains some semblance of their previous life. Generational poverty is when the family has been poor for multiple generations; this occurs a lot with single teenage mothers, coming from single teenage mothers. My grandmother lived in the projects, my mother lived in the projects, and I live in the projects. For these stars, no matter how much success they receive or how much money they make, in their minds they are always “back in da hood”, keeping it real. This is why they exhibit the same behavior as others who are still living in the ghetto. You have stars that are making lots of money, dealing drugs, not because they need the money but because this is what we do in the hood.

You add to this poverty mix, the star worship culture that we surround them with and before long they think they can do no wrong. Having been a part of the athlete worship environment I know firsthand how we coddle our star athletes from a very early age, we give them a false sense of the world. They can begin to believe that they are above the law. This attitude is dangerous for any black man no matter what his status is.

I have read that because of white people’s unhealthy love of animals and animal rights that Michael Vick is being unfairly treated. I admit that the calls for the death penalty are a bit ridiculous. I am not an animal fanatic. I have had dogs and I like dogs, but I don’t put animals in the same category as people. As much as sometimes I despise people, I will unfortunately always chose a human life over an animal. What Michael Vick is accused of is heinous. I have never found pleasure in watching animals fighting each other, it just isn’t my thing. But what troubles me more is the treatment of the animals after they fought or during the training process. It is cruel to hang, drown, or beat a dog to death, I’m sorry regardless of your feelings about animals and animal rights this is a no-brainer. I pray that these accusations are false, but if they prove to be true then Mr. Vick will surely be thrown to the dogs…

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701393.html

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