Institutional racism - Part II: Statistical proof

When our article ran out of space, we were addressing the issue of Institutional Racism and what that phrase really means. We should all agree that racism is a cancer on a system like the one in America, where we are citizens of varying backgrounds and ethnicities. To maintain the “live and let live society” we all cherish, we cannot have our society be seen as prejudiced in any direction. We must all stand equal before the law.

I was quoting statistics that point out in many of society’s ills it is not race that holds one back but rather poverty. When poor blacks and poor whites are compared, in large part, it is economics and not racism that causes society’s ills. Oh, and the statistics are especially damaging among fatherless poor children.

For example:

“A study of adolescents convicted of homicide in adult court found that at the time of the crimes, 42.9 percent of their parents had never been married, 29.5 percent were divorced, and 8.9 percent were separated. Less than 20 percent of these children were from married parent households.”

From Patrick Darby, Wesley Allan, Javad Kashani, Kenneth Hartke and John Reid, “Analysis of 112 Juveniles Who Committed Homicide: Characteristics and a Closer Look at Family Abuse,” Journal of Family Violence 13 (1998): 365-374.

I could fill this entire article’s 650 words with examples of these statistics. So when we know that broken homes produce broken American citizens, why do Democrats continue to penalize mothers that live with and stay married to the father of their children? Nor can Democrats claim ignorance as to the results of their welfare-fueled disaster on poor blacks and whites. For proof that the trouble the black American family was in was well known, particularly by the Democrat Party, we turn to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, senator from New York. Senator Moynihan is a favorite of mine, for all that he is a Democrat. He is one of only a few politicians I have ever studied that looked at this job as a senator as a responsibility to do all that he could do promote a more just, healthy, and robust society. He studied well known propositions instead of having his staff do so, and he possessed as a result an accurate and caring knowledge of America’s failures and successes. In 1965, he published the Moynihan report. This report was written by him and quoted all the best available evidence at the time.

His report concluded that regardless of any other aid America offered black citizens, every survey and study concluded that without efforts being made and accomplished to strengthen the black family, through fathers in particular, blacks in America would not be able to realize their full potential as first-rate Americans. What follows is his summation from that report:

“In a word, a national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans must be directed towards the question of family structure. The object should be to strengthen the Negro family so as to enable it to raise and support its members as do other families. After that, how this group of Americans chooses to run its affairs, take advantage of its opportunities, or fail to do so, is none of the nation’s business…

“The fundamental importance and urgency of restoring the Negro American Family structure has been evident for some time.

“Such a national effort could be stated thus:

The policy of the United States is to bring the Negro American to full and equal sharing in the responsibilities and rewards of citizenship. To this end, the programs of the Federal government bearing on this objective shall be designed to have the effect, directly or indirectly, of enhancing the stability and resources of the Negro American family.”

The year of this report was 1965. I could not even begin to publish all of his report for lack of space, but the point is clear. Even in 1965, serious people realized the family is the unit of society that makes productive citizens out of its children. But the Democrat welfare policies continue to this very day to reward mothers without husbands much more help when the Moynihan report clearly showed that the opposite needed to occur. So don’t tell me how we came here as an accident. In 1965, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan laid out both the problem and the solution.

Until next week…