Another Reminder of the History of the Government’s Societal “Help”

Many of you may already know about the devastation of the black community that occurred in the  wake of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.  The excerpt below is just another reminder with a slightly different take, although its focus is not that of the Civil Rights Movement.  This is taken from Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell [Encounter Books – San Francisco; 2005]

“Nowhere was the effect of the white liberalism of the 1960s on the social evolution of black culture more devastating than in the disintegration of the black family.  The raw facts are these: As of 1960, 51 percent of black females between the ages of 15 and 44 were married and living with their husbands, another 20 percent were divorced, widowed, or separated, and only 28 percent had never been married.  Twenty years later, only 31 percent of black women in these age brackets were married and living with their husbands, while 48 percent had never married.  by 1994, an absolute majority–56 percent–of black women in these age brackets were never married and only 25 percent were married and living with their husbands.  Accordingly, while two-thirds of black children were living with both parents in 1960, only one-third were by 1994.  While only 22 percent of black children were born to unmarried women in 1960, 70 percent were by 1994.

White liberals, instead of comparing what has happened to the black family since the liberal welfare state policies of the 1960s were put into practice, compare black families to white families and conclude that the higher rates of broken homes and unwed motherhood among blacks are due to ‘a legacy of slavery’.  But why the large-scale disintegration of the black family should have begun a hundred years after slavery is left unexplained.  Whatever the situation of the black family relative to the white family, in the past or present, it is clear that broken homes were far more common among blacks at the end of the twentieth century than they were in the middle of that century or at the beginning of that century–even though blacks a the beginning of the twentieth century were just one generation out of slavery.  The widespread and casual abandonment of their children, and of the women who bore them, by black fathers in the ghettos of the late twentieth century was in fact a painfully ironic contrast with what had happened in the immediate aftermath of slavery a hundred years earlier, when observers in the South reported desperate efforts of freed blacks to find family members who had been separated from them during the era of slavery.  A contemporary journalist reported meeting black men walking along the roads of Virgina and North Carolina, many of whom had walked across the state–or across more than one state–looking for their families.  Others reported similar strenuous and even desperate efforts of newly freed blacks to find members of their families.” (pgs. 34-35)

These were the roots of something that is still vastly plaguing this group of people in our country.  However, to a smaller degree, this is also devastating the “redneck” and “cracker” communities [please read chapter for contextual understanding].  Basically, it’s causing major problems in groups of lower social-economic status.  May the Children of God not continue to turn an eye to this issue.  Instead, may we stand in the gap through prayer–praying for forgiveness for the decisions of our government and for reconciliation of families [no matter the race of these families!].  Let us always remember how important family is in the eyes of God and that any direct violent attack against family (especially to the point of disintegration of families on a large social scale of specific people groups) is a direct attack against the will and character of God.