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“As late as 1950, only 18% of black households were single parent. From 1890 to 1940, a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults. In 1938, black illegitimacy was about 11% instead of today’s 75%. In 1925, 85% of black households in New York City were two-parent. Today, the black family is a mere shadow of its past.”
-Walter Williams
Walter Williams, How Important Is Today’s Racial Discrimination?, Aug 14, 2019, Walter E. Williams /2019/08/14/how-important-is-todays-racial-discrimination-n2551543
This is a favorite claim used by "Republicans" to dismiss the impact of racism on blacks today. There is only one problem:
In 1939, during this time of great black two-parent families, the poverty rate for employed married black couples was 89 percent. In 1959, the poverty rate for that same couple was 54.9 percent.
Ross, C., Danziger, S. & Smolensky, E. The level and trend of poverty in the United States, 1939–1979. Demography 24, pg.596 (1987)
U.S. Department of the Census, Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1959 to 2014, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/incomepoverty/historical-poverty-people.html
These sky-high rates of poverty occurred during the time “conservatives” rant about. Today due to the “ liberal welfare state breaking up the black family by giving them welfare,” black poverty is half of what it was in 1959 and less than one-third of what it was in those imaginary grand old glorious days of the two-parent black family. Again, the unwed single mom and absent black father are not the cause of problems in black communities.
Here is another example.
On March 7, 2018, a black journalist named Jason Riley wrote an op-ed that was printed in The Wall Street Journal titled, “50 Years of Blaming Everything on Racism.” No better example of internalized racism exists than what Riley wrote in this article. He claimed that the findings of the Kerner Commission absolved blacks of personal responsibility because they cited white racism as the problem for blacks in 1968 while ignoring the progress that had taken place.
“The Kerner report’s most famous assertion was that the U.S. was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal,” even though the decades leading up to the riots had suggested the opposite. The Truman administration’s desegregation of the armed forces in the 1940s was followed by Martin Luther King Jr.’s successful civil-rights movement of the 1950s and the passage of landmark civil-rights and voting-rights legislation in the 1960s. The educational and economic strides blacks made during this period were also unprecedented, and racial disparities were narrowing.”
Jason Riley was born in 1971. I do not want to discredit his research as the basis for disagreement because my writing is based on research. My dispute stems from what I saw in 1968. I was a kid at that time and can say that whatever improvements Riley claims occurred during this era are imaginary. The Kerner Commission Report was released on February 26, 1968. Martin Luther King was killed on April 4, 1968, one month and six days after the report was released.
“In 1960, just 7% of blacks between 20 and 24 were enrolled in college; by 1970, that percentage had more than doubled, to 16%. College enrollment among whites also rose during this period, but not by as much. These educational gains allowed more blacks to lift themselves out of poverty and access better-paying jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, the proportion of families living below the poverty line fell by 40 percentage points among whites and by 57 points among blacks. White-black gaps in homeownership, life expectancy, and white-collar employment also were shrinking in the postwar era, contrary to the pessimism of the Kerner Commission.”
What Riley wrote was misleading. Riley shows that the percentage of blacks between twenty and twenty-four who enrolled in 1960 and 1970 doubled, while white enrollment did not. While this is accurate, Riley leaves out the percentage of whites who enrolled. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, non-Hispanic white college enrollment increased from 45.8 percent in 1960 to 52 percent in 1970.
Riley argues that since black poverty dropped more than white poverty, the Kerner Commission was wrong, and racism was not the problem. He paints a pretty picture of a 57-point drop in black family poverty, and in his view, since whites had a 40-point drop, the Kerner Commission findings were somehow wrong in their conclusion. He doesn’t say that in 1970 all those significant improvements reduced black family poverty to 32.2 percent, while poverty for white families was 8.1 percent.
These are inaccurate comments used here by people in debates. At best these are half-truths and those half-truths are used to continue denying the continuing racism in America.
Jason Riley, “50 Years of Blaming Everything on Racism”, The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/50- years-of-blaming-everything-on-racism-1520381047 8. Ibid.
National Center for Education Statistics, Table 181. College enrollment and enrollment rates of recent high school completers, by race/ethnicity: 1960 through 2004, College enrollment and enrollment rates of recent high school completers, by race/ethnicity: 1960 through 2004
Ross, C., Danziger, S. & Smolensky, E. The level and trend of poverty in the United States, 1939–1979. Demography 24, 587–600 (1987). The level and trend of poverty in the United States, 1939–1979 | Demography | Duke University Press
Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1959 to 2014, US Department of the Census, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html
-Walter Williams
Walter Williams, How Important Is Today’s Racial Discrimination?, Aug 14, 2019, Walter E. Williams /2019/08/14/how-important-is-todays-racial-discrimination-n2551543
This is a favorite claim used by "Republicans" to dismiss the impact of racism on blacks today. There is only one problem:
In 1939, during this time of great black two-parent families, the poverty rate for employed married black couples was 89 percent. In 1959, the poverty rate for that same couple was 54.9 percent.
Ross, C., Danziger, S. & Smolensky, E. The level and trend of poverty in the United States, 1939–1979. Demography 24, pg.596 (1987)
U.S. Department of the Census, Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1959 to 2014, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/incomepoverty/historical-poverty-people.html
These sky-high rates of poverty occurred during the time “conservatives” rant about. Today due to the “ liberal welfare state breaking up the black family by giving them welfare,” black poverty is half of what it was in 1959 and less than one-third of what it was in those imaginary grand old glorious days of the two-parent black family. Again, the unwed single mom and absent black father are not the cause of problems in black communities.
Here is another example.
On March 7, 2018, a black journalist named Jason Riley wrote an op-ed that was printed in The Wall Street Journal titled, “50 Years of Blaming Everything on Racism.” No better example of internalized racism exists than what Riley wrote in this article. He claimed that the findings of the Kerner Commission absolved blacks of personal responsibility because they cited white racism as the problem for blacks in 1968 while ignoring the progress that had taken place.
“The Kerner report’s most famous assertion was that the U.S. was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal,” even though the decades leading up to the riots had suggested the opposite. The Truman administration’s desegregation of the armed forces in the 1940s was followed by Martin Luther King Jr.’s successful civil-rights movement of the 1950s and the passage of landmark civil-rights and voting-rights legislation in the 1960s. The educational and economic strides blacks made during this period were also unprecedented, and racial disparities were narrowing.”
Jason Riley was born in 1971. I do not want to discredit his research as the basis for disagreement because my writing is based on research. My dispute stems from what I saw in 1968. I was a kid at that time and can say that whatever improvements Riley claims occurred during this era are imaginary. The Kerner Commission Report was released on February 26, 1968. Martin Luther King was killed on April 4, 1968, one month and six days after the report was released.
“In 1960, just 7% of blacks between 20 and 24 were enrolled in college; by 1970, that percentage had more than doubled, to 16%. College enrollment among whites also rose during this period, but not by as much. These educational gains allowed more blacks to lift themselves out of poverty and access better-paying jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, the proportion of families living below the poverty line fell by 40 percentage points among whites and by 57 points among blacks. White-black gaps in homeownership, life expectancy, and white-collar employment also were shrinking in the postwar era, contrary to the pessimism of the Kerner Commission.”
What Riley wrote was misleading. Riley shows that the percentage of blacks between twenty and twenty-four who enrolled in 1960 and 1970 doubled, while white enrollment did not. While this is accurate, Riley leaves out the percentage of whites who enrolled. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, non-Hispanic white college enrollment increased from 45.8 percent in 1960 to 52 percent in 1970.
Riley argues that since black poverty dropped more than white poverty, the Kerner Commission was wrong, and racism was not the problem. He paints a pretty picture of a 57-point drop in black family poverty, and in his view, since whites had a 40-point drop, the Kerner Commission findings were somehow wrong in their conclusion. He doesn’t say that in 1970 all those significant improvements reduced black family poverty to 32.2 percent, while poverty for white families was 8.1 percent.
These are inaccurate comments used here by people in debates. At best these are half-truths and those half-truths are used to continue denying the continuing racism in America.
Jason Riley, “50 Years of Blaming Everything on Racism”, The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/50- years-of-blaming-everything-on-racism-1520381047 8. Ibid.
National Center for Education Statistics, Table 181. College enrollment and enrollment rates of recent high school completers, by race/ethnicity: 1960 through 2004, College enrollment and enrollment rates of recent high school completers, by race/ethnicity: 1960 through 2004
Ross, C., Danziger, S. & Smolensky, E. The level and trend of poverty in the United States, 1939–1979. Demography 24, 587–600 (1987). The level and trend of poverty in the United States, 1939–1979 | Demography | Duke University Press
Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1959 to 2014, US Department of the Census, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html
