Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
What is the reason for this seeming epidemic of black or mixed children growing up without a father?
This article from UCLA Law argues that requiring fathers to pay child support is the cause:
This one argues that it is the welfare system:
Historically, federal and state laws and welfare regulations have created barriers and disincentives for the involvement of fathers in the lives of their children. Federal assistance for the poor often focused on children and custodial parents, elderly persons, and disabled persons. Able-bodied men, including noncustodial fathers, were not eligible for benefits such as public or subsidized housing, Medicare, or food stamps. These policies lead to situations in which fathers were too poor to support their children financially and subsequently too ashamed to maintain contact or involvement with them.
www.uclalawreview.org
Rather than a linear process that ascribes the blame for Black plight to Black fathers, this Comment posits that socially constructed notions of race and stringent welfare-child support laws perpetuate the absent Black father stereotype. This cycle begins with a Black father being absent from the home; he then has child support enforced against him, irrespective of his ability to pay; consequently, the child takes on the identity of being fatherless and the father who cannot pay child support is rendered deadbeat.
This interview argues that it is the child welfare system, i.e. CPS and other family investigation agencies:
time.com
quickly discovered that Black children were grossly over-represented in the system. There was this huge racial disparity, which I then came to see as Black communities being targeted by what I’m now calling “family policing.”
In other words, it’s not just that there are statistical disparities. There are Black communities—especially segregated, impoverished Black neighborhoods—where there is intense concentration of child-welfare-agency involvement, and children are at high risk of being subjected to investigation, to being removed from their homes, to spending a long time in foster care, and for their parents rights to be terminated.
Honestly, I found a hard time reading anything from a reputable source that blamed racism. Yet that seems to be the go-to when the issue is discussed.
What say you?
This article from UCLA Law argues that requiring fathers to pay child support is the cause:
This one argues that it is the welfare system:
Historically, federal and state laws and welfare regulations have created barriers and disincentives for the involvement of fathers in the lives of their children. Federal assistance for the poor often focused on children and custodial parents, elderly persons, and disabled persons. Able-bodied men, including noncustodial fathers, were not eligible for benefits such as public or subsidized housing, Medicare, or food stamps. These policies lead to situations in which fathers were too poor to support their children financially and subsequently too ashamed to maintain contact or involvement with them.

The Absent Black Father: Race, The Welfare-Child Support System, and the Cyclical Nature of Fatherlessness - UCLA Law Review
Through media representations and policymaking, the absent Black father narrative has taken shape over the past fifty years, giving rise to the belief that fatherlessness is a distinctly Black issue. To safeguard against misplaced assumptions, this Comment proposes a new, cyclical model by which...

Rather than a linear process that ascribes the blame for Black plight to Black fathers, this Comment posits that socially constructed notions of race and stringent welfare-child support laws perpetuate the absent Black father stereotype. This cycle begins with a Black father being absent from the home; he then has child support enforced against him, irrespective of his ability to pay; consequently, the child takes on the identity of being fatherless and the father who cannot pay child support is rendered deadbeat.
This interview argues that it is the child welfare system, i.e. CPS and other family investigation agencies:

One in Ten Black Children in America Are Separated From Their Parents by the Child-Welfare System. A New Book Argues That’s No Accident
"By blaming the parents you're diverting attention away from the structural reasons," argues scholar Dorothy Roberts
quickly discovered that Black children were grossly over-represented in the system. There was this huge racial disparity, which I then came to see as Black communities being targeted by what I’m now calling “family policing.”
In other words, it’s not just that there are statistical disparities. There are Black communities—especially segregated, impoverished Black neighborhoods—where there is intense concentration of child-welfare-agency involvement, and children are at high risk of being subjected to investigation, to being removed from their homes, to spending a long time in foster care, and for their parents rights to be terminated.
Honestly, I found a hard time reading anything from a reputable source that blamed racism. Yet that seems to be the go-to when the issue is discussed.
What say you?