A cycle is an entity that goes around and around infinitely never breaking its loop. An expanding cycle is one that grows larger as it loops, such as a snowball rolling down a hill. The Black single-parent dilemma has become a never-ending expanding cycle due to a few reasons deliberately unconnected by current research. However, Afromerica will connect these reasons thus giving a more realistic reason why Black single-parent families are expanding.

According to recent U.S Census Bureau reports, "Single parents accounted for almost two-thirds (65 percent) of all African American family groups with children present, compared with 35 percent among Hispanics and 25 percent among Whites."

The main reasons given for the rise in Black single-parent families, according to some scientific research by Mark Fossett and Jill Kiecolt, "higher welfare benefits lead to lower rates of marriage and greater numbers of children living in single-parent homes. In general, an increase of roughly $100 in the average monthly AFDC benefit per recipient child was found to lead to a drop of more than 15 percent in births within wedlock among black women ages 20 to 24."

In essence, researchers would have people believe that the increase in single-parent families is mainly due to Black's role on welfare. This finding may be legitimate to an extent when pertaining to welfare, but there are other reasons not measured nor reported by researchers that give rise to Black single-parent families. The reason researchers do not reveal those findings is because it would reflect on the country's practice of racial discrimination.

Some other factors researchers use to justify the increase: "Research by former Congressional Budget Office Director June O'Neill shows that, holding constant a wide range of other variables such as income, parental education, and urban and neighborhood setting, a 50 percent increase in the monthly value of welfare benefits leads to a 43 percent increase in out-of-wedlock births." (Heritage Foundation, 2002). Though taking into consideration income, parental education, and living arrangements, the report still holds that welfare is the central factor.

However, let us look at factors gone unreported, such as the decrease of available Black men (and that reason), the decline of marriage in conventional society in every race, and the actual result of the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996" passed by Congress and President Clinton.

First, the absence of Black men in society would be one logical reason why 3.2 million Black women head single-parent families in the U.S. The question "Where are all the good Black men" is echoed throughout urban and suburban communities around the country and the most ordinary answer is always "In jail."

For every 100 Black prisoners there is one Black male college graduate, and the numbers in that area is rising also. More Black men are being locked up for non-violent, drug related crimes than are being educated. Of course, research behind this factor would presumptuously point to some phenomena of Black male resistance to conventional society other than to any other obvious factor, such as judicial and cultural racism.

Next, the decline of marriage values in society inevitably affects everyone, not just Black women. There are currently 11 million single-parent families in the U.S. Because about two and a half million people divorce each year, stable marriages have decrease tremendously since 1970. This leaves all people vulnerable to dysfunctional family life.

The introduction of birth control and abortion during the late 60s and 70s contributed greatly to the decline of marriage and family values. And over the last two decades, free sexual expression has demeaned personal responsibility inviting many other factors that lead to dysfunctional families. Thus, welfare cannot logically be the central reason of the rise in Black single-parent families because the social breakdown of the American family in general far outweighs the welfare factor as pertaining to cause and effect.

In fact, if researchers claim that welfare is the central factor in Black single-parent families, then they must ask themselves whether or not Blacks have been partitioned from the general American society as a deliberate act of welfare or if they themselves are not being racially biased. In other words, if the rise in Black single-parent families is mainly because of welfare then why is not the rise in single-parent families as a whole not contributed to welfare? The fact is that social morality is the major cause of single-parent families. But as pertaining to Blacks, researchers would rather attribute welfare as the reason for Blacks simply to undermine Blacks.

For instance, in another report on illegitimacy and single-parenting (as a whole in America) researchers claimed "The collapse of marriage is the principal cause of child poverty in the United States. Virtually all social and psychological problems are intensified by the absence of a father in the home."

What this says is that while the researchers will attribute illegitimacy and single parenting in America as a whole to "the collapse of marriage", it attributes illegitimacy and single parenting among Blacks to welfare, confirming the earlier fact that Blacks have been partitioned from conventional society based on nothing more than subtle bigotry. Furthermore, if fatherhood is essential in raising a healthy child, how can Black men be expected to raise their children if they are behind bars?

Finally, we will totally dissect the theory of Congress' and Clinton's "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996" and how many claim that it did wonders for the Black community in terms of getting them off welfare and into the workforce. The truth is, this act did more damage than good.

Many young Black women were pushed into the workforce but many lacked education and skills to compete for any decent jobs. Among the other millions of white women who were also kicked off welfare, employers were more apt to hired from the white women than the Black ones. Thus many Black women were caught in low-wage positions buried in urban cities while white women were enjoying suburban jobs paying more money from employers who offered more benefits.

When Black women saw that working and raising a child was harder than they anticipated, especially from the wages of six and $7 an hour, they had to compromise many areas of their daily lives to make ends meet. In addition, the shortage of Black men in urban areas and the low achievements of urban schools added more pressure to their already escalating dilemma.

Though many sought other alternatives, such as job training, education through community college, and the government programs that offered welfare to work assistance, others faced more stringent problems and turn to less productive means of survival such as drugs and crime. Thus causing the increase of Black women in U.S. jails and the rise of Black children living with grandparents and in foster care.

Measuring the successful ones against those that failed, the data is not positive in an overall since, but a negative one. Though at one time many Black (and white) women sat idol on welfare, the prison and single parent family stats were lower, there was a trade off for just the opposite. As far as gains, tax-payers may have seen a decrease in government spending for welfare but as a result saw an increase in the funding of more jails and prison inmates. Thus the trade-off gained nothing but shifted to another sector of social ruin.

Now there are more Black men and Black women in prison than ever before and the rise of single parent Black families continues. As long as Black women move from welfare to work and employers only offer them menial wages as compared to white women, they will face this dilemma for a long time, thus the cycle expands.

The only remedy for breaking the cycle would be to seriously investigate the judicial system and for whites to honestly report on their own racial prejudices. If Black men were more available and employers abandoned the "group threat" theory of "taking care of our own," the cycle of Black single-parent families could be broken and defeated. But how often does American society actually change its ways?

© 2003 by CR Hamilton