Obviously, not every instance of social pathology afflicting the Negro community can be traced to the weakness of family structure. If, for example, organized crime in the Negro community were not largely controlled by whites, there would be more capital accumulation among Negroes, and therefore probably more Negro business enterprises. If it were not for the hostility and fear many whites exhibit toward Negroes, they in turn would be less afflicted by hostility and fear and so on.

There is no one Negro community. There is no one Negro problem. There is no one solution. Nonetheless, at the center of the tangle of pathology is the weakness of the family structure. Once or twice removed, it will be found to be the principal source of most of the aberrant, inadequate, or antisocial behavior that did not establish, but now serves to perpetuate the cycle of poverty and deprivation.

It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white America broke the will of the Negro people. Although that will has reasserted itself in our time, it is a resurgence doomed to frustration unless the viability of the Negro family is restored.

The Failure of Youth

Williams' account of Negro youth growing up with little knowledge of their fathers, less of their fathers' occupations, still less of family occupational traditions, is in sharp contrast to the experience of the white child. The white family, despite many variants, remains a powerful agency not only for transmitting property from one generation to the next, but also for transmitting no less valuable contracts with the world of education and work.

In an earlier age, the Carpenters, Wainwrights, Weavers, Mercers, Farmers, Smiths acquired their names as well as their trades from their fathers and grandfathers. Children today still learn the patterns of work from their fathers even though they may no longer go into the same jobs. White children without fathers at least perceive all about them the pattern of men working.

Negro children without fathers flounder -- and fail.

Not always, to be sure. The Negro community produces its share, very possibly more than its share, of young people who have the something extra that carries them over the worst obstacles. But such persons are always a minority. The common run of young people in a group facing serious obstacles to success do not succeed.

A prime index of the disadvantage of Negro youth in the United States is their consistently poor performance on the mental tests that are a standard means of measuring ability and performance in the present generation.

There is absolutely no question of any genetic differential: Intelligence potential is distributed among Negro infants in the same proportion as among Icelanders or Chinese or any other group. American society, however, impairs the Negro potential. The statement of the HARYOU report that "there is no basic disagreement over the fact that central Harlem students are performing poorly in school" may be taken as true of Negro slum children throughout the United States.

Eighth grade children in central Harlem have a median IQ of 87.7, which means that perhaps a third of the children are scoring at levels perilously near to those of retardation. IQ declines in the first decade of life, rising only slightly thereafter.

The effect of broken families on the performance of Negro youth has not been extensively measured, but studies that have been made show an unmistakable influence.

Martin Deutch and Bert Brown, investigating intelligence test differences between Negro and white 1st and 5th graders of different social classes, found that there is a direct relationship between social class and IQ. As the one rises so does the other: but more for whites than Negroes. This is surely a result of housing segregation, referred to earlier, which makes it difficult for middle-class Negro families to escape the slums.

The authors explain that "it is much more difficult for the Negro to attain identical middle- or upper-middle-class status with whites, and the social class gradations are less marked for Negroes because Negro life in a caste society is considerably more homogeneous than is life for the majority group."

Therefore, the authors look for background variables other than social class, which might explain the difference: "One of the most striking differences between the Negro and white groups is the consistently higher frequency of broken homes and resulting family disorganization in the Negro group."

What then is that problem? We feel the answer is clear enough. Three centuries of injustice have brought about deep-seated structural distortions in the life of the Negro American. At this point, the present tangle of pathology is capable of perpetuating itself without assistance from the white world. The cycle can be broken only if these distortions are set right.

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. E. Franklin Frazier put it most succinctly in 1950:

"As the result of family disorganization a large proportion of Negro children and youth have not undergone the socialization which only the family can provide. The disorganized families have failed to provide for their emotional needs and have not provided the discipline and habits, which are necessary for personality development. Because the disorganized family has failed in its function as a socializing agency, it has handicapped the children in their relations to the institutions in the community.

Moreover, family disorganization has been partially responsible for a large amount of juvenile delinquency and adult crime among Negroes. Since the widespread family disorganization among Negroes has resulted from the failure of the father to play the role in family life required by American society, the mitigation of this problem must await those changes in the Negro and American society which will enable the Negro father to play the role required of him."

E. Franklin Frazier, "Problems and Needs of Negro Children and Youth Resulting from Family Disorganization," Journal of Negro Education, Summer 1960, pp. 276-277.

Afro Interpretation

Since this study, the problems of the Black family have escalated from a warning to a reality, i.e. we have reaped what white America has sown for the Black family. Because the initial problem was never addressed seriously from a social-political perspective, the worst of the situation has set-in.

Society has succeeded in keeping the Black father separate from his family. They have done this by refusing the Black male social and economic equality in the work force thus lessening his parental and fatherly role in the family. They have instead; given much more economic opportunity to white males and the Black female who now reins supreme in Black headed households in the country.

The plan has worked. We now have more female single-headed households in the country as a race. More Black children are fatherless and more Black men are unemployed than any other race in the country (percentage of race being equal) and they also make up the majority of the prison population.

Who has implemented a solution to all of this? Not the government, not Black leaders, per suggestion from this study. They could care less then as they do now about the status of the Black male and his family. Many people suggest that Black men make an effort to improve the situation himself, which would fulfill the American stigma of personal responsibility, however, the nation remains on a racial stigma that perpetuates the stench of injustice and political preference, especially against the Black male.

The solution to this cannot come from Black leadership alone or from a government program as suggested by Moynihan. But it must spring from the natural logic of a prejudice-free society. It must come from minds of people who do not see color and who possess the reasoning of a righteous human being and not one of preferential camaraderie.

Once the old-head racist cohort die out in this country and a new and more humanitarian culture comes to age, only then will Black America and America itself heal itself from the ugly wounds of racial discrimination and prejudice. Until then, all Black men and women must realize that the gavel has been dropped and the Black man sentenced to a life of injustice and the Black family to a life of disintegration. We must build from this knowledge.

Source from: http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm

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