The below show that black absent fathers are more percentile wise than white absent fathers. Of course, there are numerous reasons for that. Some are not the individual fault but some are the individual fault. The point I raise is not the cause but the truth and the effect and that both the cause and effect should be acknowledged and addressed by both the black and white communities by looking both internally and externally.
Link to Census 2019 percentage data is given later.
According to Census 2019 percentage data (page 5 figure 2a): 37.7% of black children lived within a married couple household whereas 71.3% is the amount for white children.
According to page 6 figure 2b, 4.5% of black children lived within an unmarried couple household and 4.2% of white children so lived.
According to page 8 figure 3 45.7 % of black children lived with mother without father and 14.0 % of white children so lived. It says 5.1 % of black children lived with father without mother and 4.5 % of white children so lived.
The report says the total black children without mother or father was 50.8% and 18.5% of white children so lived.
Census Bureau Data On Children Living Arrangements
According to the NAACP Black Progress Index at the link below, the percentage of Black Children not living with father is given as 55.4%. I did not see a date on the report page but the analysis report at the link at the bottom of the page is dated 2022 so I assume the data is 2022.
So then census 50.8% approximates the NAACP 55.5% given that statistics are never exact but gives some idea of what is probably going on. Also there is a three year difference and data change from year to year up or down.
The Black community is the community way behind in the wealth gap and the disparity in father-mother-child household is a large contributor to the wealth gap.
Statistics show that in general two parents home do way better financially than single parent homes.
Of course, good old fashioned common sense leads to that conclusion as well.
This is something we in the black community especially preachers/churches need to attend to regardless of what the white community does.
Now certainly the absence or presence of father and mother is not the sole determinant of a person’s success or failure relative to others. Yet, statistics show that for most, the presence of both faither and mother in the household increases the probability of success relative to others.
And certainly the morals of whites are not superior to that of blacks. Therefore both spiritual/moral factors, cultural factors, and other societal/institutional factors impact the statistical conditions cited.
Individuals, preachers, deacons, churches, government, nonprofits, for profits, and community we need to find a solution to this problem that affects quality of life in numerous areas of life.
Truth is anyone born my age and later can’t really fault those whites born my age and later for this large wealth gap. The fault certainly largely lies with those whites born before me that created the elements of systemic racism.
Yet, the challenge before us is certainly whether it is reasonable to expect those whites born my age and later to have responsibility for what their ancestors may or may not have done since not all whites born before me participated in systemic racists acts even if they benefitted from them. So then a secondary question is whether we can reasonable hold a person responsible for benefiting from acts of another which he or she had nothing to do with.
Having said that I do hold that every person regardless of race alive today and into the future do have a moral responsibility to help to correct injustices of the past regardless of whether he or she or his or her ancestors participated in or benefited from systemic racism of the past and to ensure that any racism, systemic or otherwise, be rebuked and rooted up now and into the future so long as it does not cause that person or his/her children any direct personal harm. Theoretical or possible debt does not qualify as direct harm as national debt is a norm for this nation for whatever it holds to be important and of value. So I exhort all to hold correction of past systemic racism to be important and of value by valuing black folks enough to make reasonable amends as a nation.
In this I do not speak for nor against reparation as reparations is a concept that I am not sure to be fairly doable at this point in time. It was certainly doable at the time slavery was abolished . Indeed, reparations was started but stopped due to racism. But now things are much more complicated especially given the large scale integration and progress of many blacks in American Society some of which qualify as monetary and non-monetary repair (reparation). For example, many blacks benefited from past affirmative action initiative which effectively gave them opportunity to make much money which many indeed did; in a way that was a kind of reparation.
