This isn't rocket science... Put simply, the root of the problems today in black communities stem from the breakdown in the family unit and nothing to do with civil rights legislation.
Gangs, wide spread drug use, much of the poverty and dropping out or under achieving in school can all be traced back to children growing up without a father in single parent households. When you only have one adult to provide for a family, rather than two, that explains much of the poverty... And when that one adult (most often the mother) has to work full time you have children who are unguided and unsupervised, which leads to things like drug use, gangs and a lack of interest in school. To make matters worse, welfare and entitlements are a permanent way of life for many of these families, so many children in the black community grow up learning how to be dependent, rather than independent.
Just look at the statistics... 70% of black children are born out of wedlock, nearly triple what it was in 1964. 85% of all black children in poverty live in single-parent homes with their mother. A single black mother makes on 36% of what a black family with both a mother and father make. Black children in single-parent households are four times as likely as children from 2 parent families to be abused or neglected, more likely to have trouble academically, twice as prone to drop out of school, three times more likely to have behavioral problems, much more likely to experience emotional disorders, two-and-a-half times likelier to be sexually active as teens, nearly twice as likely to conceive children out-of-wedlock as teens or young adults, and three times likelier to be on welfare when they reach adulthood.
Social welfare is the main contributor to the breakdown of the Black family unit. Before the welfare system was established in the 60's, a man couldn't abandoned his wife and children because they would likely end up on the streets, homeless and hungry. A man's family was his, and only his responsibility, so leaving was very seldom ever an option. The welfare system gave men the freedom to abandon their families without consequence, because they knew the government would step in and take care of their wife and their children, providing them with food, shelter and medical care. It has also been the driving force behind so many mothers giving birth out of wedlock, because just as the men, the women know that the government is their to provide for them, so neither a husband or financial stability is given much consideration at all.
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