The Negro Family: The Case For National Action

[MachineGhost]

This is from March 1965!!!

[quote=http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/histo ... ynihan.htm]The United States is approaching a new crisis in race relations.

In the decade that began with the school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court, and ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the demand of Negro Americans for full recognition of their civil rights was finally met.

The effort, no matter how savage and brutal, of some State and local governments to thwart the exercise of those rights is doomed. The nation will not put up with it — least of all the Negroes. The present moment will pass. In the meantime, a new period is beginning.

In this new period the expectations of the Negro Americans will go beyond civil rights. Being Americans, they will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group will produce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen. Nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made.

There are two reasons. First, the racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us: Negroes will encounter serious personal prejudice for at least another generation. Second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people. The harsh fact is that as a group, at the present time, in terms of ability to win out in the competitions of American life, they are not equal to most of those groups with which they will be competing. Individually, Negro Americans reach the highest peaks of achievement. But collectively, in the spectrum of American ethnic and religious and regional groups, where some get plenty and some get none, where some send eighty percent of their children to college and others pull them out of school at the 8th grade, Negroes are among the weakest.

The most difficult fact for white Americans to understand is that in these terms the circumstances of the Negro American community in recent years has probably been getting worse, not better.

Indices of dollars of income, standards of living, and years of education deceive. The gap between the Negro and most other groups in American society is widening.

The fundamental problem, in which this is most clearly the case, is that of family structure. The evidence — not final, but powerfully persuasive — is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling. A middle class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of the unskilled, poorly educated city working class the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated. There are indications that the situation may have been arrested in the past few years, but the general post war trend is unmistakable. So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself.

The thesis of this paper is that these events, in combination, confront the nation with a new kind of problem. Measures that have worked in the past, or would work for most groups in the present, will not work here. A national effort is required that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area, directed to a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure.

This would be a new departure for Federal policy. And a difficult one. But it almost certainly offers the only possibility of resolving in our time what is, after all, the nation's oldest, and most intransigent, and now its most dangerous social problem. What Gunnar Myrdal said in An American Dilemma remains true today: "America is free to chose whether the Negro shall remain her liability or become her opportunity."[/quote]

[Greg]

That's pretty crazy and interesting that in 50 years we still haven't gotten too far with this. Just not much in terms of innovation and moving the goal posts it seems.

[Fred]

This is from March 1965!!!

The United States is approaching a new crisis in race relations.
The thesis of this paper is that these events, in combination, confront the nation with a new kind of problem. Measures that have worked in the past, or would work for most groups in the present, will not work here. A national effort is required that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area, directed to a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure.

This would be a new departure for Federal policy. And a difficult one. But it almost certainly offers the only possibility of resolving in our time what is, after all, the nation's oldest, and most intransigent, and now its most dangerous social problem. What Gunnar Myrdal said in An American Dilemma remains true today: "America is free to chose whether the Negro shall remain her liability or become her opportunity."

As I recall, 1965 was right around the time when Johnson's Great Society program began. This sounds like a propaganda piece written in support of it. It seems to have worked about as well in establishing a "stable Negro family structure" as the massive military action in Southeast Asia did in establishing a free and independent South Vietnam.

[Libertarian666]

This is from March 1965!!!

The United States is approaching a new crisis in race relations.
The thesis of this paper is that these events, in combination, confront the nation with a new kind of problem. Measures that have worked in the past, or would work for most groups in the present, will not work here. A national effort is required that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area, directed to a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure.

This would be a new departure for Federal policy. And a difficult one. But it almost certainly offers the only possibility of resolving in our time what is, after all, the nation's oldest, and most intransigent, and now its most dangerous social problem. What Gunnar Myrdal said in An American Dilemma remains true today: "America is free to chose whether the Negro shall remain her liability or become her opportunity."

As I recall, 1965 was right around the time when Johnson's Great Society program began. This sounds like a propaganda piece written in support of it. It seems to have worked about as well in establishing a "stable Negro family structure" as the massive military action in Southeast Asia did in establishing a free and independent South Vietnam.

Sounds about right to me.

Here's my plan:
1. End the "War on Drugs" so that thugs aren't the highest earners in the black community.
2. End welfare so that women have to get married to someone who earns money if they want to be supported, rather than relying on the government.
3. End the minimum wage so that people who aren't very productive can get jobs and get on the ladder to success.

Of course no one will consider this seriously, even though it would actually help.

[MachineGhost]

Of course no one will consider this seriously, even though it would actually help.

The $64K question is, why not?

[Fred]

Blacks do very well whenever they are put in an environment to compete with whites, as long as they have talents to compete in those areas.

Just watch an NBA basketball game or NFL football game if you disagree. Black people dominate both of those sports and do you see this upsetting white people? Of course not. We just want our home team to win. I've seen white boys all over the world wearing number 23 and wanting to "be like Mike (Jordan)" and black boys in Miami wearing number 13 and wanting to be like Dan Marino. Does my heart good to see it.

But in the real world of commerce where most of us live, do you see black people working alongside you? I don't. I'm a computer programmer. You can say it's because of racial discrimination if you want but that doesn't explain why I see so many Indians working beside me.

To me it's simply a problem of IQ. In America the average white IQ is 103, the average Asian IQ is 106, the average Jewish IQ is 113, and the average African American IQ is 85. That's simple statistics. Worldwide statistics show the same differences.

So the obvious solution is to increase African American IQ's. A massive government program is, of course, the only solution to the problem. Global warming may also be playing a big part.