Is Racism the Cause of Blacks’ Problems – Or is Government?

A new post by Walter Williams raises the subject of a perennial conflict between progressives and conservatives. What is the major cause of the social and economic problems of black Americans today? As you can yourself ascertain from the photo of Williams attached to his post, he cannot easily be accused of being against the welfare of blacks. But the question he raises is one the political left would say could only be suggested by a white racist. Are the problems of black Americans more due to “the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination”, or are federal government programs the greater cause of their problems? Dr. Williams is not just a black who presumably is interested in the welfare of his fellow blacks (as well as of other citizens), he is also a distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University. He is in a very good position indeed to speak about the social and economic  conditions of black Americans.

Dr. Williams points out that prior to the War on Poverty the black family was in much better shape than it is today.  He cites the following facts: (Quotes are all from the previously cited post.)

• “Today, the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families.”
• “As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85% of black families were.”
• “Today’s black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75% is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14%. It had risen to 25% by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote ‘The Negro Family: The Case for National Action‘ and was widely condemned as a racist.”
• “By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56%, and it has been growing since.”

So what social change can we find that could explain the vast difference from the relatively good health of the black family from before 1940 and the desperate conditions of many black, one-parent, mother-headed families of today? Certainly racism, although not nonexistent, is not nearly as prevalent today as it was in the 1940s (or of that matter in the 1950s and 1960s). Therefore the increase in distressed black families can not be due solely to racism. In earlier decades it was socially acceptable to express racist beliefs in some places. (I know, I was there!) Today, it is almost never socially acceptable at any time or place. Back then a black professional was much harder to find than today. Today many people have black colleagues in their place of work, and it is illegal for any employer to discriminate against job applicants due to their race. So what has changed between the 1940s and now to cause the disintegration of so many black families?

Dr. Williams sees one big difference between now and then that explains most of the growth of single-parent, mother-headed households: the growth of the welfare state. He sees the destructive behavior of black fathers abandoning their families as being enabled by the welfare state. If the mother receives assistance in the form of food stamps, welfare assistance, and housing subsidies, it is less costly for the parents to separate. One non-governmental cause for one-parent black families to which Williams points is the growing social acceptance and lessening stigma of unwed-parenthood. In fact black families are not the only ones that are trending to single-mother parented families. The Child Trends Data Bank has an online report showing that all US families are going in that direction. They show a decrease in two-parent families from 87.7% in 1960 to 64.4% in 2014; they also show an increase in single-mother families from 8.0% in 1960 to 23.6% in 2014. Children living with fathers or living with no parent complete the distribution. It is a well-established fact that children living in a two-parent family are better-off financially and emotionally, and are more healthy. [See here and here and here and here.]  As a piece of corroborating evidence, Williams offers the fact that the poverty rate for black wedded couples has been in the single digits since 1994.

All of these thoughts are anathema to the political Left, who see only racism as the cause of any black-specific social problem. A leftist will then retort to me: if you say that this is a black-specific problem, how can you be anything but a racist? My answer to him is that a history of racial bigotry and segregation put  most black families into conditions of actual or near poverty, and made them susceptible to the welfare programs started in the 1960s. The characteristics of those welfare programs, as well as changing sexual mores in society at large, then proceeded to destroy many black families. But in addition, as the Child Trends Data Bank shows,  American families of all racial types are experiencing these problems. This is not a black-specific problem.

These viewpoints are clearly some of the more important differences between the world-views of progressives and conservatives. Conservatives would say that the participation of blacks in government welfare and anti-poverty programs is a major cause in the destruction of the black family. This is taken by progressives as absolute proof that conservatives are inherently racist. That progressives cannot conceive of government programs having such a destructive effect is taken by conservatives as absolute proof that progressives’ hold on reality is shaky.

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