Why black wives matter

Power Line:

The Washington Post notes that, although “taxes, for decades, have been redistributed from wealthy suburbs to poorer communities [in Minneapolis] to combat inequality. . .the prosperity fueled by the region’s Fortune 500 companies and progressive policies has not translated into economic equality.” On the contrary, “the wealth gap between Minneapolis’s largely white population and the city’s black residents has deepened, producing some of the nation’s widest racial disparities in income, employment and home-ownership.”

The Post offers an explanation — “structural racism.”

Economists, lawyers and civil rights advocates in the Twin Cities say progressive tax policies could not make up for other aspects of structural racism, such as access to credit or jobs. Some say investments in affordable housing in low-income neighborhoods deepened segregation and poverty. Others argue for better enforcement of federal laws to combat discrimination in lending, employment and housing.

There is an alternative explanation. It might be that, to a disproportionate degree, African-Americans in Minneapolis aren’t doing the things required to become successful. Things like finishing high school and college, not having children while in the teens, raising children in two-parent homes, avoiding drug use, and abstaining from crime.

The Post never considers this possible explanation. Rather, Post reporter Tracy Jan dismisses it, quoting unnamed “civil rights and community leaders in the Twin Cities” who say that a “focus on fixing things perceived to be wrong in the black community,” instead of “fundamentally reshaping underlying inequities in society” is what’s preventing “racial equity.”

But what if a core “inequity in society” is the way children are raised in the black community?

Jan herself equates the “delivering of racial justice” with the elimination of the disparities in income, employment, and home-ownership she describes. In other words, for Jan there is no racial justice as long as a “wealth gap” exists between Blacks and Whites. It doesn’t matter how much of the gap is explained by differences in behavior.

This is an absurd account of “racial justice.” Distributing wealth on the basis of race, without regard to merit, is the opposite of justice — any kind of justice.

Is Minneapolis’ African-American population, viewed collectively, behaving differently than its white one in ways that might affect its economic status? A 2010 report showed that Blacks in Minnesota were being arrested in numbers that far exceeded their representation in the state’s population. The same was true for violent felony convictions.

I haven’t found Minneapolis or Minnesota-specific data on parenting by race. Nationwide, more than one-third of all black children under the age of 18 live with unmarried mothers, compared to 6.5 percent of white children.

What about graduating from high school? In 2012, 84 percent of white students in Minnesota accomplished this, compared to only 51 percent of black students. The 51 percent mark was the lowest for Blacks in any state in America.

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Thomas Sowell's research showed that the poverty rate from two-parent black households was around 7 percent, which is actually lower than the poverty rate for whites as a whole.  This is an example of poor people that keep doing the things that make them poor.  Some have described it as black women being married to the welfare state when they have out of wedlock children.

I encourage you to read this excellent piece by Glenn Beaten whose father suffered from dyslexia and was a high school drop out but was a successful husband and father.  The title of his piece is Black Wives Matter.  It is excellent and explains the wealth disparity much better than liberal BS about redistribution.  "Without the white privilege of a father on the scene, blacks are afflicted with a monstrous violent crime rate, poverty rate, dropout rate, and unemployment rate."