RLLD

Correct. This thread is not about wages, but failed policies that have ruined the AA culture to the extent that it seems incapable of correcting itself without considerable help. The original intent of the policy was to ensure AA fathers were working, seems odd right? Why would Democrats think AA men would not work? And moreover, the incentive was strong. The estimateis that in 1975 a household head would have to earn $20,000 a year to have more resources than what could be obtained from Great Society programs. In today’s dollars, that’s over $90,000 per year in earnings. Hey, that is great, single moms rejoice....but what was the cost? I think we now know.... That may be a reason why, in 1964, only 7% of American children were born out of wedlock, compared to 40% today. Jason Riley has noted, “the government paid mothers to keep fathers out of the home—and paid them well.” None of this is unknown, its not that complex.

Not sure how better to explain this.......AA culture was good.......government inserted itself......AA culture was damaged and has not recovered, mostly DUE TO GOVERNMENT...... So lets get a little deeper in the weeds on this then. Perhaps with some additional facts and reading. This is not a new or surprising element.... Only 9% of children were raised without their father in 1960, yet today a quarter of American kids are raised without their father. Family breakdown fuels poverty. On average, even high school dropouts who are married have a far lower poverty rate than do single parents with several years of college. Raj Chetty has shown us that the presence of fathers in the neighborhood is likely the key factor in predicting upward income mobility for the children in that neighborhood later in life, even when controlling for other variables such as the available schools, race, or ethnicity. boys raised without their father are much more likely to use drugs, engage in violent or criminal behavior, go to jail, and drop out of school; girls, meanwhile, are more likely to engage in early sexual activity or have a child out of wedlock. Children without a father in the home are even more likely to suffer from mental health problems as adults. Autor and Figlio studied and rejected the idea that these effects are mainly due to dangerous neighborhoods or poor schools. They concluded that “neighborhoods and schools are less important than the ‘direct effect of family structure itself. It is important to realize that things weren’t always so. The black American family provides a stark example. From 1890 to 1950, black women had a higher marriage rate than white women. And in 1950, just 9% of black children lived without their father. By 1960, the black marriage rate had declined but remained close to the white marriage rate. In other words, despite open racism and widespread poverty, strong black families used to be the norm. But by the mid-1980s, black fatherlessness skyrocketed. Today, only 44% of black children have a father in the home. In unison, the rate of black out-of-wedlock births went from 24.5% in 1964 to 70.7% by 1994, roughly where it stands today. Why? In large part because the government fomented anti-marriage policies This has been documented over and over....

The damage caused by Democrats is the cause of the cultural decay. It is not as if people woke up one day and said " you know what, we are making headway here....but fock it, lets abandon our progress and potential....." That did not happen. What happened was government, specifically Democrats, who swung in and methodically ruined a strong and robust culture.

How is paying a young woman who had a child more money to NOT have a man in the home, making anything equal? Notably for the child?

unpossible....Mayorkas has already told us the border is secure, and Biden will call you a racist if you keep it up..... I picture Democrats as being Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House.....

Leave Hunter Biden out of this

In the 1960's the AA culture was blossoming. Until it was hit by forces outside of its control. There are so many examples; from the Black Panther Breakfast Program to Freedom Summer in Mississippi to the Student Organization for Black Unity. These groups were all negatively impacted by government-centric actions, and what splintered off as a result was not good..... the LA gangs can trace their roots to the government destruction of the Black Panthers.... So much was going so well, and then government, mostly Democrats, moved in and took action.....the results are plainly evident. They really harmed the culture, a harm that persists to this day. Fix the culture, fix the family....and you fix the problem.

There is never really any attempt to hide it. I mean, they do it this unabashedly.....its remarkable....

So then....there is an acuser (or say, a whistlebloewr) and then we have some messages (like, emails and bank statements) suggesting this guy is potentially some kind of sexual predator?

Thats fine, and absolutely on point. They were not "there" yet, it was going well and progress was transpiring.....but it was not sustained. That is more of the point I am making. If it were true that we then see this same impact across the board, across lower incomes then we can work the problem from a class-centric approach (Marxist) if instead we decide that well, its happening because of the skin color of those impacted then we are working from another angle entirely. Now if we can agree that skin color is not the cause, and its something else, then we are back to culture. One of the more important "tells" here is that immigrants from Africa seem to avoid this spectral racism that is magically holding people back. Why could that be happening? Because they do not carry the cultural baggage..... Its not the color of their skin, its not genetic, its not white people being mean.......its a cultural malignancy....

Perhaps we could find common ground here. Based on the outcomes, would it not be suitable to assert there is a "systemic" problem likely behind this?

I surmise that you stand with those who are inclined to protect women, young girls and such from men then?

I think you and I share common ground on this philosophical position. This is my stance, universally as well, so to remain philosophically honest I extend this beyond any single instance. So I apply it to others, such as Trump and Biden. That way I can avoid allowing bias to drive my positions.

Brand made himself a target. Not sure if he fully understood that would be the eventual outcome, but he strode out and starting calling out the powerful. I appreciated him for his courage in doing so, but this was easily predicatable and hopefully he is as intelligent as he seems to be, and took action to shield himself from this tactic. Then again, maybe he is a pervert like Epstein. Hopefully he does not have a list of powerful people abusing kids, since we know how that turns out.

Beginning in the 1940s, deep demographic and economic change, accompanied by a marked shift in white racial attitudes, started blacks down the road to much greater equality. New Deal legislation, which set minimum wages and hours and eliminated the incentive of southern employers to hire low-wage black workers, put a damper on further industrial development in the region. In addition, the trend toward mechanized agriculture and a diminished demand for American cotton in the face of international competition combined to displace blacks from the land. As a consequence, with the shortage of workers in northern manufacturing plants following the outbreak of World War II, southern blacks in search of jobs boarded trains and buses in a Great Migration that lasted through the mid-1960s. They found what they were looking for: wages so strikingly high that in 1953 the average income for a black family in the North was almost twice that of those who remained in the South. And through much of the 1950s wages rose steadily and unemployment was low. Thus by 1960 only one out of seven black men still labored on the land, and almost a quarter were in white-collar or skilled manual occupations. Another 24 percent had semiskilled factory jobs that meant membership in the stable working class, while the proportion of black women working as servants had been cut in half. Even those who did not move up into higher-ranking jobs were doing much better. A decade later, the gains were even more striking. From 1940 to 1970, black men cut the income gap by about a third, and by 1970 they were earning (on average) roughly 60 percent of what white men took in. The advancement of black women was even more impressive. Black life expectancy went up dramatically, as did black homeownership rates. Black college enrollment also rose—by 1970 to about 10 percent of the total, three times the prewar figure. In subsequent years these trends continued, although at a more leisurely pace. For instance, today more than 30 percent of black men and nearly 60 percent of black women hold white-collar jobs. Whereas in 1970 only 2.2 percent of American physicians were black, the figure is now 4.5 percent. But while the fraction of black families with middle-class incomes rose almost 40 percentage points between 1940 and 1970, it has inched up only another 10 points since then. Source Going back to the 1960's, the "War on Drugs" was really more of a war on minorities.....and then the movement to pay women more in benefits to not have a man in the home, raised the single parent rate from 20% to 70%. The policies were perhaps, I say perhaps because I am still highly suspicious of Democrats, employed with the best of intentions.....but the outcomes have been steadily negative. Every action has been to try to twist the world to better fit the AA situation, instead of following the remarkably successful method as employed by other minority groups to adjust their behaviors and buy into the meritocracy approach.

I infer this is at least a little tongue-in-cheek. But your point has some merit, we should not underscore the importance of diet and access to healthy foods. My son recently aged out of Boy Scouts, securing his Eagle before that point. A big part of scouting is volunteerism, which I enjoyed participation with as well. It was something we could do together and such. A big effort we supported was putting together backpacks of food for kids in Baltimore City to take home over the weekend. MANY of these kids only eat at school....and the weekend would be finding them starving.....it is a huge effort, and many churches are involved in helping get this done as well. So imagine how hard it might be for one to do anything...if they are starving.....

That is fine. My point is more broad. Where we have an individual, and perhaps all we have is someone stepping forward and accusing.... but perhaps we have some other evidence that is more suggestive than confirming, ie "its looks bad"...... we should at least look into that further, right?

I share your criticism of Krugman. But if it is true that someone, anyone, might have a position that supports the Liberal Religion, they will likely be held up as "good", "enlightened" and such. Conversely, anyone who does not foot-stomp Liberal Religious edicts, will be admonished as "stupid", "right-wing", "racist" or one of many other labels used to suppress opposing points of view

And where there is smoke, we should believe it, right? Pursue based on credible witness and/or circumstantial evidence...right?

Yes, but, what if we returned fire? What if enough people banded together, and every time there was a hit piece conducted, we used the might of the people to hit back? Investigate THAT "journalist" to the nth degree.....?

I wonder where they might have picked up on the tactic of labelling their opponents as "evil"? Did they refer to them as deplorables as well? Have they tried calling them racists yet?

I wonder. Could we find a way to turn the tables on the <ahem> "media". How can we use what is available and turn their tactics back on to THEM? Social media might afford people a way to fight back.

But your point remains....poverty. Of course that is one of the main drivers and it impacts a large swath of people. THis eventually becomes circular. I point back to when the socieconomic progress for the AA was proceeding rather well. And then they were struck by policy, and those policies halted that progress, fomenting a negative feedback loop. I would suggest it is more important to fix than to worry about offending, that is my main point here. And I sumbit that to forthrightly fix the problem government has created, we need to risk offending.... But hey, maybe we just keep doing what we have been, how is that working out?

Maybe not. Kids are typically taught to read, at first, by their parents. Parents read to them, and then should be worked with their children to read as well. Holding them accountable to reading some minimal amount, before they ever reach school. If that does not happen, I think it could be a rather large ask for a teach to be able to teach 20+ kids in a room to all read......we are then not setting the kids OR the teacher up for success. Without that strong parental involvement, kids have less potential.....

I bet some of those college professors who are so very concerned about the plight of the less fortunate will happily donate their time to help these kids improve their skills....right?