LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH

One of the myths perpetrated by the left is that slavery destroyed the Black family in America and is responsible for the poverty, crime, and dysfunction in Black families today. I contend that the cause of dysfunction in the Black family can be traced back to the 1960's and not to slavery. The welfare policies of Lyndon Johnson combined with the Marxist counterculture movement that was spawned by dissent over the Vietnam war have had a much greater impact on Black dysfunction. Which has led to an explosion of not only Black on Black crime but Black on White crime. If you are White in this country your chances of being killed or injured by a Black male are twice that of being killed by a White male. Blacks make up 13% of the population but are responsible for 50% of the violent crime in America. One of the few areas that Barack Obama and I can agree on is that fatherless Black homes are the main culprit. 

Herbert G. Gutman in his book (The Black Family In Slavery And Freedom 1750 to 1925) contends that in spite of slavery more Black families were intact under slavery, and after slavery than they are in 2020. Almost 75% of Black homes today are fatherless. The Freedman's Bureau did a study of three Virginia Counties in 1865 and 1866. They found that in Montgomery County Virginia 54% of families with children had a father living at home. In York County 53% of families had a father living at home. In Princess Anne County families had 62% of fathers living at home. Gutman says that this was typical of slave families everywhere. Toward the end of the century the percentages were even higher. That is the further that Blacks were removed in time from slavery. In urban settings 69% to 74% of Black families had a father living at home. Rural areas were even higher with 82% to 86% of Black families having a father living at home. There is no doubt that slavery was damaging to the Black family to a great degree but even on the heels of slavery more Black families had a father living at home than today. These trends would exist until the 1960's. I have read that in the 1920's and 30's more Black fathers were living at home than were White fathers living at home. The great depression was very hard on everyone. Blacks had always been poor for the most part but White fathers, losing their ability to support their families, abandoned them many times. They just couldn't deal with the shame of not being the bread winner.

Gutman prints a letter from a former slave who had been sold away from his wife and children during slavery. There is a song called Love The One You're With that came out in the early 1970's. For slave women and men whose families had been broken up by some slave master were placed in the unenviable position of having to love the one that they were with at any given time. This is what the letter writer did. He met and married another woman thinking that he would probably never see his first wife and children ever again. Even this man could not foresee the dilemma that freedom would create. He is writing the letter to his former wife encouraging her to forget about him and marry a good man who would treat her and his children well. He is still in love with his former wife but his love for his new wife equals the love that he has for her. The man has also had children by his new wife. Notice the moral of the story here. He is not leaving his new family and he encourages his wife to find a man that will be a good husband and father to his children. There is no talk of abandonment. Yes, there is no doubt that slavery was damaging to the Black family but it did not create the violence and disruption that we see coming from the Black inner cities today. We can place that solely on Democrat leadership from the early 1960's until this very day.