Disclaimer: I am not a sociologist, psychologist, statistician, or politician
I really appreciate the charts and diagrams that make more concrete the multifactorial issues facing the black communities.
Among all the factors, I believe that family dysfunction/disunity is the root cause and leads to almost everything else. This includes absentee fathers, teens having kids, loss of extended family support, and lack of role modeling. Almost everything else is secondary.
Black immigrants to the US from Africa do better than US-origin blacks in education, business, and entrepreneurship.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/blac...s-born-blacks/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ts-in-the-u-s/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3816006/
If systemic racism is the root cause (I think racism is a factor but not a root cause) then what would explain the relative success of black immigrants from Africa? Granted, many African immigrants come with higher education, but a great many more came with nothing. I lived in Minnesota for some time when there was a large influx of Ethiopian and Somali refugees. Although I cannot recite studies, I observed that the new immigrants were hungry to succeed. Those that kept their culture alive and family intact did well in school and opened businesses.
Similarly, the Asian diaspora tells a similar story. After the Vietnam war hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees came to the US. While many were professionals, a great many others were fishermen, farmers, tribal hunters, etc. Despite the lack of education and poverty in the parents, the singular focus for the children was on education and keeping the family unit and culture. I do not think that there is any argument to their relative success generations later. As one of these immigrants, I remember growing up in housing projects, living on food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, and being quite poor. As kids, we were taught that education was our only route to success. As kids, we were taught that discipline and family cohesiveness was paramount. What’s more, we were taught to give back. We were expected to help other Asians succeed and contribute to our new country. In everything that I did, I remembered that I was representing not only myself, but my Vietnamese heritage.
Now, how do we instill that ethic in the black community? Many black families already have this but as the previous charts show, those intact families are in the minority. Blacks must help their own, not because others do not want to help but because psychologically, any suggestions from someone non-black will be resented, suspected, and shunned. There are clashes between black Americans and black immigrants from Africa. Yet, these are the groups that can help each other.
There are social programs designed to increase opportunity, participation, and businesses in communities of color, such as: affirmative action, minority business loans, grants, minority scholarships, student loans, etc. How about we make all these conditional?
Received a minority scholarship? SBA loan to minority business? Partial loan forgiveness or interest rate reduction for student loans or SBA loans for minorities? Condition: do something concrete for the impoverished community that needs your help. This could be a Big Brother Big Sister program, after school mentoring/tutoring, peer assistance leadership, employment of at-risk youths, etc. This is not a substitute for having a father in their lives, but it will give them a window into a different life and possibilities. Want to be a teacher? How about we forgive your college loans if you not only teach in an at-risk school but show some positive metrics in your class? How about if we incentivize good teachers to work at these schools with higher pay? How about incentivizing wealthy black businesses to contribute to a minority focused bank, willing to write microloans to such communities for small businesses. How about conditioning welfare checks in exchange for finishing high school for your kids, delaying pregnancy, attending family planning counseling, etc.
None of these options will be panaceas. I am okay if someone calls me unrealistic and idealistic but these are my thoughts.
People are people. We are all motivated by one or more of these elements: Greed (money, power), Ego, Safety/security. Whatever the motivation, people only change if they have some hope or incentive, a better life, a way out of poverty, a future for their children, etc.
One factor in the perpetuation of destructive behavior is the cumulative effects of childhood trauma. In the ACE study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) done with 17,000 participants, childhood events such as Abuse (emotional, physical, sexual), Household challenges (mother treated violently, substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, incarcerated household member) and Neglect (emotional, physical) add up to lifelong health conditions. These conditions include TBI, Depression, anxiety, PTSD, suicide, unintended pregnancy, HIV/STDs, cancer, diabetes, substance abuse, and poor educational/income attainment. Sounds familiar?
https://www.cdc.gov/violencepreventi...udy/about.html
So not only do we have to manage current psychosocial dysfunction, but also generational adversity that leads to biologic dysfunction into adulthood.
Despite these challenges, I believe that we can overcome it as a nation if it becomes a priority. To be a priority, however, all the influencers in the black community must be on the same page about the problems. Athletes, executives, actors, businessmen, clergy,…everyone who is someone in the black community needs to put these issues on the front page every day in their community. Imagine turning the energy and resources of protests over very few police shootings into constructive building of black neighborhoods. Imagine.
Again, I am not an expert on this issue and base my thoughts on personal reflection and study.