Black America Vol.2: The Welfare State

How liberal welfare policies destroyed the black family

Sep 09, 2024

In 1935, welfare, like any other government assistance program, was initially put in place to help disadvantaged Americans who were in a financial pinch, which in a sense, it did. Though of course, we all know the playing field for Black Americans during this time wasn’t quite fair, which led to major reforms to the welfare system. In the early 1960s President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced expansive social welfare legislation in “The War on Poverty”, which turned out to be the war on family. Johnson's legislation came with a catch known as the “Man in the House rule”. The rule stated that if there was a healthy or working man in the household, the government wouldn’t help you. This rule even allowed for social workers to do random home visits to ensure no man was living in the home of the welfare recipient. Naturally, this led to many men deciding it best to leave their wives and children so that they would be able to receive government assistance. This comes at a time when many black men were simply not making enough to keep their families afloat, which in turn led to many black men abandoning their families. One can hardly blame a man for doing such a thing if they felt their family was better cared for by the government amid their absence. Though many made what they considered the smart choice, the legacy of those choices, co-opted by a dependency on liberal welfare policies, directly led to the ultimate demise that continues to plague disadvantaged black communities. It’s important here to make a note that the welfare state is not a single influence that feeds into the strife of black America, however, It is indeed the single legacy factor that has allowed for the continued poverty and mass political and economic disillusionment of much of the black American population.

As I mentioned in my first installment of this series, Black Americans who are fighting for a “better America” for black Americans are doing so with the ridiculous farce that the legacy of slavery has left us with an inherently racist country that is systematically rigged. Again, this is a completely nonsensical and idiotic rhetoric that does nothing but play into the oppressed narrative that fuels political unrest within the black community. Black Americans are not suffering because of the “legacy of slavery” nor are they suffering from an inherently racist system. disadvantaged black American communities are suffering due to the actions and inactions that directly stem from the legacy of the welfare state.

By the early 1970s, Black Americans made up just 10% of the U.S. Population yet over 50% were on welfare. Which in turn means, that within a hair of a decade, over 50% of black families were fatherless. This is where we begin to see the utter destruction of the black family unit. Black Americans began to rely on welfare, in an attempt to claim a false sense of normalcy. Normalcy, however, was not on the menu seeing as the majority of black children were being raised without a father, by an unemployed single mother, feeding the cycle of generational poverty. One may say “ That’s not fair, Black Americans had no other choice and because of the racist rigged system during the 60s, we now bear the brunt and America is doing nothing to help us, Welfare is crucial for much of the impoverished black community to survive.” Which in my opinion, is an attempt to take the easy way out and play the victim card, once again.

Thomas Sowell stated four qualities that black Americans have continuously exhibited that have led to serious issues within black communities

1 . Less resourcefulness

2. Disorganized family life

3 . Laxed sexual morals

4. Recklessness – with tendencies towards aggression and violence

All of which stem directly from the welfare state. In 1964 Black Americans held a 25% illegitimacy rate. Today Black Americans pull the most weight with a whopping 73% illegitimacy rate, while white Americans sit at 36% and Hispanics around 50%. That’s a lot of black babies being born into single-parent homes, (which are mostly fatherless) what does that mean exactly? Well, we know that young men raised in single-parent households have the proclivity to engage in violent and criminal behavior. Which of course contributes to black-on-black violence, gang affiliation, drug usage, and downright tomfoolery that directly leads to higher numbers of blacks in prison. Girls who come from fatherless homes are four times as likely to become teen mothers. We know that teen moms have about a 40% high school graduation rate, putting them at much higher risk for short-term and long-term poverty which is why two-thirds of teen moms are on welfare. There is also a direct correlation between teen moms and inadequate literacy in their children. Is it clear enough for you? The welfare state is a great beast that traps many black Americans in a never-ending cycle. The Welfare state did not help black America in the least bit. What the welfare state did, was absolve black men of their familial responsibilities, promote broken families, and allow the impoverished to rely on liberal welfare policies generation after generation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Himself pointed out how increasing fatherlessness in black families was a “Dehumanizing Element” of the welfare system. Someone may attempt to trump up some superficial argument to what has been stated, to which my rebuttal would be; to simply look at the poverty rate among married black Americans which has been in the single digits since 1994. A radical difference for obvious reasons.

There are some who will still argue that it’s a matter of race because of our country’s racist history. Well, if you look at what the welfare state did to the white underclass in England, the results are the same. Generational poverty enabled by the state.

The same black people who are out there yelling that black lives matter and that Republicans are evil because they are part of the system that is against them are the same black people who are willingly ignorant of these facts. In this case, I suppose Ignorance is bliss. How easy it must be to point the finger at the larger society instead of course correcting and dropping the victim label. Americans face the same objective factors of society, yet outcomes are different due to the difference in culture and values. The argument of racial inequities based on numbers and percentages is greatly flawed until the work is done to correct the racial disparities that are negatively impacting the community at large. You want to bring up the numbers of blacks in prison vs. Whites but don’t want to bring up the numbers of blacks committing violent crimes? You don’t want to bring up the numbers that are directly linked to the disparities that you claim stem from a “racist system”? Well, no wonder we can’t get anywhere. If you say “Black Lives Matter”, well, start acting like it. Stop allowing the government to incentivize fatherlessness. It is clearly the number one issue contributing to the continuity of disparities amongst black Americans. We must get the black father in the home again, raise our young to be capable and not victims, and dump the disparaging subculture that has arisen. Instead of asking for handout after handout how about we get our black men in the workforce and off the streets? How about we teach our young black men how to think, not what to think? How about we address and correct the moral and ethical shortcomings that seem to be overlooked repeatedly by the BLM social justice warriors out there?

And to the black man who just can’t seem to not point a finger at the white man or at the “system” that is holding him back, may I offer the words of our great lord and savior, Jesus Christ. “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person, but the things that come out from within are what defile”. Mark 7:15