Black matriarchy

The term Black matriarchy is used in reference to the cultural phenomenon of African American households with children being largely headed by mothers, with the children's biological fathers mostly absent from the household.[1][2][3]

First usage

The issue was first brought to national attention in 1965 by sociologist and later Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in the groundbreaking Moynihan Report (also known as "The Negro Family: The Case For National Action".[1] Moynihan's report made the argument that the relative absence of nuclear families (those having both a father and mother present) in Black America would greatly hinder further Black socioeconomic progress.[1]

Statistics

In 1940, the illegitimacy rate for Black children was 19 percent.[4] A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of Black families were nuclear families, composed of two parents and children.[4] In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related Black households had two parents.[4]

When Moynihan warned, in his 1965 report, of the coming destruction of the Black family, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was 25 percent among Blacks.[1] By 1991, 68 percent of Black children were born outside of marriage.[5] In 2011, 72 percent of Black babies were born to unwed mothers.[2][3]

Cosby and Poussaint's criticism of the single parent family

Bill Cosby has criticised the current state of Black families being dominated by single-parent situations. In a speech to the NAACP in 2004, Cosby said "In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on". "You have the pile-up of these sweet beautiful things born by nature—raised by no one."[6]

In Cosby's 2007 book Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, co-authored with psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, Cosby and Poussaint write that "a house without a father is a challenge," and that "a neighborhood without fathers is a catastrophe."[6] Cosby and Poussaint write that mothers "have difficulty showing a son how to be a man," and that this presents a problem when there are no father figures around to show boys how to channel their natural aggressiveness in constructive ways.[6] Cosby and Poussaint also write, "We wonder if much of these kids' rage was born when their fathers abandoned them."[6]

Cosby and Poussaint state that verbal and emotional abuse of the children is prominent in the parenting style of Black single mothers, with serious developmental consequences for the children.[6] "Words like 'You're stupid,' 'You're an idiot,' 'I'm sorry you were born,' or 'You'll never amount to anything' can stick a dagger in a child's heart."[6]

"Single mothers angry with men, whether their current boyfriends or their children's fathers, regularly transfer their rage to their sons, since they're afraid to take it out on the adult males".[6] “If they hear their mom say, 'Black men ain't worth s—-,' the boys wonder whether that includes them. When their moms yell, 'You're no good, just like your father!' all the doubt goes away."[6]

Cosby and Poussaint write that this formative parenting environment in the Black single parent family leads to a "wounded anger—of children toward parents, women toward men, men toward their mothers and women in general".[6]

See also

General:

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Daniel P. Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, Washington, D.C., Office of Policy Planning and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, 1965.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate", Jesse Washington, NBC News, July 11, 2010.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "For Blacks, the Pyrrhic Victory of the Obama Era", Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2012.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Victimhood: Rhetoric or reality?", Walter Williams, Jewish World Review, June 8, 2005.
  5. ↑ National Review, April 4, 1994, p. 24.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 "The Great African-American Awakening", Myron Magnet, City Journal, Summer 2008, volume 18, number 3.

Notes