A Tragic Vision of Black Problems
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2732541 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Walter E Williams (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 409 |
| Publication date | 1995-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0678 • E-ISSN: 1080-6490 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2713294 |
| OpenAlex | W2333595951 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 2 |
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION WAS AN UGLY PART OF U.S. HISTORY. IT USED TO be a reasonably satisfactory explanation for the socioeconomic status of black Americans. Today, that has changed. For all intents and purposes, the civil rights struggle is over and is won; black Americans now have constitutional guarantees just like other Americans. The fact that civil rights is no longer the issue it once was does not mean that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. Neither should it suggest that residual discrimination has no explanatory value. It simply means that racial discrimination is not the problem for blacks it once was. Victory on the civil rights front does not mean there are not major problems confronting a large segment of the black community. It does mean that those problems are not civil rights problems and that their solutions will not be achieved through civil rights strategies. Those problems and their trends are well known. Female-headed households increased from 18 percent of the black population in 1950 to well over 50 percent by 1990.1 As of 1990, only 38 percent of black children lived in two-parent families, compared to 79 percent for whites.2 Coupled with this dramatic family breakdown has been an astonishing growth in the rate of illegitimacy. Black illegitimacy in 1940 was 19 percent; by 1965, it had grown to 28 percent. After Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report warning of the dire consequences of black family breakdown, black illegitimacy skyrocketed, reaching 49 percent in 1975, and, in 1995, it stands close to 70 percent. If present trends continue, black illegitimacy will be 75 percent by
Art · History · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
| Citations per year | 0.06 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2008 - 2008 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |