Geary Fortsch's latest column (May 22) started out by complaining about the emphasis that progressives place on racism and white supremacy as the cause of "the major problem facing black families."
The rest of the first two-thirds of his story wandered all over highly unrelated and irrelevant subjects like Confederate history, a smidgen of American slave history, statements by Abraham Lincoln and the restoration of the Lincoln Memorial in our capital. Then, and only at the beginning of the last one-third of his story, does he get back on the subject of "black society's ills" and the black problem of "weak family structure [i.e. no father present]." And then - here it comes - he brings in the age-old attack on the "welfare state." Foertsch cites economist Walter Williams' analysis for support.
Foertsch also cited a statistic that, today, "...more than 70 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families." When I did an internet search on Williams, I learned his favored school of economics is libertarian-conservative (big surprise) and his institution is George Mason U. They get a lot of funding from conservative money sources including from the Koch brothers, and the Koch brothers won't let anybody but conservatives get faculty jobs there or anywhere else they give funding. What would a non-libertarian-non-conservative economist say?
That Foertsch cited a statistic (the 70 percent figure) about only black society is troublesome. My internet search on "unwed mothers by race" also brought up 66 percent of American Indians, 53 percent of Hispanics. These numbers are certainly not all that far from the 70 percent figure (there were somewhat smaller figures, on a page at politifact.com, for other race-ethnic backgrounds). This, also, does not take into consideration families where the parents are divorced or separated and the kids' home could also be judged as having a "weak family structure," and considering the divorce rate, there will be a lot of kids living with this. Otherwise, singling out only blacks for commentary might be viewed in itself, by some people, as evidence of racist intent.
I examined Foertsch's idea that the No. 1 problem in black society is fatherless homes by doing an internet search on "biggest world social problems," and looked at the top problems in the top 10 internet links. Fatherless homes or single-parent families came up nowhere, but income inequality and poverty came up near the top in many surveys.
Arthur E. Sowers
Harbeson
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