Sometimes the its not the Numbers its the Question.

Today my friend Carol and I were talking about the numbers of births outside of marriage and the high black numbers. People read those numbers and think our babies are all born to single parent households. That is not true. The majority of homes are actually One Man one woman and children. They are not married but they have been in a long term relationship of 10 or more years. The children in this sort of family are in two family homes. They should not be included in data relating to single parent homes. So why are they included? The person asking the questions for the data asked just one question "Are you married?" They did not follow up with "Are you living with the child's father?" This failure to address this question in my eyes adds more to the numbers. I'm calling this as I see it racist. Not only does this remove numbers from the black folks but also White, Hispanic, Asian, and mixed Race groups as well.

 Just like it's a lie when they assume that most of these children have no fathers. Again no one asks the women "are you still with your child's father? If the answer is yes than its the same as the above senero. If the answer is NO the follow-up question should be " is the father present in the Child's life? Most of the time the answer is yes. They should also be removed from this list because you can't be a single parent if the parent is involved.

My son and grandson

Marriage is a Religious ceromony. Not everyone believes in God and so the only question they ask should be removed.  There are a lot of reasons why people do not marry. The number 1 reason is that marriage is new in the hood has declined since the 70s, so we are talking two or three generations back.  Marriage is no longer a point of reference. This is changing and will continue to rise.

These numbers are used against the hood by everyone from Conservatives to justify blaming the Liberals for all the problems in the hood. It's also used to justify hate. The White Nationalists use it to prove that blacks lack the moral fiber of whites. They ignore the fact that the numbers of poor whites are on par with blacks and Hispanics for the same reasons the parents are not married. Whites have larger numbers and are grouped together when you remove middle and Upper class whites you have higher numbers. It's the same for black folks remove the upper and middle class black people and the numbers go down a lot. So what in fact is a poor issue has become a race issue.

This being said, Hood our numbers are still to high. We as a Community need to come to grips with this issue. Young men and women need to start getting married if they love each other.

Sometimes you just need to ask follow up questions if not than you are serving a Racist system.