THE TRAGEDY OF BLACK AMERICANS - AT 10:23 A.M. ET:  Add to the list headed by Dorothy Rabinowitz the name of Walter Williams, the distinguished African-American teacher and commentator, who also has the courage to reveal unpleasant truths.  He understands the tragedy of black America, and how African Americans have been used, misled and exploited by the political class, their real problems often going unsolved: 

In 1940, 86% of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15%. Today, only 35% of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70%.

Today's breakdown of the black family is unprecedented. It began in the 1960s with the War on Poverty and the harebrained ideas of the welfare state. In the mid-1960s, Daniel Moynihan sounded the alarm about the breakdown in the black family in his book "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action."

At that time black illegitimacy was 26%. Moynihan said, "At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family." He added, "The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States."

Moynihan's observations were greeted with charges of racism and blaming the victim. By the way, the welfare state is an equal-opportunity family destroyer. Today's illegitimacy rate among whites, at nearly 30%, is higher than it was among blacks in the 1960s when Moynihan sounded the alarm. In Sweden, the mother of the welfare state, illegitimacy is 54%.

COMMENT:  And yet, this tragedy is rarely discussed, especially in universities, whose faculties claim to care so much about African Americans.

We've been here before, of course.  In the 1960s we watched, in New York, as the great New York City public-school system, which had successfully educated generations of immigrants, was destroyed before our eyes by people claiming to want to "help" black students.  Not only weren't they helping these students, they really didn't care about them.  They cared only about their leftist ideology.  Black kids were simply pawns on their political chess boards.

Things are better in New York today, but there is danger ahead.  The old forces that did the damage are trying to make a comeback.  And the Obama administration, far from being the post-racial government we'd hoped for, is being dragged down by some of those sixties ideas that just won't go away.

We need the likes of Walter Williams to get us back on course.

August 11, 2009