Because, so far, it is far more pervasive (at all socio-economic levels) among blacks as it is among other groups. And it is by no means certain that other groups are going to wind up where blacks are now in terms of out-of-wedlock births.
If and when they do, then one aspect of current black culture has been extended to other cultures. This is hardly unique - see jazz or wigger culture for other examples.
But, currently, illegitimacy is far more common among blacks than non-Hispanic whites. Ergo, illegitimacy is more likely to be a feature of black culture than of non-Hispanic white culture (if such a thing exists).
Then you will need to explain why the black rate of out-of-wedlock birth is so much higher now than at the beginning of the twentieth century, and took another jump in the sixties, when Jim Crow began to be overcome. Why would it be that blacks, as slavery receded further into the distance and the official barriers started to come down, failed to assimilate that aspect of the mainstream culture?
We’ve already covered this. Disproportionate poverty among blacks does not explain the variance, since illegitimacy rates are higher for upper-strata blacks than for upper-strata whites. Disproportionate education levels also do not explain it, since college-educated black females give birth out of wedlock at rates far higher than white females with the same education levels. I would have thought that putting people in prison would reduce their birth rate rather than raise it, but I have no data available on the subject.
The problem with your thought process is that it is anti-science. Any outcome in populations would “prove” your theory right, in your mind.
If whites and others never reach the same rate of OOW birth that blacks show, then you’ll take that as evidence that the phenomenon is a “black thing” that makes blacks different from others.
But if whites do eventually reach the same rate, then instead of modifying your theory, you will insist that this “black thing” has simply extended to other cultures…even though its atypical for a minority to impart that much influence on the majority.
I’m not even going to ask you what you think “wigger culture” is.
Forget about blacks for a second, if you can.
As I’ve pointed out, all ethnic groups are seeing an increase in OOW births. The article I cited above discusses some possible reasons behind this phenomenon. Blacks are disproportionately seeing this trend, but that’s not enough evidence to say its a product of culture. It could be that the social conditions that lead women and men to make certain choices occur more frequently in African-Americans. Poverty has already been mentioned. But greater female economic independence was also cited. More people are shacking up before or in lieu of getting married.
If I produced a cite that said methamphetamine usage is higher in whites than it is in other group even when SES is taken to account, that would not be prove that meth usage has anything to do with “white culture”. It just means that the factors that make meth usage likely in a population are, for some reason, higher in groups that happen to be white. You have to dig down deeper to figure out why.
Although Black/White interracial marriages are more common now than in the past, they are still relatively rare. We (most of us) seem to prefer marrying within our own race. We also seem to marry people of similar educational backgrounds, and if anything it’s even more unusual for a woman to marry a less educated man than vice versa. It’s my understanding that one problem facing college educated Black women is the dearth of college educated Black Men. Put all that together, and I think that’s a pretty good explanation of why the gap between out-of-wedlock births in college educated Whites and Blacks is what it is.
Something else might stack the deck here, and that it seems to be more common in Black/White interracial marriages for the man to be Black and woman to be White. I may have that wrong, but if I don’t, then that would confound the problem even more.
So, it would seem that the results of our common culture, or the interaction between the two cultures, is to produce more out-of-wedlock births for college educated Black women. I would look at it that way rather than say it’s a result of Black culture, as if that culture existed in isolation.
You with the face, I suspect, is probably more versed with citing actually studies on this than I am. If so, maybe you can scare up a few cites. If not, I’ll poke around on the web sometime later today.
Thanks. Some good info in that article that backs up and broadens the argument I was trying to make. Frankly, though, this one sentence stood out the most to me:
I’m still uncomfortable with the idea that there is a Black Culture and a White culture, and think of things more like what Tomndebb posted above. As a shorthand, though, I guess it’s easier than trying to pick apart all the various aspects of the shared and unshared cultural elements. However, let’s not get tricked into thinking that Black culture can exist in isolation. White culture can, or at least it could in the past, but with other minorities (Latinos and Asians) growing as a percent of the population even that is becoming increasing difficult. The county where I live, for example, doesn’t have many Blacks but is 33% Asian. And you see that influence everywhere, not the least of which is a very high intermarriage rate between Whites and Asians.
I’m not making any predictions about the future of black culture, or any other kind. I am talking about what is true now. Right now, currently, at this moment, it is more characteristic of black culture (if such a thing exists) that children are usually born out of wedlock.
I am not talking, and have made no assertions, about causality. I am talking about an observed fact.
You’re not paying attention. We have already dealt with the fact that variance in socio-economic status among blacks vis-a-vis whites does not explain the variance. Upper class blacks have illegitimate children at higher rates than upper-class whites. Thus, poverty is not sufficient to explain illegitimacy, since its reduction among whites correlates with fewer out of wedlock births, but not among blacks. Likewise for education. Thus, there must be some other factor.
:shrugs:
At this point, I have to assume that you aren’t getting the point because you don’t want to. You can lead a horse to water…
Would you care to produce a cite demonstrating the above? Or perhaps an explanation why college-educated black males may create more out-of-wedlock births than their white counterparts?
Regards,
Shodan
According to the Census here and other census sites, the difference is about $22,000+/- per household, slightly larger average household size (2.75 as opposed to 2.49) and family size (3.33 as opposed to 3.02) than whites (which also widens the income gap a bit), and other statistical differences all around.
Mostly though it’s history. Black-history is both widely separate from and identically the same as that of other Americans, as very real “separate but equal” heritage as the “separate but equal” facilities was unreal.
A statistic few would be surprised to read was that about 80% of U.S. blacks (according to one survey and research set) have white ancestry (I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher than that). A statistic many may be surprised to read is that between 10-30% of U.S. whites have a black ancestor since the founding of America. I’m not sure of how this data was compiled and there was no cite in the editorial, but it would not be at all surprised, especially for people like me- most of my ancestors have lived in the south since the 17th century and lots and lots of features were explained off with “Cherokee blood” (not to mention that many Cherokees and other tribes had black members to begin with).
In another generation the vast majority of people who have first-hand memories of segregation (not just in the South) will be dead. The Civil War will also be out of living memory (living memory here defined as “What was remembered by the oldest generation around when the oldest generation now around was young”- i.e. a “2 degrees removal” thing). I wonder what effect that will have on the cultures, if any.
The article **pool **linked to backs up most a good part of it. I’ll wait to see what ywtf has at her fingertips before I do my research. I’m going mostly by memory, but I’m pretty confident it’s valid. Besides, my main point is that it doesn’t really make sense to talk about “Black Culture” as if it existed in isolation. It’s the interaction between the cultures that produces the result.
Anyway, what makes you sure that the fathers are Black, or that the number of fathers = the number of mothers?
You’re not paying attention. I gave two possible reasons that aren’t SES-dependent. Greater female economic autonomy than was present in the past. And an increased preference toward cohabitation in lieu of marriage (which may actually be a by-product of greater female economic autonomy). These things will cut down on the marriage rate, without necessarily translating into a concommitant decline in births. Because people will still be in relationships and they’ll still screw, and still desire children. They just may be less inclined to join finances.
If both of these two factors are responsible for the nationwide increase in OOW births, and there is a big gap between black men and women in terms of educational and employment status, then you’ll see a lower marriage rate in that group relative to others in addition to a higher OOW birth rate.
I’m not suggesting that what I’m saying is the answer that explains everything. Just that attributing it all to culture strikes me inaccurate and intellectually lazy.
Appparently nothing, since she is merely repeating arguments already refuted.
pool’s article is rather short on hard figures, so I wouldn’t agree that it establishes much of what you claim. The only even tangentially related sentence;
doesn’t go very far to explain a ten-to-one disparity.
If you won’t, and you with the face can’t, defend your position, I suppose this is as far as we can take it.
Not so, and not “tangential”, since that was explicitly one of my statements. But note that it also supports the fact that interracial marriage is rare:
and more common between Black men and White women:
Unless you want to dispute the fact that college educated women tend to marry college educated men, then that’s pretty much it. White men seem to have little problem crossing the race barrier to marry Asian women, so maybe if they weren’t so opposed to marrying Black women, there wouldn’t be such a problem. Is that White culture issue, a Black culture issue, or both?
I honestly don’t know what more you want me to spell out for you. I think I’ve made myself really clear, so I can’t quite sympathize with your failure to understand.
Yeah, I know. I was just noting that you can look at it from two sides, and it does, after all, take two to tango. **Pool’**s article, btw, spelled out the problem quite well.
BTW, Shodan, can we have an original source cite on that 10x difference? Your cite simply states it as a fact, but doesn’t say where the statistic came from. I’ve seen lots of data on out-of-wedlock births but by race or income or education, or whatever, but not by race and education.
The disparity of education levels between black women and black men leave many college-educated black women perceiving there to be a dearth of marriageble men, to a far greater extent than is perceived by white women. For this reason many college-educated black women who wish to be mothers before it becomes a biological impossibility will chose single-parenthood over waiting for Mr. Right. White women, not having this degree of uncertainty, will be less likely to make this choice.
I think we need to look at the actual numbers, too. The closest I came to finding original source data showed the disparity between Whites and Blacks with “some college” was 5x, not 10x. And the numbers for out-of-wedlock births for college educated women is quite small to begin with (less than 10% of all such births). I think we’re talking about a very small subset of women, and this tells us little or nothing about a difference between Black and White culture.
But, I would add that anyone who advocates that there is such a thing as “Black Culture” and “White Culture” is opening himself up to the charge that the culture is the source of certain ills. We generally don’t have problems talking about culture being the source of certain positive aspects (Asians and education, for example).