THE IMPACT OF ABSENTEEISM: UNDERSTANDING THE CONSEQUENCES OF FATHERLESSNESS IN BLACK COMMUNITIES
Disclaimer: Good Day, Readers. WealthBuildingPowers blog is a financial literacy/competency blog and does not provide specific investment recommendations.
Facing the Hard Truths and Taking Steps Towards Real Progress
INTRODUCTION -WHY BLACK FATHERS MATTER
By Bill and Styron Powers
The United States is facing a complex and challenging period, with significant obstacles like the widening racial wealth and education gaps. However, many proposed solutions for achieving “equity” only address surface-level issues and ignore the underlying causes. Unfortunately, many of these causes are not being discussed due to sensitivities, such as the absence of fathers in children’s lives, the erosion of Judeo-Christian values, and the misguided belief that more government intervention/spending is the solution, despite decades of failure.
If we genuinely want equality for all, regardless of color or sex, we must address all root causes, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Today we submitted the below letter to ~30 prominent individuals, some of whom have millions of followers, urging them to speak out on these issues if they agree with the points. Together, we hope to work towards meaningful solutions that address the root causes of inequality and build a better future for all Americans. Join us in this important journey towards true equity.
LETTER – WHY BLACK FATHERS MATTER!
We are two black brothers, children of the 1960s segregated American South who enjoy reading the works of men like Jason Riley, Thomas Sowell, and others.
After you read the materials below, we hope you will consider using your platform to share these concerns with your broad audience.
We had parents and a family structure that taught us the importance of education, hard work, and Judeo-Christian values. As we watch the failure to close the racial wealth and education gaps, we fear America is on a dangerous path driven by fathers not being actively engaged in their children’s lives, the erosion of Judeo-Christian values, and a mistaken belief that throwing more government money at a problem is the solution.
We both retired from successful careers in industry. With a science-based education, including several STEM university degrees, we used facts and data to identify root causes during our careers, enabling us to develop effective solutions.
Today, many solutions for achieving “equity” address surface-level issues only, such as the examples below.
- Minorities score lower on standard college entrance exams (SAT, ACT, etc.). Solution – Some colleges stopped requiring entrance exams to increase minority student enrolment. This fails to address WHY minorities score significantly lower than Asian and White students. And increases the risk that poorly prepared students will drop out with high debt.
- Black and Latino students are underrepresented in AP enrollment. Solution – Santa Monica, Calif., said last year they had “a moral imperative” to eliminate English honors classes that they viewed as perpetuating inequality.” WHY are black and Latino students underrepresented in AP enrollment? The elimination of honors courses harms ALL students, especially those working hard.
We are concerned about the devastating reality of our public school’s unacceptable performance and escalation in violent crime. Today, we are witnessing an escalation in violent crime, increasingly with minimal consequences to the criminals and little progress in our public schools. The Maryland State Department of Education 2022 state test results showed Baltimore City’s math scores demonstrated that just seven percent of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math, which means 93% could not do math at grade level. In 23 Baltimore City schools, zero students tested proficient in math.
While the US spends more per student than any other nation, our global ranking is declining. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 data showed that US students’ average reading score was 497, {19th out of 79 countries}. In math, the average score for US students was 478, {40th out of 79 countries}. The average score for US students in science was 489, {25th out of 79 countries}.
We believe a root cause of the weak reading, math, and science scores is the time different racial groups spend studying. A recent study showed that students of:
- Asian descent spent ~134 minutes/day studying.
- White descent spent ~56 minutes/day;
- Hispanic descent spent ~50 minutes/per day
- Black descent spent ~37 minutes/day.
These study times correlate with poor and minority students’ performance on college entrance exams and failure to enroll in honors classes.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07311214221101422
Dunatchik, A., & Park, H. (2022). Racial and Ethnic Differences in Homework Time among US Teens. Sociological Perspectives.
https://doi.org/10.1177/07311214221101422
The findings in “The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community,” written by Patrick Fagan, {Former William H.G. Fitzgerald fellow in family and cultural issues at The Heritage Foundation}, demonstrate a strong correlation in the rise of families abandoned by fathers and the poor academic performance and escalation in violent crime in the black communities.
A review of the empirical evidence gives policymakers an insight into the root causes of crime.
- Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.
- High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.
- State-by-state analysis by Heritage scholars indicates that a 10 percent increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes typically leads to a 17 percent increase in juvenile crime.
- The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers.
- The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal often is foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as age five or six.
- The future criminal tends to be an individual rejected by other children as early as the first grade who goes on to form his group of friends, often the future delinquent gang.
“The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community
Some of Mr. Riley’s writings suggest that black Americans were making slow but steady economic progress until the mid-late 1960s, coinciding with the rollout of LBJ’s Great Society social programs. While intended to help lift black families out of poverty, many programs may have negatively impacted the black family, resulting in minimal overall economic progress or improvement for many American blacks after spending Trillions of government (taxpayer) dollars. But if the possible negative impact of Great Society programs is correct, we now face a generational crisis going back half a century and two generations. This is not a “throw some money at it and walk away” issue.
We were fortunate to have a strong father who held us accountable and showed us the value of education. We owe our lives today to our parents and the values they instilled in us. Our nation’s fate cannot depend on the government to fix the problems, nor can we blame all of our problems on systemic racism and white supremacy while we lower our educational standards in the name of equity and sit back and wait for reparation money. We believe that more Americans must be informed of the facts and encouraged to take action and that we need to take responsibility for fixing this problem ourselves.
The conclusion to “The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community.”
“The professional literature of criminology is surprisingly consistent on the real root causes of violent crime: the breakdown of the family and community stability. The sequence has its deepest roots in the absence of stable marriage.
Despite the good news that overall crime rates have dropped in recent years, the frightening news is that both the level and viciousness of teenage violent crime have been rising steadily. More ominous still, this was set in motion sixteen to eighteen years ago, when these violent teenagers were born into chaotic family and social conditions. Since then these conditions have become more prevalent, and we will see a continued rise in violent teenage crime. Furthermore, America is headed toward a 50 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate sometime in the next twelve to twenty years, inching more and more of the country closer to today’s inner-city illegitimacy rate. If this trend is not reversed, Americans must prepare for extensive and serious erosion of public safety and practical freedoms.
Government can staff and manage the criminal justice system efficiently and prevent crime in the short term by locking up violent teenage criminals so that they are no longer a danger to others. But it lacks both the capacity and competence to tackle the root causes of crime. That is the mission of three other basic institutions of society: the family, the church, and the school. For close to five decades government has increasingly burdened these institutions — has even become hostile to them. It is now time to help these institutions fulfill their missions by reversing course and removing these burdens.
“However, it will take real leadership — leadership through ideas and passionately meant words — to inspire us all to cooperate in rebuilding our marriages, families, neighborhoods, and communities. That is the appropriate work for America’s political leaders and statesmen.”.
Our nation will not achieve equality until we, as individuals and families, the black community, churches, and schools, accept accountability and ownership for our failures and take action to drive our improvement.
We hope you will consider using your platform to share the above concerns with your audience.
Thank you for your time.”
Bill Powers, https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampowers/
Styron Powers, https://www.linkedin.com/in/styronpowers/
ABOUT BILL POWERS
Bill Powers is a former pharmaceutical R&D executive, world traveler, and history buff turned author. Bill’s first Harding Family novel, The Pharm House, was published in 2013 and was named a Finalist in the Medical Thriller category of the 2014 National Indie Excellence Awards.
In that debut novel, Bill used his twenty-six years of experience working for Johnson & Johnson in pharmaceutical R&D, where he ultimately rose to Vice President, Global Preclinical Development. In his years with the company, Bill was instrumental in developing several marketed pharmaceutical products, leading groups of scientists in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Bill has also led research groups in Belgium and India, in addition to his extensive travels in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He earned his Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of Cincinnati and has published numerous abstracts, articles, and book chapters on various toxicology subjects. Bill’s parents were teachers who stoked his childhood love for words and voracious appetite for reading. He is married, with one adult child, and has moved away from the corporate world to focus on his writing career.
In Bill’s exciting new thriller, The Torch is Passed, the Harding family finds itself in a deadly intrigue where someone tries to kill Nicholas, his brother Michael, and his daughter Andrea.
It is up to young Andrea to urgently seek answers why anyone would want to kill her entire family—forcing her to grow up along the way and seek her revenge.
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ABOUT ME
I am a proud nerd (as my beautiful wife and daughter have told me) investment and finance blogger with an N.C. State, Chemical Engineering, University Rutgers, MBA and Harvard University, Advanced Management education.
I left a corporate career because I desired to make a difference as a speaker and writer. I was blessed to be coached and mentored by strong women and men in my family and professional life. It is my time to serve and give back.
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