Selena Hill: Mitt Romney’s Attack On Black Women

Via Global Grind:

Romney implied single mothers, a large percentage of which are in the black community, raise children prone to violence when he said: “We need moms and dads helping raise kids. Wherever possible, the — the benefit of having two parents in the home — and that’s not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh, to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone — that’s a great idea because if there’s a two-parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will — will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity and bring them in the American system.”

Selena Hill notes:

…it implies that single parents can’t sufficiently raise children to grow up to be nonviolent productive members of society. Two, it insinuates that people should fight poverty by getting hitched, instead of fighting for a higher living wage. Three, it ignores the fact that whether children growing up in poverty or disenfranchised by the color of their skin have one or two parents, overwhelmingly, they will struggle with obstacles relating to classicism, poorly funded school systems, and racism. Four, evidence shows that a number of violent gun crimes have been committed by people raised in two parents homes, like the shooter involved in the Colorado theater massacre, the gun owner who shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and the Columbine High School shooters. Now, the fifth reason is what resonated and infuriated me the most as a Black woman.

Nearly half of Black Americans have never married, which is the highest percentage for all racial groups. And 72 percent of Black children grow up in single parent homes, compared to the only 25 percent of children that are raised with one parent across the nation. The statistic is alarming, but a very sad reality in African-American communities. With an overwhelming statistic like this and stereotypical images of the “Black Welfare Queen” ingrained in our society, Mitt Romney was undoubtedly attacking single, hard working Black mothers when he said that.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.