The New York Times published a shocking data table on its op-ed page on Saturday, a segment of which I’ve reproduced above.

According to this data — taken from U.S. Census Bureau statistics, and presented under the byline of a certain Charles M. Blow — only about 24% of white American children under 18 aren’t living with both parents. For Asians, the number is just 17%. For Blacks, on the other hand, the number is a heartbreaking 65%, with the majority of all black children living with their mother only. That’s an astounding statistic, especially since we know how important fathers are in preventing children from falling into the temptations of gangs and crime.

Bill Cosby has been courageously speaking out on this theme for years. Barack Obama, to his credit, has also been talking about it recently (albeit in more cautious terms): On June 15, Father’s Day, he declared in a speech at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s South Side that absentee fathers are a big part of the problem afflicting America’s black community, and that “we need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception.”

It’s a disgrace that Jesse Jackson — whose vulgar, caught-on-tape rebuke to Obama’s praiseworthy candor has recently caused the ageing racial shakedown artist so much embarassment — is too vested in Black victimology to realize the truth in those words. Perhaps the data above will change his mind.

Or maybe, he’ll just threaten to cut Charles B. Blow’s “n–s off.” Shooting the messenger seems to be his thing.
jkay@nationalpost.clom

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