Is Everything About Race?

Is it? For example, 50 years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the Department of Labor, noted that "The racist virus in the American bloodstream still afflicts us, and the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling" in his The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. And, yesterday as clergy and civic leaders sat in my living room, the issue was raised as to whether the dismal statistics about the African-American family since 1965 show that family is really worse off. In fact, statistics about family are bleaker today. No doubt. And, that is NOT a racist rant! The young and scholarly message from Moynihan five decades ago was that nearly a quarter of African-American births were "illegitimate," and only a minority of children of African-American descent who were 18 at that time had lived all their lives with both parents. I tire of being charged that everything is about race. This crisis is worse now than in 1965, and, urban areas need to embrace a theology of the family, come clean about the rising illegitimacy of children, and, the crumbling Black family. As clergy and legislative leaders wrestled with the epidemic of family fracture today, in my home, yesterday, they clearly care about this crisis of family, so must urban pastors step up to the plate. They need to rise again NOW! Only a comprehensive plan will help all of us to realize the truth that firm families are good for the health and wellness of the regions where we reside. It is about race. All of it. It's about the human race. Only truth, however, will set us free to rebuild and restore family that has to begin in the home, or else, more of the same real (and unreal) racist rants against police, and more, will fracture this town, and my USA.