Tragedy Begs Question of a Merciful God

[Pangloss62]

My assumption that she is "having babies for a check" as Pangloss puts it is judgmental and unreasonable.

I don't know if you assumed she was "having babies for a check;" I only know that many women regardless of race, certainly realize that they will get government assistance if they do; that's just the way it is. Let's say it's one of several factors that goes into the "choice" to have unprotected sex with men to which these young women are not married.

Now, before we divide into the "It's all about slavery" and "Johnson's Great Society created this problem" camps, we should consider how both may have contributed to what I see as the problem of too many unwed black mothers with several children fathered by different men (I used the italics for myself because some anthropologists argue that there is nothing intrinsically "bad" or "immoral" about such a subculture; it's just different).

When one considers not just slavery, but the decades of inequality that followed, it would be hard to argue that black American society does not still have some deeply imbedded cultural and psychological attributes related to that history that contribute to the contemporary situation under discussion.

It could also be argued that trying to help poor urban blacks to attain economic viability by giving them money might have the tendency to create a sense of entitlement and/or a slothful lifestyle. It's all very sad because this nation had many examples of viable, self-sufficient black communities with strong families. What happened? I don't know completely. The urban environment does not provide a good (legal) economic ladder, especially for young men. The dynamic between the young men and young women is pathological for many, and I see this dynamic every single day here in downtown Atlanta. It's scary because these kids are the future of this city. There were more cases of child exploitation (pimping) in Atlanta last year than ANY American city. Is the vibrant -if disturbing- hip-hop/crunk culture here a result of this behavior or a cause of it? All these young black dudes sell their own crunk music on the streets down here, hoping for fame and fortune, but it's the lifestyle of the latter that drives them, not some wish to become an upstanding citizen or dutiful father. There are plenty of the latter, but they're moving out to the burbs, and I don't blame them.