Posted on 06/04/2011 7:04:49 PM PDT by NCjim
It’s perhaps not the most politically correct take on welfare in America’s black community, but an interesting one nonetheless.
Walter E. Williams, a George Mason economist and author of “Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?” is not a fan of the welfare state that exists in the country. In an appearance on Thursday night’s “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network, Williams argued that welfare has done more damage to black society than slavery or Jim Crow.
“[T]he welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely break up the black family,” Williams said. “That is, today, just slightly over 30 percent of black kids live in two parent families. Historically, from 1870s on up to about 1940s, and depending on the city, 75 to 90 percent of black kids lived in two parent families. Illegitimacy rate is 70 percent among blacks where that is unprecedented in our history.”
But this isn’t just relegated to the American welfare state, but is seen in European welfare states as well.
“Now, it’s not just a matter of a racial thing. Sweden is the mother of the welfare state and illegitimacy in Sweden is 54 percent,” he said.
Williams explained to host John Stossel that this is a natural effect of welfare policies.
“Well, because, look, if you subsidize anything, you’re going to get surpluses of it, and if you tax something you’re going to get less of it,” he said. “If you did not get welfare, then people would decide, I’m going to go out and get a job, I’m going to live more responsibly.”
And with these policies, they have taken a toll on the black family, specifically the black father.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/04/walter-e-williams-on-welfare-as-govt-plays-father-black-males-have-become-dispensable/#ixzz1OMWttIi1
LBJ’s Chaotic Society at work.
When I first read the title I said “I can’t imagine Walter Williams on welfare”.
Blacks have traded daddy for Uncle Sam and look at the results. Over half of all murders and violent crimes in the US are committed by inner city blacks who were raised in single mother homes on welfare.
Oh horse hockey. It’s the sexual revolution and easy divorce that have made marriage dispensable.
Black males aren’t exactly dispensable. They’re needed for stud service. And that suits them just fine. They’ve actually got it made. Until we hold them responsible for the kids they produce, the welfare society will never change.
Too bad we cannot spay or neuter everyone on welfare.
This is a true statement and it should scare the sh** out of everyone.
All this is true, and I love Walter Williams, but it isn’t new nor is it his original thinking.
Regarding single mothers in Sweden, I have read that in most cases, Swedish couples rear their children as an intact family. The only difference is they are not legally married, hence the term “Stockholm Marriage”. This distiction between “on paper” single mothers and true single mothers (no father in the home) is often overlooked.
It started with blacks but everybody else has followed suit. It is real nice to have a few kids, get child support, Medicaid, help with the rent and child care. You don’t even have to work and if no one is checking you can have a boyfriend living with you too.
That phrasing makes you sound like a bigot.
Do you question other academics or commentators over "new" or "original thinking" or is Walter being singled out for your rebuke?
They're important points that need expressing whether the first time or the hundredth. The lessons clearly have not been learned.
Yeah, well the way you put that makes you sound like a child molester.
Do you question other academics or commentators over "new" or "original thinking"
Not usually.
is Walter being singled out for your rebuke?
It isn't a rebuke, and the article is specifically about Walter Williams and this particular position. I've been saying this for years, and it isn't an original idea of mine either. Long ago, I heard Rush talk about it and some other conservative, maybe David Horowitz.
Very true, but as much about white men as black men.
Is that true? More than half of murders and violent crimes are committed by a PORTION of 6% of the population? Why do the law abiding members of black community tolerate this?
yep. you are correct. and Thomas Sowell, has also written about this many times.
i agree with newzjunkey, that “They’re important points that need expressing whether the first time or the hundredth.”
...but, i certainly didn’t think you sounded like a bigot when you said you “loved” him.
seems to me, newzjunkey was a little quick on that trigger. since ALL of us seem to have the greatest respect for Dr Williams.
(personally, i like him even better than Thomas Sowell. i think he writes more plainly and to the point. ...and his comments about his wife were very endearing, as a man i respect.)
...and this certainly isn’t a black issue. i think there are more single white women, who have replaced men with government, than black women.
and the liberals have attacked marriage from EVERY possible direction, to destroy it and the family, precisely to make more of us dependent on goverment.
No they have become the Obama militia.
Thanks.
I also have heard others say that black families were just starting to move into the middle class status when this grave injustice was done to them by LBJ and his ilk.
Entire black neighborhoods were bulldozed in the name of “urban renewal” including black owned businesses. Sometimes being replaced with nothing.
if anyone around here is a bigot, i’d bet on NWFLConservative in Post #10.
“...blacks today. The men go around like bucks in the middle of rutting season,”
...even if he was correct, he certainly could have phrased it less offensively. i work with many good hardworking black men, who would rightly take offense at that blanket statement. (one recently buried his wife of over 50 years...)
...and such a quote, even taken out of context, needlessly gives ammunition to liberals, to attack FReepers as racists.
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