We would blame George W. Bush. Truth Revolt notes that Al Sharpton appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday to explain why the embarrassingly large number of black males who sire children, then bolt, are not responsible for their actions. So who is? The government, of course:
We aggressively — the National Action Network and the civil rights community — supported a jobs bill, support infrastructure development. Because when we go and challenge men in our community to say, ‘You’ve got to stand up and you’ve got to be responsible’ — they need jobs. They need training.
So at [sic] one hand, we can’t expand the public sector for jobs. At another hand, they say, well, we’re being harassed and treated differently by law enforcement. So we’ve got to strike a balance that is not in our power to do, which is why we’re going at the Congress to make that possible.
You can’t kill a jobs bill and infrastructure and then tell men to take care of their families. You can’t have it both ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQuXcd3VCw
By Sharpton’s logic (if that is the correct term), out-of-work non-black fathers should abandon their children at the same rate as black unemployed fathers. But according to a Pew poll, black fathers are more than twice as likely as white fathers to live apart from their children (44% vs. 21%). Hispanics fall in between at 35%.
The reverend’s insightful commentary came up in the context of Eric Garner, whose widow was also a guest on the show. Host Chuck Todd noted that Garner was forced to sell single cigarettes to survive and asked Sharpton what his plan was for addressing this climate of “economic hopelessness” in the black community.
(h/t Weasel Zippers)