freeSpeech: Juan Williams

NPR Journalist Says Family Breakdown Is A Scandal Of Modern Life

(CBS)  Here is some news that should be at the top of the front page everyday: 70 percent of black children are born to unmarried women.

Here's some more real news for the front page: As many as half of black children drop out of high school.

This is the scandal of modern American life.

It is bad enough that a quarter of white children and half of Hispanic children are born out of wedlock. But when 70 percent of any group of children don't have a mom and dad it is a sure fire prescription for family breakdown, educational failure, poverty and criminal behavior.

And the problem is compounded by Hip-Hop culture. All the videos feature poisonous images of black people as threatening, violent, over-sexed and dressed like pimps, strippers, gangsters and prisoners - you know, no belt and pants hanging down low. It is bad enough that these images are imprinted on white minds. But it is cruel to send young black people seeking direction the message that this is the most they can hope for in America.

Yet when I wrote this in my new book – “Enough” - I was charged with airing dirty laundry and taking attention away from the power of on-going racism. Well, it is going to be a long wait for the end of racism. That should not stop work on the big issues that threaten all Americans, but especially poor minorities: family breakdown and failing schools.

This is our civil rights struggle. We will be judged if we fail to act now. This is front page news for this generation.

---

Juan Williams, one of America's leading journalists, is a senior correspondent for NPR. You can read an excerpt of his book, "Enough," here.

From 2000 - 2001, Williams hosted NPR's national call-in show Talk of the Nation. In that role, he brought the program to cities and towns across America for monthly radio "town hall" meetings before live audiences.

Williams is the author of the critically acclaimed biography Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, which was released in paperback in February 2000. He is also the author of the nonfiction bestseller Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, the companion volume to the critically acclaimed television series. This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience appeared in February 2003.

During his 21-year career at The Washington Post, Williams served as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, and White House reporter. He has won an Emmy award for TV documentary writing and won widespread critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including “Politics - The New Black Power.”

[borntwice-2009]

The empty tomb is admitted not only by friends but also by foes of Christianity. The Roman guard admitted it. The Sanhedrin admitted it by telling the soldiers to say that His disciples had stolen Him. Jesus has gone throughout all the world and he has reached down and transformed human beings in every nation and tongue of this earth. Countless millions have come to know that he is alive and has come to enter their lives and transform them. He is the one who says "Who ever lives and believes in me shall never die".

[happystan-2009]

....the big issues that threaten all Americans, but especially poor minorities: family breakdown and failing schools.....

Why is it that family breakdown and failing academics are not a hallmark of some minorities, like Asians or Jews, yet these social ills amongst blacks and hispanics continue to plague and drain the rest of America's resources?

Not only is it the social ills you mentioned, but also, violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, misogyny and superficial materialism.

All these things add up to a lack of social responsibility.

Until "poor minorities" accept the responsibility for their own destinies, they will continue wallowing in self pity and the culture of victimization will be alive and well.

It's a sad reality, but not one that "poor minorities" are destined to realize. We are all responsible for determining our own destinies, individually, as a family, as a race, as a society, and as a civilization. As long as we consider whole races of people "poor minorities" instead of as individuals, capable of determining their own future outcomes, MLK's dream has not been realized. It's up to all of us to fullfill our responsibility to realize MLK's dream. Not just blacks, not just whites, all of us. Together.

Where are the MLK's of our day? Where are the Malcolm X's? Where are the Nelson Mandellas?

Instead we're left with narcicists like Lois Farikan, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson?

[tvnupe8]

No Juan, the real scandal is how our state, local and federal governments have failed to adequately and equally fund our public educational systems... perhaps we should look at the source of these woes instead of just repeating them -- especially when it's used to
hock a book -- that's a scandal, too.

[hermit22]

Ethel Waters, one of my all time favorite people, was born because her 12 year old mother was raped. Ethel was that woman who sang "His Eye in on the Sparrow, and I KNOW HE watches me...." She sang at Billy Graham crusades after being a famous actress for years.

Ethel's mother hated her. The point is, GOD will take a life and make something GOOD of it if you ask him to.

[kailumego1]

Certainly, single-motherhood is not exclusive to only blacks, but, statistically the disproportionate number of single-black mothers is much higher than whites.
As this is not a partisan issue, it is a crisis of social/economical degradation.
And the Democratic party is not to blame, after all, the original design of "Welfare", was ideally to help "whites", not blacks.
What Mr. Williams is trying to get across, blacks need to address this problem and stop making excuses, as tide is shifting from bad to worst.
Likewise, whites don't have a disproportionate number of children surving without a father, or women without a help mate.
And suburban schools are not without merit of an adequate curriculum.
I believe his speech is challenging black America to get off its a$#$ and do something, "positive", which in the wake of this tragedy, has been a long time coming.

[gentlearts]

I think it should be mentioned that the black community is not the only one which is suffering from the erosion of family values. There are plenty of ignorant, knocked up, white girls raising doomed children without fathers too.

The welfare system has helped ruin a couple of generations of families by paying folks just enough to foster dependency and kill individual incentive. The Democratic Party, to which black folks seem to cling even after years and years of its failure to offer them anything of value, has a vested interest in keeping the poor convinced they can't make on their own merit.

What I think is interesting is that, just by living on the planet, we are all exposed to both bad and good influences. Some of us choose to be influenced by the positive influences and some by only the negative. Go figure.

[kailumego1]

The whole idea or concept of the "hanging-pants", or pants below the a#$ is not a new phenomenon. The whole idea came from the "prisons", where detainees had to wear their pants in this fashion, because they weren't allowed a belt.
And if you think that's such a great idea, try seeking employment with your pants below the buttocks, and see if you will get hired.
And try applying for a job speaking "E-bonics", which, by the way, is not the official language of African Americans/blacks. But, the "laziness" on the part of some individuals failing to use proper English.
Blacks have been stereotyped enough by white America, why give them ammunition. The record industry dosen't give a "hoot" about how this music affects blacks, it's all about the "green", in which they have wantonly exploited blacks too ignorant to recognize the "hype".

[kailumego1]

I came up in an era when rap music spoke of racism, social degradation, political sanctions, and economic disenfranchisement. Rap groups like Grand Master Flash, Ron-D-MC, etc., however this new genre of rap has left out elements of social degradation and instead has focused on %u201Ccommercialism%u201D. And the difference between whites and blacks, young whites listen to this type of music because they are going thru a phase, however, unlike blacks, whites know how to turn it off when they mature.
You don%u2019t see 30-50 something white males wearing their pants to their knees nor do you see them calling the white woman a b##$#h or a ***.
You don%u2019t see the established white male, and established doesn%u2019t have to mean %u201Cmoney%u201D, referencing his mate or woman in a derogatory slang, neither.

[kailumego1]

This music has done absolutely nothing to empower blacks intellectually, politically, socially, etc. But it has further aided to the self-debasement and degradation.
And you don%u2019t have to be a so-called %u201Cbougie%u201D black to see its perversion in the family, community, and black neighborhoods.
True not too many influential or prominent black leaders, etc. have come up with an adequate solution. But, embracing music that vilifies women and seduces young impressionable men to commit heinous acts of violence is certainly not the solution either.
And I%u2019m quite sure %u201Cracists%u201D whites could care less about this music, and its affects on the black population, as a matter of fact, they%u2019re probably %u201Cjumping%u201D for joy.
Because now blacks can no longer blame racism for the demise of the black race, it%u2019s blacks themselves whom view this type of propaganda as redeeming and important.

[kailumego1]

The white-Aryan-neo-Nazi-skinhead doesn%u2019t have to lift a finger to lynch, firebomb, or murder blacks. Well, they can just sit back and watch them do it to them, because after all, it is black on black crime, supported by some gangster rappers, that has taken over black degradation.
I%u2019m quite sure racist whites are quite pleased at the turn of events, because they don%u2019t have to break a sweat.
And it bothers me that so-called blacks that claim to be Afro-centered wouldn%u2019t be outraged at the degradation of women, single-black-mothers struggling to raise their children without the help of a competent black male. The disproportionate number of black males incarcerated, while so few are enrolling in college. The condition of the black communities and neighborhoods is like a flotsam of degradation and detritus.
And the number of black males unemployed, while other ethnicities enjoy entrepreneurship. Last, the steady decline competent black males through which the race, itself, can flourish and prosper.
I can%u2019t imagine any Afro-centered black would not be seriously concern of the continuance of social-degradation among blacks.

[senacle]

When Juan Williams's Free Speech segment aired Friday, it included a montage of hip-hop video scenes, of which several featured Three 6 Mafia, the Academy Award-winning rap group from Memphis. As Williams spoke about "poisonous images," Juicy J and his glorious grill could be seen as Exhibit A of everything that's wrong with Black America. However, the montage apparently didn't make the cut on the version that CBS posted on its Web site. In this segment, he really establishes himself as the modern-day C. Delores Tucker without the makeup or the dress. She, too, believed that hip-hop "compounded," if not caused outright, the problems of Black America and sought to muffle its contradictory, but important, voice. (And yes, that would make Three 6 Mafia the modern-day version of 2Pac, the poster child of Tucker's attacks. Sada tai.)
Here's the problem: Williams's proposed fix would do nothing to rectify those scandals.
For instance, music does not cause a student to drop-out. As the factors (like racism and lack of economic opportunities) that used to define Black culture wane, it simply says something when individual Black folks decide to express themselves in a material fashion -- or simply wear their pants down low. It is what it is, no matter how much bougie Negros hate it. And to that end, many of us couldn't give a *** about what white folks think unlike Williams, a well-dressed slave still fearly living in massa's house.

[kailumego1]

Blacks, African Americans, are going to have to come out of denial and confront the problem. We are all out of Martin Luther King's, Malcolm X's and Merger Evers'.
The Civil Rights Movement has past, at least, for the most part.
Now, the real issue is why are blacks or African Americans still carrying the yoke of slavery.
Through the black codes and Jim Crow blacks are still carrying the burden of slavery.
Blacks were forced into bastardization, women used as breeding machines and men as studs.
So, why are blacks, today, still perpetuating this degradation?
Women and men were forbidden to marry or consummate their love.
Children were sold to strangers like cattle, in which they were viewed nothing more than sheep or chickens.
The African slave was property.
So, why are blacks still committing themselves to slaughter?
The average black family consists of a single-female, multiple children, and with little or no income.
Approximately, 50% of young black males are either incarcerated or have a juvenile record. And that statistic is probably higher.
Black on black crime is solely disproportionate to whites, and also unemployment rates.
The median income for blacks is around 64% on the dollar, and the "glass-ceiling" still exist.
There are fewer black males enrolling in 4-year institutions, while the school dropout rate is soaring.
And why is all this occurring?

[kailumego1]

Many black theorist and psychologist have posited the problem lies in the family.
African American women have been sited for raising their "daughters" while spoiling their "sons".
It has been posited by some blacks that having multiple children, by various women, is a "rite-of-passage", to manhood.
And, unfortunately, enough pressure has not been applied to force black males to accept their responsibility.
So, many have claimed the black male is an "endangered-species", so, therefore, he has to be protected from racist ideologies.
Unfortunately, it is the "family" and children who has suffered.
While all emphasis has been placed on the %u201Cdelicate%u201D black man, the black woman has had to raise the children alone.
And there are no apologies.
And this is not a new phenomenon, but a very old one.
And old one filled with wanton acts of neglect, child sexual abuse, and abandonment.
I%u2019ve heard the term or reference %u201Cpost-traumatic-stress disorder%u201D, due to post-slavery, while negating %u201Cold%u201D.
Certainly slavery has been catalysis for this maladaptive behavior, but a great deal of the responsibility should be placed on African Americans themselves.
The black family has been for a long time in peril and black leaders and ministers have done absolutely nothing to address this situation.
Well, in order to solve this problem, or dilemma, African Americans are going to have to admit culpability, and devise a remedy.

[dixxson-2009]

Thanks Jaun about 20 yrs too late I guess.
When *** culture started I said where is M L King, Jesssie Jackson, somebody, we need help, guidence. The little caramel colored middle aged lady was the lone voice in the wilderness crying out, Singer guitarist George Benson were the only people I saw complain. I saw a conference on tv between Crappers and Naacp leaders, and they called the leaders UNCLE TOMS. They are not educated enough to know
they are a **** SHOW, Produced by white racists and what I didn't know then, THE BLACK REPUBLICAN DONALD TRUMP, ROBERT JOHNSON! (BET)
WHOM YOU ALL fEAR! along with *** FEAR''.

[trailboss49]

Finally, a man with the integrity and rationality to state the obvious. American society has been like the king with no clothes, pretending to be one thing when it is really something completely different.

Let us start using logic and common sense to resolve societal problems rather than pointing fingers and playing the blame game.

Now, if more people like Juan William and Bill Cosby would step up to the plate maybe things would start coming about that the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s actually stood for.

[rollo1964]

on illeagle aliens in the usa,
first of all, all of us who are not full blooded indians are illeagle here u see the people from across the world came and took the land from the indians by force and then they were forced to live in bondage in thier own land, if it,s is so who ever is a alien here must leave we all must leave and give back to the indians thire land
even the govt also shall leave to

[chrisbee00]

Juan hit it right on the head. It's sad that when these issues are mentioned, the first response of the Black community is a negative one. It is for this reason nothing ever gets done amongst us. Our first response is: "Racism" or "The white man..." Let's deal with the honest issues here.

[jand5]

I was so inspired by Mr. William's Free Speech segment, I had to comment, something I have never done before. Juan had the guts to point out these truths, for which I would have be labeled as a racist.
I am a white father, trying to teach my children a good work ethic and respect for others no matter what color. My children listen to this music and see this behavior, no matter how I try to point out the evils of this lifestyle, I sound prejudice.
This Hip-Hop, Rap, and proper English not required culture is undoing most of the advancements the blacks have made in the civil rights movement. I respected the black leaders who blazed the trail for civil rights, but I am having difficulty respecting people who have had the opportunity to get a good education and throwing it away.
Although more money invested in the education system wouldn't hurt, it is not the root of the problem, the problem is in the home and the parents or lack of. Parents must be held more responsible and involved in their children's education.
With dropout rates as we are seeing I'm very concerned for the future of our children, how will the few support the many?

[kailumego1]

Thank you, thank you, and thank you a thousands times. I listen to NPR, but haven't had to chance to hear your commentaries. You have open the forum or door to a sticky issue many blacks shy away from, or to much in denial to tackle.
I know many whites will applaud you because it takes the heat off them, but the critical issue here is much greater than anyone's self-aggrandizement or narcissism. When I last checked the statistics it was 50%, so you can imagine these new stats are very disturbing.
I just wish some of our esteem black leaders and ministers would seriously address this problem instead of constantly spouting gibberish or fleecing their congregation of their hard earn money.
The black family has never really had a chance to rebound since slavery, and it is in devastating decline.
Black leaders are bitter and enraged over comments Bill Cosby made about black mothers.
However, none, including Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson, have address a real solution to this phenomenon.
And, yes, of course, the Hip-Hop or Rap genre has not contributed anything positive to music, but teaching black youth how to talk "E-Bonic", wear your pants to the knees, exposing your underwear, and reference black women as
bi$%*#th's, or ******.
And to top it off, many black radio stations, media, and record companies support this lunacy.
Well I am so glad someone has the courage to dialogue about this problem, instead of being complacent.

[vbranch]

Thanks, CBS, for your freeSpeech segments. They are a breath of fresh air in our "politically correct" environment. I am amazed and encouraged to hear folks stand up and say what they mean and mean what they say-- and that it's CBS providing the plateform. Whether we listeners agree with them or not, they make us think-- often with a good measure of adrenelin mixed in! Hang in there, Katie; you're providing a great service to our nation.