I'd like to get your thoughts on the following. This is a post a made in another thread
a while back:
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Dyson, cites from a publication that dubois was a part of as he edited
a social study titled: "morals and manners among negro americans",
in 1914..., that's before there being such a thing as a civil rights era.
He distributes nationally a questionnaire to upstanding black folks of
the time: preachers, teachers, social workers, physician, lawyers etc:
Some of the responses to the condition of parenting back then:
"better families look after their children", will other families (according
to dyson, "less well" families), "where somewhat neglectful".
Another person from d.c. says, "...Among lower elements", whatever that
means, "the children are not reared properly".
"Children are neglected in many cases from the lack of facilities to rear them properly,
inadequate schools, necessity of parents to work and spend a little time in the home"
Now this is something right here; according to a participant from alambama:
"[F]our fiths of the children are improperly reared" [...] "because the parents in equal
numbers have never had the proper training themselves".
A report from arkansas: "There is a tendency to permit children to have too many liberties
before they are really able to see for themselves or really know what are the consequences
that result from taking upon themselves responsibility which belongs to mature years, I
believe the parent is wholly in error"
From georgia: "I don not think that parents are quite strict with their children as they were
when
I was a child". Well darn. This report was put together in 1914. We see here folks waxing a "back
in my day" mantra. Imagine that.
Still in georgia: "Many mothers work out and children are left a great deal to themselves"
Hole'up. Where's dad? In circa 1914?
I can go on a little more, but I am secure that y'all get the the point. Cognative dissonance
nothwithstanding.
If folks, our "predecessors" had these issues over 100 years ago, let the documented evidence
show that there were issues back then with the family unit. Inspite of the evidence, lets take racism
out of the equation. We are going back long before the civil rights era and or generation even.
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Can we agree that these "pressing issues", where black folk are concerned didn't just manifest yesterday?