Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . The Left Vs. Realities Of Race In America

By STEPHEN M. KRASON

America has been going through its latest period of racial turmoil and conflict. Leftist spokesmen and activists claim there is systemic racism — a term they never define — but segregation is now in the distant past, legal protection of civil rights has long since been enshrined into law, and Blacks and other minorities are in positions of prominence and influence in the country’s life and economy to the greatest extent in history. Of course, the left doesn’t much care about truth. They care about promoting their narratives, which aim to further their ideology. Part of what they don’t care about — and don’t do much to address — are the real problems, some of which are overwhelming, facing the Black community.
The left claims that the police are, almost by definition, against Blacks — and that’s why we have had the episodes that have led to the turmoil. Without making a judgment about the Chauvin case and the like, it should be pointed out that in all the cases which have led to the recent outbursts and antipathy toward police the people involved were committing criminal acts. Most were repeat criminals.
One of the current pathologies in the Black community is the disproportionately high crime rate. As has been pointed out, most of the crime is perpetrated on other Blacks. It isn’t that police are targeting Blacks, but criminals who are Black. Moreover, the myth has been perpetrated that police forces are white enclaves. In fact, since the 1960s the percentage of Black police officers has grown substantially, especially in big cities.
Many writers and social scientists have talked about these pathologies facing the Black community. Besides high crime rates, they include disproportionate levels of unemployment and underemployment, gangs, a long-pervasive drug problem, poor educational attainment, high rates of government dependency, and — perhaps most central of all — family breakdown (or, perhaps more precisely, the absence of sound family life).
This begins with the widespread illegitimacy: 70-75 percent in the Black community nationally, and reaching 80 percent and higher in some large cities. This, of course, reflects the weakening of sexual morality generally in the U.S. since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. While illegitimacy increased in all demographic groups, it did so disproportionately among Blacks, virtually tripling since the mid-1960s. At the same time, Black family breakdown has occurred in other ways. We hear about how 50 percent of marriages nationally end in divorce; the rate is even higher for Blacks. Fatherlessness abounds, as childrearing by mothers and even grandmothers has become almost normative in the Black community.
The social science evidence about the problems deriving from fatherlessness is abundant. The lack of good male role models is especially damaging for young men. It’s not surprising then that gangs too often become the reference point for fatherless young males and that, despite the fact that Black males make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise 50 percent of those who are incarcerated. It’s worth noting that when there is an intact Black family — even when residing in urban ghettoes and high crime areas — it is much more likely that the children will escape these pathologies.
The Black churches historically were an important source of stability and means of personal formation in the Black community and in some respects religious sentiment may be stronger there than among the Caucasian population. What one too often finds, however, is that the attendees at Sunday services are mostly women; many Black men have become disconnected from the influence of religion. Moreover, much has been said about the declining influence of the Black church in recent decades.
Numerous reasons have been given: pastors getting too involved with political causes and the mixing of religion and politics (including the corrosive effect of a close association with the increasingly leftist Democratic Party), the inability to reach Black youth, the need to work in usually low-paying jobs every day of the week precluding people from going to Sunday services and being active in their church, and even how the pressures of single-parentage so consume Black women that they can’t find time to get themselves and their children to church.
One could add that the subpar education received by Black children in urban public schools, coupled with a lack of direction and structure of many of them because of their family situations, depresses their hopes and motivation for their futures. High school drop-out rates for Blacks are considerably higher than for Caucasians. The result is that many can’t readily improve their situations and may fall back into the troublesome patterns we have been discussing.

Ideological Imperatives

A further problem in the Black community has been poor and even self-interested leadership. It is much easier for the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world to pontificate about how racism is the cause of Black problems instead of having to make the effort to work to address family breakdown and the rest — while at the same time they become prominent and wealthy. It hardly needs to be said that they are a disservice to their own people.
A solid Black leadership would look back on one of the greatest spokesman that community has ever produced: Booker T. Washington. In a word, he said that self-help and self-improvement were the keys to both Black advancement and respect.
The left has used the race question for opportunistic ends: to advance their political and ideological agenda — which for many of them is essentially a warmed-over Marxism. In fact, the very idea of widespread conflict among races — with one race almost by definition bad and another good — and the notion of systemic racism have the distinct ring of Marx’s fundamental claims of the “evil” bourgeoisie and the exploited and seemingly virtuous proletariat and the utterly corrupt, irredeemable system of capitalism.
The left’s views are the ones that demonstrate race prejudice: Blacks are inevitably disadvantaged and Caucasians — at least unless “enlightened” by the left — are inevitably the oppressors. There is little room for individual differences, everyone is simply a part of a broad group. Further, what in effect they are saying to Blacks is to accept what they say about racism — that Blacks are somehow incapable of analyzing or thinking about it on their own. That is hardly respect for Blacks as thinking human beings able to make their own judgments.
Also, by ignoring the profound problems in the Black community and blaming everything on “racism” what they imply is that Blacks cannot act responsibly as free-willed persons and get their own lives in order — that is certainly a denigrating attitude.
Far from objectively assessing and helping to solve racial problems in the U.S., the left has muddled and enflamed them. That’s not surprising, since they routinely bend truth to ideological imperatives.

• + + (Stephen M. Krason is professor of political science and legal studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville, associate director of the University’s Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life, and co-founder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. His latest books are Catholicism and American Political Ideologies: Catholic Social Teaching, Liberalism, and Conservatism and a Catholic political novel, American Cincinnatus.)