I believe that bifurcation in the Black community was directly the result of the failure of one key institution – the family.

James – do you know what caused the breakup of the black family? It was the government’s war on poverty – and it didn’t just affect black families, it affected poor white ones, too.

The government essentially gave poor families a choice: let us help you without the father in the home or continue to be poor on your own with your family intact. So the men did the honorable thing and left their families because the government provided more for them than they could on their own.

I happen to think this was an unintended consequence but there are others who believe the government’s motives were more sinister. But the results cannot be ignored: the black family, which had endured things unheard of and yet remained committed to each other, was broken up. As were poor white families.

Did you follow that?

Children need a mother and a father. If they commit themselves, in this culture, through the legal relationship of marriage it is even better.

Stable and loving environments make a difference. Things which stand in the way of that are the problems that need to be addressed.

And seriously, “illegitimacy”? In 2008?

I believe that bifurcation in the Black community was directly the result of the failure of one key institution – the family. It continues today. Families without fathers suffer. Getting married and staying married as much as possible makes all the difference in the world for the measures of every social pathology. Following the teachings of the Christian church count.

Every family in America is one generation away from getting out material poverty. The barrier isn’t racism. The barrier is the price to be paid by one generation of parents pouring themselves out for their children – and their children not blowing it by bad choices. Immigrants from across the world prove the point.

Illegitimacy affects every ethnicity. It is the root, not the sum, of most of the stress and sadness shared by so many of our fellow citizens.

Politically what has happened (and this is where we are likely to disagree) is an absolute Orwellian perversion of the Civil Rights movement. Racism remains a sin on the national soul.