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Daniel D's avatar

Shhhh. Don't say unpleasant truths like this too loudly. Fathers are different than mothers, and the genders are not interchangeable? American black culture is broken and dysfunctional and creating a significant share of its own problems? We must go on pretending that such things cannot be! Besides, that's just, like, your opinion, man! What's this based on? Math? Like, that's a western white supremacist patriarchal construct! I'm reporting you and anyone who agrees with you to the thought police. Maybe they can convince you it can only be the guns causing this problem. Fatherless criminals from dysfunctional homes who join street gangs don't kill people, guns do!

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SCA's avatar

After my many decades of full-time employment ended, I got a part-time seasonal job, three seasons a year over six years, in a children's farm in NYC that saw upwards of 4500 visitors per day during the busiest times and mostly serving NYC public school children. Most of those children were minorities and many came from the poorest neighborhoods.

What I saw, I saw consistently, season after season, year after year. So my generalizations are based on that. I started off every tour by asking for the cooperation of the grownups, and especially that one of them should be stationed at the very end of the group of kids so when I saw that person, I knew I had everyone with me. It was important that we moved on my prompts so the kids got to see and do everything.

If I had a tour group including white fathers, my day was pretty wretched. Those daddies were the feeblest collection of manhood I'd ever seen, and they couldn't keep the kids together.

If I had a tour group including black mothers, my day was pretty wretched too. They took the tour guide as an antagonist whose instructions were an insult to their autonomy.

If I had a tour group including black daddies, I was in paradise. They recognized the logic of my request immediately. They kept the kids in order without yelling. I only needed to catch one of the fathers' eyes for them to get everybody moving behind me again. They were an absolute joy to work with and it was very clear how good it was for the kids.

Now--about the teachers? Most of them regardless of ethnicity were appallingly bad. But the black entirely female teachers? They were often quite vicious to the little black boys, shaming them and sometimes grabbing them roughly for behaving exactly like little children thrilled to have a day in "the country." Those were the teachers who *apologized to me because the children were "bothering" me with questions.*

After that job, I no longer had quite as much contempt and loathing for HS thugs. School itself was the gangster factory. The littlest kids full of enthusiasm and affection in kindergarten and 1st grade had learned, by third grade, that most grownups didn't give a damn about them and should be entirely ignored.

You really had to see it. Nothing I wrote can convey the reality.

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