The Baltimore City Council president,
Bernard Young, was "heartbroken and disturbed by the way the media is focusing on the negativity of this city.
Blaming the messenger will change nothing.
President Obama
then said that the unrest stems from decades-long neglect of urban communities in the U.S. "We as a country have to do some soul-searching. This is not new. It's been going on for decades. We can't just leave this to the police." And "if our society really wanted to solve the problem," the public would pay attention to issues such as early childhood education and criminal justice reform regularly, not just when people riot.
I respectfully disagree.
Willful blindness is the cause of much of the rot that led to the riots. We are refusing to look at the real problem. We have lost connection to the importance of religion in our society. It is religion that strengthens the family in the USA and Canada. I'm not talking about dogma, creed, and the definition of God. I am talking about the morals and values that come from Judaism and Christianity.
Alexis de Tocqueville discovered in his travels in America in the 1830s that religious leaders in America were heavily involved in strengthening families, building communities, and starting charities. They inspired people to a sense of the common good, educating them in "habits of the heart," and giving them what he called "their apprenticeship in liberty." He wrote, "In the United States religion exercises but little influence on the laws and the details of public opinion but it directs the customs of the community and by regulating domestic life it regulates the state."
Instead of talking about family breakdown which leads directly to community breakdown, we listen to a plethora of reports stating lack of education and resources like parks and playgrounds as contributors to the problems. Anything to avoid stating the truth as it is politically incorrect.
Fatherless families are in abundance in Baltimore and too many other communities. Single mothers are raising their children. The Baltimore Mom,
Toya Graham, who denounced the vandalism and violence against police officers, became famous for going into the street to drag her son home. Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said "I wish I had more parents who took charge of their kids tonight." Yet this Mom is a single mom of six children.
The family is the smallest unit of authority in a community. If the basic building block is under stress what do you expect? Single parent families find themselves living in the same communities-ones that tend to be poorer than two-parent families. Single parent families not only have half the income, they have half the adults available to monitor their children, and participate in after school activities-like playing pick-up ball at the local park or parking lot.
Research shows definitively that children do better when fathers are present. "Even from birth, children who have an involved father are more likely to be emotionally secure, be confident to explore their surroundings, and, as they grow older, have better social connections... Children with involved, caring fathers have better educational outcomes...Numerous studies find that an active and nurturing style of fathering is associated with better verbal skills, intellectual functioning, and academic achievement among adolescents."
Ronald Rohner is professor emeritus of family studies at the University of Connecticut, and co-author of a study that appeared in the
May 2012 journal, Personality and Social Psychology Review. After analyzing 36 international studies from 18 countries that took place between 1975-2010 and included 1,400 parents between 18 and 89 years, and 8,600 children from 9-18 years they concluded that the need for a father in a child's life is one of the most important factors in developing healthy children, emotionally.
Researchers at the University of Oxford also report that boys who have involved fathers are less likely to get in trouble with the police as they get older, adopt a healthy gender identity as well as a better awareness of their feelings and emotions.
Where are the fathers? I had hoped for more input from the many Pastors in Baltimore. I fear they are no longer preaching about family. Rather they
agree that "the city's African-American churches have a special role to play in the search for social justice." Melvin Russell is a pastor as well as a police officer who commands the relatively new Community Partnership Division, which pairs faith leaders with police on projects such as ride-alongs through the community. Many pastors say that it's their job "to serve as "a moral compass" in the community and as a voice for those who lack one."
I hear a great deal from them about better relations with the police, but so little about the breakdown of black families in America.
What would de Tocqueville say today?
