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Took a while to find a comment that gets to the meat of the issue:

Does culture matter?

Most people on Hacker News will breathlessly tell you it does, at least when running a company.

Well how about a community, a school, a neighborhood, a family?

There is a cultural problem, with many layers. 72% of of black children are raised without fathers.

Do people think that might have some impacts on culture, education, discipline, crime, poverty?

> ...in this case because there's an epidemic of fatherlessness among American blacks

To be fair, it's a massive problem (and growing) in latino and non-latino white populations as well. Black populations experienced the issues first, but it's an across-the-board issue for lower middle class and impoverished communities now.

Why would you latch onto fatherlessness rather than poverty, lack of safety, or lack of a healthy environment?

1. Single parent households have it harder on average. In American culture, that generally means that mothers (and grandmothers) raise the kids, not the dads. "Fatherlessness" is shorthand for this.

2. Men actually bring some things to family and neighborhood culture. Some people might get offended at this notion, but it's not controversial to say that femininity is wonderful, distinctive, and has special things to offer. But this must also be true of masculinity. I'd argue that men, generally speaking, have different ways to approach the problems you list. This is applying the "diversity makes us better" principle in a place really needing some new ideas and new strength.

> have it harder on average

"Harder" meaning the affects of poverty, right? Having two parents involved is only one way to address that.

Starting with talking about fatherlessness and "culture" is blaming the victims and, frankly, racist. I'm not saying a cycle of negative learned behaviors is irrelevant but there are so many other factors to address first.

> "Harder" meaning the affects of poverty, right? Having two parents involved is only one way to address that.

Not just poverty. Middle class single parent households have it harder than equivalent two parent households as well. We respect good single parents especially because we recognize how much harder it is to, say, take classes in the evening or lead the PTA if you're also making sure your kids are clothed, educated, fed, nurtured, safe, and so on.

> Starting with talking about fatherlessness and "culture" is blaming the victims and, frankly, racist.

I don't think this cultural issue is unique to black communities or even urban ones. I've already posted on race and fatherlessness:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14387245

Please stop attacking allies. There's enough convincing to do without outgrouping and ending discussions of important issues by throwing around conversation killing (and frankly inaccurate) epithets.

...as far as blaming victims... I'm not interested in putting anyone in stockades on any of this. I do think we need to recalibrate our cultural calculus on what kids need to properly thrive. Home situations should absolutely be on the table, not for the purpose of judging, but for the purpose of setting expectations for prospective parents, people deciding whether to make marriages work, people picking out potential mates, etc.

Part of the problem, in my mind, is that in our effort to avoid victim blaming, we framed certain life choices as valid forms of self actualization instead of truthfully really hard situations. There has to be a way to be supportive and loving to single parents without also misleading the next generation into thinking that finding committed partners isn't also a big priority.

> ...there are so many other factors to address first.

Are there? Why is the social injustice of family structure on the bottom of the list?

What makes you think growing up without fathers, especially surrounded by other challenging environmental factors as well, wouldn't have a massive negative effect on discipline, structure, education, social development, etc?

What is it exactly about highlighting this disparity so offends people's sensibilities?

Do you think avoiding this aspect in discussion is helpful?

I don't think it's so much avoiding the topic than recognizing its lack of relevance. There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness, and besides, lots of people grow up without their fathers and do great. Just look at Navon from the video. It seems like he's off to a great start. There are tons of stories like him.

And as I mentioned before, there are much more obvious problems at work here than fatherlessness. Focusing only on the fact that these kids don't have fathers and ignoring all the other challenges they face is kind of myopic. If you want to discuss an issue, then let's discuss the whole issue.

> There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness

Bold claim.

> lots of people grow up without their fathers and do great.

"Lot's of people" succeed in poor families, in bad schools, in communities with crime. Trends and magnitude matter.

If the "single-parent" households were more equal across race, then perhaps it wouldn't be an area to focus on.

But they aren't.

> ignoring all the other challenges

No..

> there are much more obvious problems at work here than fatherlessness

> recognizing its lack of relevance.

I don't understand people who dismiss disparities between the fundamental societal structure, the core environment a child grows up in, the nuclear family, of one race to another as being insignificant.

I really don't understand how people can overlook its impact.

It even affects schooling and education, discipline, taking a role in ensuring a focus on "homework" vs getting in trouble / distracted outside of classroom, who children hang out with, why they fall into groups of bad influence as a proxy for male authority figures etc etc etc.

(I am NOT saying single mothers have no impact as well or that they are incompetent. Simply, that their job is made that much harder, and fathers have at least as much impact on child rearing as mothers, perhaps more in certain specific areas or for boys perhaps, and so cutting the parental contribution in half might have detrimental effects.)

http://educationnext.org/one-parent-students-leave-school-ea...

"Family structure has grown in importance over time"

So many comments about "fatherlessness" with no mention of the discriminatory practices of mass incarceration is suspect.

Exactly - it's like they'd rather people just talk about the problem only and not the root causes of the problem.

I'm glad we've quickly moved on from denying fatherlessness has significant detrimental impact, and instead are discussing causes of it, which is the first step towards solutions.

> There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness

> some other more likely smoking gun in this situation

Extreme poverty comes to mind.

I am all for ending war on drugs and sentencing disparity. I am also all for change of culture in which father role is primary seen as a walking wallet with little importance to actually spend time with children.

However, none of it will magically change all that much unless school system changes fundamentally. As of now, schools with most difficult students get less funding and less experienced overworked teachers. They can not suceed, realistically.

What a bizarre way to frame this. Poor test results are due to not having a father which is due to being black?

How about poor test results because you are too busy learning and abiding by the complex and demanding rules of the street, out of fear of being shot, to worry about another set of comparatively pointless and inane rules inside the classroom?

And maybe not having a father due to the "War on Drugs" practically relocating entire communities of black men into the prison system?

Or maybe not striving to excel in school because even though you're intelligent, resourceful, caring, etc., you've grown up watching your family and friends get murdered by the police in their own neighborhoods for petty crimes or no crime at all, so you end up feeling the same apathy and hopelessness towards your country that your country feels towards you.

Or here's another one: perhaps the tests are rigged. The news segment in the original link alludes to this towards the end - was anyone on HN able to find the video explaining this?

How are these disagreements with the premise? You've outlined exactly why it likely has a massive impact. Look at the disparity between one-parent homes by race.

Do you think this doesn't matter?

You just spelled out exactly why it would...

edit: I don't think the strong argument is "because you're black" but moreso "because you're not growing up in a two parent / married household"

(Correlation is not causation.. but there's quite a bit of correlation)

http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/marria...

Good, then we agree.

I just prefer to discuss the actual causes of the issue instead of bringing up vague statistics then saying, "What do you suppose that means, hmm?"

Edit: I agree with you that marriage is important, but I feel the systemic racial bias aspect is much more pressing and much easier to confront. I'm all for promoting caring two-parent households, but to just point to the lack of a father in the house and leave the issue at that is both counterproductive and unfair.