As for the problem? Well, the 72% illegitimacy rate among African-Americans is an absolute social disaster (1). No amount of school funding or social welfare programs can fix an economic problem of that scope. And yes, I believe that this is a cultural problem. What is the solution? I don't know, but I'm open to debating, engaging, and supporting policy that will help.
You can see a flip occur around 1980 which would coincide with the beginning of the crack era, the failing war on drugs, and mass incarceration.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families...
The "flip" doesn't occur around 1980, it occurs in the 1970's (feel free to download the excel sheet and examine it yourself, as I did) and it's a trend that follows ALL races, yet the crack era was largely an African-American epidemic.
There was, however, a major social movement in the 60's that encouraged free love, sexual liberation, women's rights, and an explosion of contraceptives. I think this is a stronger explanatory argument, one also made by the Brookings Institution:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/an-analysis-of-out-of-wed...
When you don't have access to that wealth* and society takes an active role in eroding its explicit social safety net (welfare), the implicit communal safety net (redlining, divestment), and individual liberties (mass incarceration, the crack vs cocaine sentencing disparities), you can see what results. What you're falsely ascribing to sexual liberation I'm ascribing to the real, tangible effects of capitalism and a society that values black life less.
* http://www.post-gazette.com/business/businessnews/2010/03/09...
That reminds me of something I've heard before. Oh, right...
“The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed correlation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.” — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party
Now as for the nonsensical rant about capitalism, I’ve had that debate about a thousand times, so I don’t see the point in engaging again - it’s not like we’re going to change each other’s minds.
My side? Please elaborate.
"Traditional family structure" has been used to browbeat same-sex parents, transgender people and anyone that lives a life not depicted in Norman Rockwell portraiture. In that way it has been politically weaponized to oppress the marginalized.
Families remain powerful agents for wealth creation, economic as well as intellectual, social, and spiritual wealth. This does not mean we should structure society to make no resources available for a single mother; no one should be faced with the choice of staying with an abusive partner or losing her only means of providing for her children.
It's nice to have a point of agreement, but unfortunate that you choose to keep your worldview narrow regarding our economic reality.
When you set up incentives such that a woman loses money by marrying a guy with a small or nonexistent income, you're going to see fewer marriages in the lowest income bracket. It's rational in the short term, but the long term effects are corrosive.