[Conscience of a Conservative]

The problem is, even in context, his statements were pretty indefensible. I don’t the guy’s a racist, and the statements in context are not necessarily racist, but it shows an incredibly poor understanding of American history, and in particular of the horrors of slavery and its impact on slave family structures.

[don-o]

but it shows an incredibly poor understanding of American history,

The calamitous breakdown of the black family is a comparatively recent phenomenon, coinciding precisely with the rise of the welfare state. Throughout the epoch of slavery and into the early decades of the twentieth century, most black children grew up in two-parent households.
 Post-Civil War studies revealed that most black couples in their forties had been together for at least twenty years. In southern urban areas around 1880, nearly three-fourths of black households were husband-or father-present; in southern rural settings, the figure approached 86%. As of 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks nationwide was approximately 15%—scarcely one-fifth of the current figure.
 As late as 1950, black women were more likely to be married than white women, and only 9% of black families with children were headed by a single parent.