Free Republic

In an ironic twist of events, the Pound Cake speech in which Bill Cosby famously (or, perhaps, infamously) criticized the black family and black neighborhood for what he deemed unsavory behavior was used to open the comedian to public scrutiny surrounding sexual assault allegations against him.

I began to really look around to try and figure out who was all actually there that day. There were no Black folks — at all. There were some, but they were so rare that I could spend 5 or 10 minutes people-watching, actively looking, and maybe find one Black person. In fact, it wasn’t until late in the day that I saw a whole family. Clearly, something had happened: We were all needed elsewhere for the culture, and I had missed the memo. This attendance disparity was also new to me. I could swear Black folks liked Disneyland as...

As a child growing up in the fifties, I had an inside look at the day to day lives of many Black families in the small rural southern community in which I grew up. Before I reached my second birthday, my mother passed away. My dad hired a neighbor Black lady, Ms Oates, to look after me. She and her husband owned the farm next to ours and as neighbors did in those days, we worked together each year to plant and harvest our crops. Until the age of five, my only regular playmates were the Oates children. There were...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJV2R33YBjE

In 1960, 5 percent of America's children entered the world without a mother and father married to each other. By 1980 it was 18 percent, and by 2000 it had risen to 33 percent. Today, the number is 41 percent. For blacks, out-of-wedlock births have gone from 25 percent in 1965 to 73 percent today. The ethnic group with the next-highest percent of births to unmarried mothers is that of Native Americans, at 66 percent. For whites, out-of-wedlock births stand at 29 percent. For Hispanics, out-of-wedlock births are at 53 percent...

VIRGNIA BEACH, October 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)—The Radiance Foundation, in partnership with the Virginia Coalition for Life, has launched a wide-scale TooManyAborted.com billboard campaign in Hampton Roads, Virginia, with the messaging: “Fatherhood Begins in the Womb.” Twenty-one billboards and more than 100 bus and light rail posters have been placed throughout the region to raise awareness of the impact of fatherlessness on (born and unborn) children. The pro-family, pro-adoption initiative challenges the culture of abandonment and death that Roe v. Wade has fostered since 1973. In the early 1960s politicians raised the alarm about a 25 percent fatherlessness rate in the...

No serious person believes our “private” lives have no impact whatsoever on society at large. Furthermore, such a person does also not believe that the number of fatherless boys in jail is just a coincidence. To put it more dramatically: the West’s expressive divorce culture has destroyed more lives than the bombing of Hiroshima. But more evidence is mounting. From The Washington Times: A new study released Wednesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that the damage divorce does to poorer children’s future economic mobility is even greater than the impact suffered from having only one parent.

n September 1813, Andrew Jackson fought with Thomas and Jesse Benton in Nashville, Tenn., in a battle featuring a whip, pistols and knives. Supposed slights had roused the prickly sense of honor of these men. No one would remember the circumstances today if the melee hadn't nearly cost the country the man who would become the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. The days when an Andrew Jackson would exchange insults with an adversary in the buildup to a duel are forever gone. But senseless violence over questions of honor is still with us. Except that the fighters are...

Bill Cosby has his own values crusade going, and it's catching on in much of black America. When Cosby endorses academic achievement, discipline and parental involvement, he's supporting the traditional values to which many black Americans — in red states or blue — can relate. You might be surprised to hear this, but there is little controversy over Cosby's rhetoric. A few fringe academics and left-wing scribes have attacked him, but he has drawn broad support, including from such civil rights activists as NAACP President Kweisi Mfume. Perhaps that's because Cosby's wisdom is self-evident. Like so many others, I support...

Comedian Bill Cosby returned to Washington this week to tell black policy-makers and activists that they must join together to lead a new social movement to help strengthen black families. "Parenting needs to come to the forefront. If you need help and you don't know how to parent, we want to be able to reach out and touch you," Mr. Cosby told reporters during a special session of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 34th annual legislative conference, which began yesterday and ends Saturday. Mr. Cosby, whose bold comments in May created a foundation for this new social-values movement in the...