Father loses his position as head of Black British Family

THE COLLAPSE of the British Black Family is undoubtedly, in my opinion, the cause of all the social ills facing the Afro-Caribbean community. Regrettably, this malaise has deepened over the last 20 years with no prospect of improving in the future.

More than half of black children are now born out of wedlock and this statistic will increase during the next decade. In this period poverty, crime, health and disadvantage linked with family collapse have marched side by side with one another.

The trend away from traditional child-rearing patterns in Europe has increased since the 1980s. But there is a world of difference between illegitimacy in the suburbs of Stockholm and Paris compared to the urban working class areas where Black Britons reside. In many European countries there is a blurring of the distinction between cohabitation and marriage, whilst in Britain, and particularly among Afro-Caribbeans, it is more closely tied to being brought up in a single parent family, and the consequent continuing poverty and disadvantage.

Black children growing up without fathers face severe social consequences. Over 50% of all Black people living in poverty are single mothers and their children. Two-thirds of these black children who have no genuine relationship or contact with their father later become dependent on welfare at some point in their lives. Illegitimacy, viewed as an aberration within the black community in the first wave of mass immigration to Britain in the 1950s, has now become the norm.

I think the high black unemployment rate has reduced the pool of marriageable black men. Black single mothers are much more likely to bring up their children with the help of grandmothers and other female relatives. Black fathers escape lightly with very few helping out financially, let alone giving emotional support or acting as a decent role model for their off-spring.

I would argue that a contributing factor regarding the decline of the British black family is welfare benefits. Undeniably, welfare has replaced the black father. One suggestion to overcome welfare dependency is that black mothers who refuse to identify feckless fathers have sanctions imposed regards to welfare handouts.

I would also add that we need more financial support for black two-parent families. One-parent family should not be seen as an alternative as all the evidence shows that black families without fathers is not only bad for children (especially boys) but society in general.