Letter to the Editor #1

Here is a letter to the editor that I didn't send off:

    I would like to suggest that Black Lives Matter, black professional athletes, politicians, and others with influence on the black communities and especially black inner city cultures, add to their change agendas the following as a major priority: promote black marriage and increased involvement of black fathers in parenting, where the childbirth illegitimacy rate currently exceeds 70%.  Predictably, we should then begin to see, for young people in black communities and possibly over time for the entire community, significant reductions in youth behavioral problems, poor academic performance, truancy, youth crime and violence, promiscuity and teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, runaway and homelessness, sexual exploitation of girls, physical health problems, mental health disorders, unemployment and low income, problems in future adult relationships, short life spans, and tension with police and legal authorities.
    Persons who might want to explore the research on problems associated with fatherlessness, which incidently are largely independent of race, might study the following:

 Katy Faust and Stacy Manning June 12, 2020, "To Truly Reduce Racial Disparities, We Must Acknowledge Black Fathers Matter," https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/12/to-truly-reduce-racial-disparities-we-must-acknowledge-black-fathers-matter/

Edward Kruk, “Father Absence, Father Deficit, Father Hunger: The Vital Importance of Paternal Presence in Children’s Lives” Psychology Today, May 23, 2012.

David L. Gutmann, “The Paternal Imperative,”
http://americanvalues.org/catalog/pdfs/wp-47.pdf

Claudio Sanchez, “Poverty, Dropouts, Pregnancy, Suicide: What The Numbers Say About Fatherless Kids” citing the work of Alan Blankenstein
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/18/533062607/poverty-dropouts-pregnancy-suicide-what-the-numbers-say-about-fatherless-kids

David Blankenhorn, “Fatherless America,” January 03, 1993, Center of the American Experiment.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/reports-books/fatherless-america/