My latest book, “Dear Father, Dear Son,”
focuses on the importance of fathers — and the increasing number of children who grow up in homes without one. Juan Williams of Fox News understands this — sort of. He gets the “what,” but not the “why.”
Williams, in a Wall Street Journal piece called “Race and the Gun Debate,” writes:
“Gun-related violence and murders are concentrated among blacks and Latinos in big cities. Murders with guns are the No. 1 cause of death for African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34.
But talking about race in the context of guns would also mean taking on a subject that can’t be addressed by passing a law: the family-breakdown issues that lead too many minority children to find social status and power in guns.”
Williams is, of course, right.
There is a direct link between no father in the home and an increased chance that the child will drop out of high school, go on welfare and have a criminal record.
This is particularly acute in the black community, where over 70 percent of black kids are born outside of wedlock.
In some communities, like southeast Washington, D.C, a staggering 84 percent of children live in homes without a father.
Roland Warren is the former head of National Fatherhood Initiative. Warren, a black man, read “Dear Father, Dear Son.” He called it “powerful” and said that it ought to be required reading in middle and high schools in America.
And Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the NFI, told the Washington Times: “(People) look at a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask,
‘What can we do to help?’ But what we do is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is often it’s because (the child lacks) a responsible and involved father…”
