Violence is rampant across low-income black neighborhoods across the nation as police have withdrawn from their communities. Within inner cities, street violence is reaching historic proportions and the perpetrators are as young as ten in Chicago. Chicago and New York city have seen high rates of homicides and crimes under the disguise of Black Lives Matter. Answers to rampant violence will be found within the communities suffering from the crisis. Fathers and Mentors Wanted!
Fatherless societies since slavery throughout the twenty-first century!
We need to know where we come from in order to move forward. Deep rooted in slavery times, the effects of such are still affecting the black community. Some might say, slavery occurred four hundred years ago or whatever, why are you bringing this up. Yes, fellow nurses, history put a dent in the black society, as such, we cannot keep putting band aids, and not treating the cause, a spade is a spade, let’s talk.
Slavery occurred when blacks were stolen from their mother countries and brought to America and other European countries. Once they landed, they were stripped of their identity, forced to change names and not practice their traditions. Once stripped of their identity, families were separated and not allowed to live together (Comer). The living and working conditions in the plantations impeded the formation of stable families adhering to the nuclear model slavery may have negatively influenced family formation and sexual mores among blacks (Williams). The slave trade, with the frequent division of family members, has represented a further factor in impeding the formation of stable families adhering to the nuclear model.
Black men were forced to have children they could not claim as family nor provide for, and expected to watch their children being sold as property (Caldwell & White). The Black father enslaved was helpless and required to accept his fate without resistance or concern. It is arguable that centuries of this patterning have helped render him invisible today (Caldwell & White). The tendency to matrifocal was strengthened by laws mandating that the children of slave women would also be slaves and prohibiting free men to intermarry with slave women (Stampp). Depriving black males of both authority and responsibility also led to a marginal role for black husbands and fathers within the household, resulting in the reinforcement of the single-mother family model (Stampp). The alleged inadequacy of the slave father and husband, the absence of male ‘models’ for young slave children to emulate, the prevalence of the father’s personality has persisted to modern day post slavery. Black children are indeed more likely to reside with a single parent female headship. When families are broken, there is lack of growth and development as noted by Erick Erickson theory of development (Mcleod).
Growth and Development: Erick Erickson
Erickson theorized that developing children identify the traits, habits and ideas from people around them (McLeod). As a result, children develop a sense of competence, confidence, adequacy, efficacy and a sense of worthwhile and belonging. Some black families are poor, have inadequate housing, inadequate healthcare. Parents living under severe economic hardships are unable to give their children child bearing experiences that promote adequate self-regulation. Development is hampered and interferes with self-control, ability to concentrate, learn and manage social environment.
According to Erickson, the challenges of stages not successfully completed may be expected to return as problems in the future “arrested development” (McLeod). If fathers and mentors are lacking in the black community, where children are not taught or told that they matter at an early age results in the behavior mentioned above. Looting, not respecting self and others, black on black crime because lack of instilling of values at an early age. Unless, the black community starts loving and respecting themselves, providing emotional support to children, defunding the police is only a band aid to their issues. It has to start with them because of arrested development, they need police in their communities. Resources of course should be channeled into education, housing and other needs, but this has to be resolved first.
Generative fathering takes into account the dynamic nature of parenting. It requires that adult African American men commit to participating in the lifespan of children as an obligation for cultural and community continuity (Caldwell & White).
‘’I was lucky to have parents, teachers and mentors who’d fed me with a consistent, simple message: You Matter!" (Michelle Obama).
Resources
Racism and African American adolescent development (Comer, J.P)
Generative fathering: Challenges to Black masculinity and identity. Black fathers: An invisible presence in America (Caldwell, L.D., & White, J.L.)
Erik Erikson (McLeod, S.)
Becoming (Obama, M.)
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (Stampp, K.A.)
Help me to find my people: The African American search for family lost in slavery (Williams, H.A.)
