Black Kids Aren’t “Illegitimate,” But Your Data Comprehension Is
Some things are so predictable you can very nearly set your clocks by them.
Among the most ironclad examples of this truism is the speed with which folks on the right — especially white folks — will seek to derail a conversation about racial inequality and racism by pivoting to the subject of black out-of-wedlock birthrates.
As in, “if black people would stop having ‘illegitimate’ children they wouldn’t have all these problems,” whether those be crime, poverty, or the persistent gaps in well-being between themselves and white Americans. To hear conservatives tell it, virtually all the problems of black America trace to out-of-wedlock births in the black community, and all could be solved or at least seriously diminished if black women would just cut back on all the baby-making before marriage.
Sadly for those wedded to this position, the entire premise upon which these arguments are made is false. Contrary to popular belief, out-of-wedlock births to black women have been falling for nearly fifty years, and births to black teenagers are at lower levels now than they were in the 1950s.
Here’s the deal: You’ll often hear it said that more than 70 percent of black…
