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[entremet]

This is a long form article, so use feel free to use Pocket, Instapaper, or any other service that removes the ads and formatting.

More great reporting from Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The basis of the article is the landmark report by Daniel Patrick Moniyhan on The Black Family published in 1969.

Influenced by the civil-rights movement, Moynihan focused on the black family. He believed that an undue optimism about the pending passage of civil-rights legislation was obscuring a pressing problem: a deficit of employed black men of strong character. He believed that this deficit went a long way toward explaining the African American community’s relative poverty. Moynihan began searching for a way to press the point within the Johnson administration. “I felt I had to write a paper about the Negro family,” Moynihan later recalled, “to explain to the fellows how there was a problem more difficult than they knew.” In March of 1965, Moynihan printed up 100 copies of a report he and a small staff had labored over for only a few months.

The report was called “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” Unsigned, it was meant to be an internal government document, with only one copy distributed at first and the other 99 kept locked in a vault. Running against the tide of optimism around civil rights, “The Negro Family” argued that the federal government was underestimating the damage done to black families by “three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment” as well as a “racist virus in the American blood stream,” which would continue to plague blacks in the future:

The report itself was very prophetic and controversial, while it didn't have any specific recommendations. Later he clarified more actionable policies:

But Moynihan still professed concern for the family, and for the black family in particular. He began pushing for a minimum income for all American families. Nixon promoted Moynihan’s proposal—called the Family Assistance Plan—before the American public in a television address in August of 1969, and officially presented it to Congress in October. This was a personal victory for Moynihan—a triumph in an argument he had been waging since the War on Poverty began, over the need to help families, not individuals. “I felt I was finally rid of a subject. A subject that just … spoiled my life,” Moynihan told The New York Times that November. “Four—long—years of being called awful things. The people you would most want to admire you detesting you. Being anathematized and stigmatized. And I said, ‘Well, the President’s done this, and now I’m rid of it.’ ”

The Family Assistance Plan didn't make it out of Congress. Instead of that, we entered an era of mass incarceration that has defined modern law urban enforcement since.

From the mid-1970s to the mid-’80s, America’s incarceration rate doubled, from about 150 people per 100,000 to about 300 per 100,000. From the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s, it doubled again. By 2007, it had reached a historic high of 767 people per 100,000, before registering a modest decline to 707 people per 100,000 in 2012. In absolute terms, America’s prison and jail population from 1970 until today has increased sevenfold, from some 300,000 people to 2.2 million. The United States now accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants—and about 25 percent of its incarcerated inhabitants. In 2000, one in 10 black males between the ages of 20 and 40 was incarcerated—10 times the rate of their white peers. In 2010, a third of all black male high-school dropouts between the ages of 20 and 39 were imprisoned, compared with only 13 percent of their white peers.

That's just a taste. The rest of the article is here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...mily-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/

For anyone trying to understand the state of American racial politics, this is good starting point.

 

[Chie Satonaka]

I started reading this last night.

Getting to heading VII made my stomach hurt and depressed the fuck out of me, but this is some of the most real stuff you can read without having to pay money to buy a book.

Should be required reading for even engaging in racial debate, especially right now.

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

Coates is a god.

 

[ThisGuy]

Thanks for sharing. I'll read this over the weekend, good choice of quotes, pulled me in fiercely.

*bookmarked*

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Yeah, gonna take some time to read, then heal my wounds. Web dubois was a fuk boi, tho.

 

[Guevara]

I've been reading through this slowly. One thing that surprised me is the relative resurgence of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Even Coates here gives Moynihan a lot of space, context and deference.

It makes sense in some ways, Moynihan was extremely influential, right at the beginning of thinking about this topic. And he was right about a lot of outcomes, even if we would now say he was right for the wrong reasons.

That said... "Blame the Victim" was a phrase literally coined in response to the Moynihan report. I was actually thinking of making a thread about the history of victim-blaming earlier this year when it seemed like every OT thread ended in the topic. I couldn't make this up:

William Ryan coined the phrase "blaming the victim" in his 1971 book Blaming the Victim.[4][5][6][7][8] In the book, Ryan described victim blaming as an ideology used to justify racism and social injustice against black people in the United States.[7] Ryan wrote the book to refute Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 work The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (usually simply referred to as the Moynihan Report).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming​

Maybe the article gets there and I apologize if so.

 

[entremet]

I've been reading through this slowly. One thing that surprised me is the relative resurgence of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Even Coates here gives Moynihan a lot of space, context and deference.

It makes sense in some ways, Moynihan was extremely influential, right at the beginning of thinking about this topic. And he was right about a lot of outcomes, even if we would now say he was right for the wrong reasons.

That said... "Blame the Victim" was a phrase literally coined in response to the Moynihan report. I was actually thinking of making a thread about the history of victim-blaming earlier this year when it seemed like every OT thread ended in the topic. I couldn't make this up:

William Ryan coined the phrase "blaming the victim" in his 1971 book Blaming the Victim.[4][5][6][7][8] In the book, Ryan described victim blaming as an ideology used to justify racism and social injustice against black people in the United States.[7] Ryan wrote the book to refute Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 work The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (usually simply referred to as the Moynihan Report).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming​

Maybe the article gets there and I apologize if so.

It's crazy how Moynihan just nailed it.

 

[Chie Satonaka]

Yeah, gonna take some time to read, then heal my wounds. Web dubois was a fuk boi, tho.

I'm pretty sure I heard about Dubois' respectability bullshit in another Ta-Nehisi piece, or it might have just been his twitter.

But yeah. Some of those quotes are unfortunate. >_>

 

[PhoenixDark]

Coates is on fire this year.

 

[ElectricKaibutsu]

The United States now accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants—and about 25 percent of its incarcerated inhabitants.

Wow. An insane stat. America is messed up.

 

[HuskerDutheDu]

Coates is thr best

 

[LucidMomentum]

Wow. An insane stat. America is messed up.

The sad thing is a lot of people will say that the disproportional arrests of blacks is why it's so high in the US, but as places like Ferguson showed us the arrests aren't really warranted as much as the discrepancy, or prejudiced opinions might suggest.

 

[The Technomancer]

Bookmarked for digestion

 

[entremet]

The sad thing is a lot of people will say that the disproportional arrests of blacks is why it's so high in the US, but as places like Ferguson showed us the arrests aren't really warranted as much as the discrepancy, or prejudiced opinions might suggest.

Another thing is that more people in prison feeds the prison industrial complex. That's a very powerful lobby.

This is why money is politics is such a threat to democracy.

 

[zero_suit]

Bookmarked

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Oh yes, more Cotes stuff.

Bookmarked for later reading.

 

[SamuelSupreme]

Coates is a god.

Amen

 

[Robert Williams]

Are you devout followers baiting, or have you read: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion.html

 

[akira28]

Are you devout followers baiting, or have you read: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion.html

be conservative think-tank senior fellows, brehs

 

[Htown]

Are you devout followers baiting, or have you read: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion.html

wow, literally on some "what about black on black crime?" nonsense

classy.

 

[adamsappel]

I am shocked and amazed that Nixon proposed a Minimum Family Income bill. If Nixon hadn't been such a reprehensible racist, war-mongering, corrupt shitbag, he'd be ironically admirable. He's a damned hippie compared to a modern Tea Partier. The 1968 Republican Convention platform is a 2015-liberal's wet dream. Can you imagine if Obama proposed such a plan, and it was sparked to help black families?

That "blaming the victim" etymology is wild!

Thank you for the reading link. It's funny how everyone see's The Atlantic and knows they're in for a looong (but good) read.

 

[entremet]

Are you devout followers baiting, or have you read: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion.html

Ah, John McWhertor.

The problem with this thesis that if there is a religion of Anti-racism, it's gotta be the most impotent religion around.

And there's a reason. It's still not understood.

 

[FairyD]

I finally got around to reading this one. It was a long read, but totally worth it.

I think I will go back and start reading the rest of his more recent articles. I believe he was also on the Daily Show and Colbert report earlier in the year that I'll check out again.

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

Coates is a god.

speaking of God

I dont think he believes in one, i've gotten that impression from a Charlie Rose interview he did. But i dunno any official word on that.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Made it to IV and realized how much further I have to go.

Saved to pocket. Impressive work so far. Thanks for sharing.

 

[fancimus]

Thanks for the reminder, I started reading it last week and need to dive back in. I'm going to see Peace Officer this week so there will probably be a lot of parallels in the subject matter.