"It’s forbidden to discuss why a thirteen-year-old boy would be roaming the streets of Chicago at 2:30 a.m. with a 22-year-old, both armed, shooting at someone in a car. It’s forbidden because the boy is Black and he was killed by a white policeman doing his job."
Oh boy - the Oppressive Passive Voice is back and suppressing discussion. You're not clear on *who* precisely is forbidding you to discuss the Adam Toledo case, but here in Chicago, plenty are talking about it and the causes that lead to this tragedy:
Also, it's worth pointing out that Toledo was Latino, NOT Black, so your musings on Black family formation are unlikely to be relevant here unless you can show that the same issues affecting the Black community when it comes to fathers in the household are the same between the two communities. (Which they are not: 64% single parent households for Blacks, 42% single parent households for Hispanics.[1])
You started out with a solid message about space being hard and that we should be willing to do hard things (I 100% agree). Then you take the easy way out to make a trite point about racism and the factors that led to Toledo's death to make an overly simplistic point about Black families (that's been tread over over thousands of times before this article). You're right that solving America's race issues is a hard problem (I'd posit that it's more difficult than space, given the unpredictable human factors involved), but it's a hard problem worth solving. And the first steps towards doing that not only include telling hard truths (which you're trying to do), but also listening to other hard truths that might not line up exactly with the ideological predispositions you came in with. Just like with space and the science and engineering leading us there, we need to look at the problem with clear eyes, and let evidence lead us to a solution, and not our need to score cheap political points.
Rather than just go "Here's a problem: it's the Democrats fault", perhaps lay out exactly which policies you find to be the root cause(s) of said problems. You've got the space: expound.
A couple possible answers to "Where are the parents?" involve incarceration (with an eye at the drug war and minimum sentencing) and constant attacks on providing contraception and abortion to prevent/terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Let us also keep in mind the historical racist policies that were removed post-Civil Rights, but for which there was little/no attempts to reverse their effects. For example, red-lining resulted in Black people being concentrated in specific areas. The system was ended, but property values in those areas were never adjusted to bring them in-line with neighborhoods even next-door. How has the failure to correct the negative effects of those policies affected financial stability and the family dynamic in Black communities over time?
"It’s forbidden to discuss why a thirteen-year-old boy would be roaming the streets of Chicago at 2:30 a.m. with a 22-year-old, both armed, shooting at someone in a car. It’s forbidden because the boy is Black and he was killed by a white policeman doing his job."
Oh boy - the Oppressive Passive Voice is back and suppressing discussion. You're not clear on *who* precisely is forbidding you to discuss the Adam Toledo case, but here in Chicago, plenty are talking about it and the causes that lead to this tragedy:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-adam-toledo-little-village-20210415-yfuxq4fz7jgtnl54bwn5w4ztw4-story.html
Also, it's worth pointing out that Toledo was Latino, NOT Black, so your musings on Black family formation are unlikely to be relevant here unless you can show that the same issues affecting the Black community when it comes to fathers in the household are the same between the two communities. (Which they are not: 64% single parent households for Blacks, 42% single parent households for Hispanics.[1])
You started out with a solid message about space being hard and that we should be willing to do hard things (I 100% agree). Then you take the easy way out to make a trite point about racism and the factors that led to Toledo's death to make an overly simplistic point about Black families (that's been tread over over thousands of times before this article). You're right that solving America's race issues is a hard problem (I'd posit that it's more difficult than space, given the unpredictable human factors involved), but it's a hard problem worth solving. And the first steps towards doing that not only include telling hard truths (which you're trying to do), but also listening to other hard truths that might not line up exactly with the ideological predispositions you came in with. Just like with space and the science and engineering leading us there, we need to look at the problem with clear eyes, and let evidence lead us to a solution, and not our need to score cheap political points.
[1] https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race#detailed/1/any/false/1729,37,871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133/10,11,9,12,1,185,13/432,431
Rather than just go "Here's a problem: it's the Democrats fault", perhaps lay out exactly which policies you find to be the root cause(s) of said problems. You've got the space: expound.
A couple possible answers to "Where are the parents?" involve incarceration (with an eye at the drug war and minimum sentencing) and constant attacks on providing contraception and abortion to prevent/terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Let us also keep in mind the historical racist policies that were removed post-Civil Rights, but for which there was little/no attempts to reverse their effects. For example, red-lining resulted in Black people being concentrated in specific areas. The system was ended, but property values in those areas were never adjusted to bring them in-line with neighborhoods even next-door. How has the failure to correct the negative effects of those policies affected financial stability and the family dynamic in Black communities over time?