Progressives claim that systemic racism lies behind the higher poverty rate among black children compared to white children. The prevailing narrative is that conservatives and Republicans represent the problem of racism in America. Let’s think through the problem.
First, let’s establish the fact: for every white child living in poverty, there are approximately two black children living in poverty. That fact itself is not evidence of systemic racism (a common confusion). There could be many factors causing this disparity. But one stands out: fatherlessness.
There is a strong and well-documented correlation between fatherless households and poverty, especially among children. Research consistently shows that children living in single-mother households are far more likely to experience poverty than those living in households with both parents present. Census-based estimates show that roughly two-thirds of black children are raised without a resident father, compared to less than one-quarter of white minors. The numbers are much worse for black families living in America’s inner cities, commonly referred to as “ghettos.”
It was not always this way. In fact, from the early to mid-twentieth century—especially before the 1960s—black families were more likely than white families to be two-parent households. Even as late as the 1950s, most black children were raised in homes with both biological parents present. And few black children lived in poverty as a result.
What explains the change? One of the most significant factors was the economic decline affecting black communities in the mid-twentieth century—the deindustrialization of the American economy. Industrial jobs that once provided stable employment to working-class men began disappearing in the 1960s and 1970s. Black men were hit especially hard by this shift. Their jobs were automated or moved overseas (offshoring). Urban centers where many black families lived saw economic disinvestment, resulting in fewer stable, good-paying jobs. The resulting economic instability made it increasingly difficult for black men to support families or be seen as viable partners, which led to higher rates of single parenthood. This situation was further complicated by mass immigration.
Another leading factor was public assistance programs (food assistance, housing, income transfers) that discouraged marriage or cohabitation by reducing or eliminating welfare benefits when a male partner was present in the household. These policies created financial incentives for keeping fathers out of the home, especially in already economically vulnerable households.
Who was behind globalization (offshoring, open borders) and the expansion of the welfare state with these perverse incentives? From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Democratic Party was the dominant political force in American politics. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, the party spearheaded the New Deal, which marked the most significant expansion of the federal government’s role in social welfare—the institutionalization of progressivism. These programs laid the foundation for the modern welfare state. Later, under Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrats led the charge on the Great Society programs of the 1960s, which vastly expanded the welfare state. This institutionalized the perverse incentives noted above.
The situation grew worse over time. While both parties embraced elements of globalization, the Democratic Party—especially from the 1990s onward—supported trade agreements and policies that accelerated workforce displacement and suppressed real wages. With strong support from Wall Street and corporate interests, Bill Clinton pushed hard for the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. Though originally negotiated by George H.W. Bush (not a traditional conservative—and a globalist), it was Clinton and a coalition of pro-business Democrats and Republicans who pushed NAFTA over the finish line. But they didn’t stop there. Clinton also championed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which had profound effects on U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Democrats combined welfare expansion with a growing openness to international trade from the 1990s forward. Through this period—from Roosevelt through Biden—bipartisan policies contributed to deindustrialization, the decline of union power, and economic shifts that disproportionately impacted working-class communities—especially in the Rust Belt and urban centers, where many black families lived. One consequence was an explosion of crime and violence, which was addressed by vastly expanding the criminal justice system, leading to millions of incarcerated Americans, disproportionately black. What lay behind the explosion of crime and violence that justified this expansion? Fatherlessness. Caused by who? Democrats.
Today, Democrats are apoplectic over the Republican bill, which they decry as weakening the welfare state—the same welfare state that robbed black children of their fathers, plunged children into poverty, made their mothers dependents on the government, and created the conditions of social disorder that led to historic rates of crime and violence. Democrats decry Republican immigration policy that restricts immigration and deports the illegal aliens who take American jobs and suppress wages—which especially impacts black Americans. Democrats decry Trump’s populism and economic nationalism that reshores industry and reclaims work for Americans—policies that promise to provide jobs for black men and make it possible for them to enjoy a higher standard of living and the opportunity to rebuild the black family.
So, if we agree that globalization and the expansion of the welfare state undermined the black family—as fact and reason demand—and we’re looking for the systemic racism that caused the rampant fatherlessness in the black family, which has caused so many problems for the black community, which party is the party of systemic racism?
Not conservatives. Not populist Republicans. Conservatives don’t run the urban areas we know as the “blue cities.” Populists aren’t responsible for globalization. Conservatives aren’t responsible for the welfare state. It’s the Democratic Party that runs the blue cities. Democrats put black families in the situation they’re in. Progressivism lies at the heart of ghettoization. And that means, comrades, that Democrats are the party of systemic racism.
I am not starting the historical timeline at a convenient point. Historical comparison only strengthens my argument. Before the sharp rise in fatherlessness among black families in the latter half of the twentieth century—while child poverty along racial lines was still significant—the gap between black and white children was narrower. Moreover, the causes of poverty were rooted more directly in institutional racism than in family structure. Think about it: where were most black people living then? In the South. Who controlled the South? Democrats. Blacks migrated from the South to escape Jim Crow segregation. When Democrats established nationwide hegemony in the second half of the twentieth century, systemic racism took on a new form: globalization and the welfare state. And who was behind this? I already told you: Democrats.
As I have argued on my platform, racism is in the DNA of the Democratic Party. Democrats were the party of the slavocracy—and it took a war to overthrow their tyranny. Democrats were the party of Jim Crow—and it took a massive civil rights movement to end de jure segregation. Democrats were forced to end institutional racism, kicking and screaming all the way to the end. And now Democrats are the party of globalization and welfarism—that is, de facto racism. All three periods are manifestations of systemic racism. And today’s Democrats—with critical race theory and DEI—are desperate to keep systemic racism going. The party associated with free trade from the beginning (over against the American System) has always depended on racism to divide the working class.
Those are the facts. But that’s not the perception. So how did Democrats flip public perception? Why do so many people today believe it is the Republicans who are the party of racism while the Democrats are the party that looks out for black families? This isn’t a hard question to answer. During the twentieth century, progressives captured America’s sense-making and policy-making institutions—the academy, the administrative-bureaucratic apparatus, the culture industry, and mass media. They used this control to manufacture an Orwellian inversion that made the party responsible for black misery appear as the party devoted to helping black families.
Paternalism has always been a part of the Democrats’ racial strategy—they infantilize black people. By keeping black people poor and uneducated and through the paternalism of welfare dependency and DEI—an ancient strategy of elite capture where token leaders of subjected populations are relatively privileged through symbolic status elevation (also known as “colonial collaboration”)—Democrats have kept a large portion of blacks ignorant of their circumstances while holding a select minority of them near institutional power. Most blacks are no longer useful to the corporations Democrats serve, so they are managed in ghettos, redundant, the emergent culture of violence perpetuated by popular culture, populations managed via racially selective underprotection.
So, if we’re going to talk about cause and effect, and if we want to explain why we see the racial disparities we see today, and if we’re going to attribute these disparities to systemic racism, then we know who the culprit is: the Democratic Party.
This is why Democrats are so upset about the Supreme Court ruling that potentially prepares a precedent with respect to birthright citizen. Progressives effectively deny the historical fact that the Fourteenth Amendment was written specifically to negate the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which infamously held that black people—enslaved or free—could not be US citizens. They attempt to erase this fact by claiming that the Fourteenth Amendment gives birthright citizenship to whomever is born in the US. They seek to valorize this interpretation to advance the electoral strategy of increasing the number of voters dependent on the Democratic party.
freedom and reason 