Most who have observed the urban protests and riots in recent years, ostensibly in response to the manufactured assertion of “systemic racism,” see masses of discontented young people who are emotionally moved by their feelings about what they are told is “injustice.” In the darkness of some major urban centers, these raging youth hordes have acted out violently, the result of identifying with Black Lives Matter or the antifa movement of self-styled “anti-fascist” fascists.
But I’ve seen something else in those masses and hordes, something that actually evokes a sense of compassion for these lost souls. What I see is mostly young people, regardless of color or creed, who have been deprived of a sufficient level of stability in their formative years. Thus, they lack the courage required to resist becoming emotionally incontinent pawns of leftist political ideologues, their Leftmedia echo-chambers, and the agitators who incite insurrection identity groups.
What I see are large numbers of people across the nation who have something in common beyond their congregational cause du jour: They did not have the stability of the healthy and functional family that all children deserve — most likely due to the lack of a father or an effective father in their home. Rarely is the lack of fatherhood more evident than in the abject urban violence, and the inconvenient truth that the vast majority of that violence is black-on-black.
Even in the most stable of families, life can be difficult. Young people struggle and sometimes take paths that are self-destructive. Fortunately, many have family members who will toss them a lifeline and bring them back into the fold. But if the lives of young people who had the benefit of stable families are sometimes difficult, many (not all) young people who grow up in broken families face almost insurmountable obstacles — psychologically, emotionally, and socially. If they’re fortunate, they’ll cross paths with a guardian angel who will endeavor to lead them onto the path of personal responsibility required for a productive life. Many, though, won’t be so fortunate.
Annually, on Father’s Day, the third Sunday in June, millions of Americans of all ages are reminded that they grew up in homes without fathers. Many also recognize that this absence has had a significant influence on their lives.
For much of history, it was not uncommon for children to have one parent — having lost the other to childbirth, disease, war, or occupations that took them far away from the home. But those families typically lived near other family members who could stand in the gap. Unfortunately, the United States today ranks high among nations with children growing up in single-parent homes without the benefit of extended family. In the vast majority of these cases, the single parent is the mother, and the absent parent is the biological father who elected to abandon them.
This elective rejection by fathers, the result of divorce or of dissociating from the mother, is an epidemic. And the consequence of this epidemic on children, and the future of Liberty, is dire.
Start right here on this problem, NAACP.