What’s wrong with this picture?

Contemplate, according to the National Center For Health Statistic, the black unwed birthrate in America is in excess of 72 percent. Picture communities saturated with fathers playing little or no role in the lives of the children they bring into the world. Note the direct link of poverty to single mothers raising children. Bad outcomes are dramatically more likely for children growing up without a father in the home.

A Heritage Foundation study reveals a poverty rate among single women with children of 37.1 percent, verses two-parent homes with a poverty rate of 6.8 percent. The U.S. Department of Labor reports unemployment of 13 percent for black Americans. And black youth unemployment now hovers around 40 percent. Real Clear Science tells us that murder rates among black young men reached a devastating level of 28.8/100,000, while the comparable rate for white young men is 2.1/100,000. We are experiencing a virtual murder orgy of black men killing other black men in our cities. The U.S. Center For Disease Control tells us that 13 million black babies have been aborted since 1973. The black abortion rate is four times the white. More blacks killing blacks. In this case we find adults (and some minor female mothers) snuffing out nascent human life. Thus is the picture of the black inner city in 2013. Overwhelming evidence of a cultural disaster totally detached from racism, guns or racial profiling.

We revel at the fact that there are more black elected officials then at any time in our history — a black President, Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice and an ever-growing list of Cabinet and administrative officers. It has become a bit of a “representation” obsession. Feels good, but to what end? I use the term obsession because as these numbers have risen the problems have not diminished. Blacks holding elected office and voting in greater numbers have proved to be nothing more than a tasty bit of psychological candy having little or no impact on improving the lives of black Americans.

After more than a half century of “progressive” (leftist) leadership, black and white, Detroit, Oakland, Chicago and countless other cities are bankrupt (or on verge of), bulging with the unemployed and cursed with rampant crime. As Detroit Mayor Bing stated, “There are hundreds of cities like Detroit.”

Anyone with an ounce of intellectual integrity would acknowledge that the problems plaguing the black community are largely due to cultural deficiencies (absence of fathers) and the failure of left-wing, big government “solutions.” Racism, to whatever degree it exists, is a minor factor. So what’s wrong with this picture?

The mainstream media and the race hustler class have been fixated on an unremarkable homicide in Sanford Florida? The tragic shooting of a young black man, Trayvon Martin, by a Hispanic community watch leader, George Zimmerman, worried about another in a long line of break-ins in his neighborhood. In this case every detective, investigator and prosecutor who initially examined the homicide, concluded that no provable criminal case could be mounted against the Hispanic shooter. A jury, after hearing all the evidence, agreed. Was that the end of the non-story? Nope.

Filled with misplaced righteous indignation and buttressed by media-driven fantasies of what may have happened, some are convulsing with the fallback excuses: racism, profiling and guns. Not one scintilla of evidence of racism. The prosecution was unable to produce evidence of racial profiling. And a gun legally possessed.

The “racist” in question was close to two black girls that were like siblings to him growing up, defended a black homeless man alleging a police assault, and voted for a black President. Yep, he is drenched in racism.

The way this whole tragic affair has been portrayed by the mainstream media is the real crime committed against the black community. That crime is the lack of attention to the causes of social ills.

Misled and exploited by [people] like Al Sharpton, millions expend volumes of energy and spout incoherent rhetoric that will have zero positive impact on the problems gripping the black community. It has been very painful to watch all this play out. I see lawyers ignoring the law and facts to speculate in front of a camera. During the trial they pontificated based on speculation that the general public picked up and treated like evidence or fact.

Maybe just maybe a sober look at Detroit would have been a better use of media time and energy. Detroit provides us with a classic case of 60 years of failed Democratic policy, black unemployment, dying communities and uncontrolled crime. Anyone not handicapped by partisan bias will see what works and what fails. But it is far easier and more provocative to scream racism.

Michael Hayutin