Pro-Life African Americans

[qwlauren35]

Having been raised pro-choice/pro-abortion (mom said don't come home pregnant, but didn't expect me to abstain. That's a pretty direct message.) I find myself HORRIBLY uncomfortable around unwed mothers in their teens and 20's with no education, low paying jobs and the need for government assistance from day one. I simply don't understand them. I'm especially uncomfortable with the teens, because of their arrogant assumption that their parents will provide all of the necessary support. I have noticed that the parents suck it up and do what they can to support their daughters. And sometimes it's gone on for so many generations that it's expected and accepted. THIS fills me with sadness. Does anyone else have this experience?

There was a time when I thought that I could show them "the middle-class way" and maybe they would embrace it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Au contraire, by the time I was 30, they were asking me why I didn't have children. They knew I wasn't married. They asked anyway.

If these folks only elected pro-life candidates, the Democratic Party would probably be gutted of black folks.

[HassleCat]

1. Absolutely

I worked for a program that assisted "at risk youth" with job training, education, etc. Most of our students were black kids from Baltimore, Philly and DC. Well, not kids, really, since many were over 18. Young adults. Many of the young women were very smart about birth control. They were also very smart about not believing the "Baby, Ill love you forever..." sweet talk the males used to get in their pants. But there were a few who were hopeless romantics, got pregnant, and insisted the baby was proof of the precious love the baby daddies had for them. Of course, the baby daddies were long gone well before the birth, and grandma got the child, exactly as you say.

I know many people see this as "black thing," but I saw it with young white women just as frequently. It's part of this idealized romantic notion we plant in the brains of young people, particularly young women. I knew two young women in particular, one black and one white, who were well on their way to success. They got placed at real, permanent job with government agencies, attended community college, the whole deal. Then they got pregnant and threw it all away. They quit their jobs, moved in with mom, and had their babies. I don't know what eventually happened to either of them, but I suppose they left the babies with the grandmothers so they could pick u where they left off. The idea that having a baby is the ultimate thing to do for love is a powerful idea, and young people are captivated by it more easily than their older and more experienced peers.

[qwlauren35]

2. It's hurts to think

that they are falling for the "baby, I'll love you forever" line when they see it happening all around them, and the men are NOT staying around.

The one though that REALLY kills me is "I just wanted someone to love me, so I had a baby".

I've seen it a few times, and typically when someone was having a really crushing personal experience, like death of a parent or homelessness. BAD times to have children from a practical standpoint... but these women are being emotional, not practical.

Maybe that's just it. I come from a culture where people are practical about having children. They don't love them any less, but they want to be able to give their children the best, so they save for it. And I come from a culture where women have careers, and wait until they have a job with family leave benefits...

OK, rant over.

I'm about to go down South for Labor Day and I will be SURROUNDED by these women. And it just bugs the living sh*t out of me.

[jaysunb]

3. I could expand on this even more, having witnessed

several generations of this mindset....but I won't. You've pretty much nailed the edges of a very large problem within our community.
In the past, I've been accused of being a Bill Cosby type, but coming up in that generation, I have a hard time dealing with all the lame excuses for personal failure.

Enjoy your trip south....your sensibilities' will surely be assaulted.

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. I don't see it as a black thing. I see it as a poor thing

Let me say up front, I'm an older white woman. It distresses me to no end to see young people become parents before they're ready. It's like someone asked them "Do you want a free ticket to a life of poverty?" and they say SURE. But I do think it's a generation thing If you grow up in a family where generation after generation has been poor, been young parents, never got an education beyond high school (if that), that's what you see as normal.

I had a co-worker, also white, from a small town in Louisiana. When we were getting to know each other she talked about having her first child when she was 17. I just said "wow" or something, and asked how she managed to finish school. She said it wasn't easy and it took a long time. She also said that when she was growing up in the 70s, if you hadn't dropped out and gotten pregnant by the time you were 16 you were considered an old maid. I have no doubt there are still plenty of places like that to this day. The common denominator is poverty, not race.

Unfortunately, I don't see things changing much. Our corporate structure depends on having a lot of people at the bottom of the pyramid. They have to have somebody to work those shitty, low paying jobs.

[kwassa]

5. Teen pregnancies have been DROPPING for a long time.

(even though my wife and I adopted a fabulous baby girl from a teenage pregnancy. )

In 2013, there were 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 273,105 babies born to females in this age group.[1] Nearly eighty-nine percent of these births occurred outside of marriage.[1] The 2013 teen birth rate indicates a decline of ten percent from 2012 when the birth rate was 29.4 per 1,000.[1] The teen birth rate has declined almost continuously over the past 20 years. In 1991, the U.S. teen birth rate was 61.8 births for every 1,000 adolescent females, compared with 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females in 2013. Still, the U.S. teen birth rate is higher than that of many other developed countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom.[2]

http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reproductive-health/teen-pregnancy/trends.html

[qwlauren35]

6. Good news, definitely.

I remember in the 1990's when it was "cool" to have a kid in high school. Those kids are grown up now, and hopefully their parents are telling them that it isn't a walk in the park.

[JustAnotherGen]

7. "If these folks only elected pro-life candidates"

Ben Carson has been described as fiercely pro-life.

He's calm. He's quiet. He's a Physician. He has credentials. He has no skeletons in his closet or baggage that we are aware of at this time.


He's rising.

He scares me.

The fact remains - the deeply religious could possibly say one thing in public and do another in the voting both . . . and these would be black deeply religious folks.

[pnwmom]

8. He terrifies me. I've been predicting he'd be on the ticket since the first time

I heard him speak. He's an extremist but he says his crazy stuff in this nice, soft voice. And in the debate he actually made a little joke -- on himself. He's the anti-Trump in his presentation.

My Rethug cousin is enthralled with him. I've seen a poll that shows he does better with women, while men like Trump more. We underestimate him at our peril.

People are so out of touch on DU -- so many atheists and agnostics expressing open scorn for people with faith. Good luck keeping African Americans under our big tent if they start feeling that contempt for religion coming from Bernie's camp.

I think that's one reason Hillary appeals to them. She's quite natural when she uses religious language in a Church setting; more like Jimmy Carter than Bill. She reminded me of some of my high school nuns -- liberal and sincere.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Contempt for religion in General

I'm a UU - just because I don't believe in Trinitarian theology and the supernatural - doesn't mean I don't have a belief in another side after death.

I think it's neat that some of the conversations I've had with other black O'Malley supporters are friends from my Catholic high school and university. I was a Baptist attending these schools (joined UU in 2004) - but we all took the same Social Justice Classes. His approach to policy directly reflects that flavor of social justice (Liberation) that we all had fed to us by those priests.

And it's that 'soft spoken' approach - Carson isn't 'in your face'. I'll stop there at risk of getting alerted. But suffice to say - there is a certain segment in America that can tolerate a soft spoken black man that get pissed with Obama brushes his shoulder -and Holder got impatient with the freaking idiots 'that segment' voted into Congress.

[yardwork]

10. I have a question.

Do the folks you know having babies at such young ages identify as pro-life? What I mean is - would pro-life arguments resonate with them, and would they be attracted to pro-life candidates because of the anti-abortion message?

I have cousins who had babies as teenagers (and older) - the whole stereotype: unwed teen moms, drug dealer boyfriends, more kids with other drug dealer boyfriends, eventual marriages (to drug dealers) that didn't last, welfare, rehab, etc.

My relatives and their babies and baby-daddies are all white. They didn't come from poor families either. Solid middle class parents. And they all said the same thing to me that your relatives/acquaintances say - "You're 22 and no baby? No boyfriend? What's wrong?!"

Sad. My relatives probably aren't registered to vote. I hope not, anyway. Right wingers. Naturally.

[qwlauren35]

11. I'm not completely sure.

I think it is their actions and their views that are pro-life, but I'm not sure that they identify with "the cult". Some of them may be staunch Democrats, but with anti-abortion views.

I would have to ask them individually to find out... do you really want to know?

[yardwork]

12. I'm wondering if "pro-life" candidates would resonate with them

to the point of their voting Republican.

I still can't believe how West Virginia, for instance, is now a hard-right Republican state. It was Democratic for generations and should be still. The "God, guns, and gays" message got to them.

I worry about other Democrats being won over to the Republicans because of effective marketing.