RE: Roy Exum: A Good Man's Rant
I’m not real smart, according to some individuals in this big city of ours, but I do know this. I value Joe Smith and Rhonda Thurman’s opinion, whether you do or not.
They really care about the future of this city and Hamilton County, as do I and my family.
Let’s try to recognize the real problem, that being the nuclear family.
Fathers make a difference in a child's life and there are way too many mothers trying to raise their children without fathers.
Mickey Spence
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Fathers are desperately needed but unfortunately some just don't want the responsibility, leaving some mothers doing the best they can to raise their children while some mothers are in it for the paycheck.
Michael G. Mansfield
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Fifty-six years ago Democrat Senator to be Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an adviser to LBJ. In the Moynihan letter he predicted the Great Society would destroy the black nuclear family. LBJ, obviously more interested in Democrats getting the black vote for the next 200 years, completely ignored the report. Moynihan went on to become one of the great statesmen of the last half of the 20th century.
At that time approximately 10 percent of black babies were born to a single mother. Now that figure is approximately 75 percent. Great job LBJ and dimwits.
Douglas Jones
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I had to call police about two months ago. Two kids busted out glass on a camper top of mine. I asked the officer to pass on to the kids mom, “Don’t let your kids come back, I’ll cite them for trespassing.”
Five days later the windshield in my truck parked well away from the street has a hole in it from a rock thrown. I had to call police again.
These boys have no father that I can tell, never see them in the company of such, the males they have to associate with sit outside drinking and hanging out into the night. The men I see in their company have no jobs, home all day and all night. A few do work. These boys are maybe 8 to 10 years old.
When I call police dispatch asks me what skin color they are. White I say. So I see the very thing others attribute only to Black Americans, except I see it in real life with Caucasians. You live in a glass house too, be careful the rocks you throw. By the way, I live next to million dollar houses next to a room by the week motel next to an old world neighborhood.
Prentice Hicks
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Mickey Spence, Michael G. Mansfield and Douglas Jones, you all got it wrong. But that's not at all surprising. You rarely get anything right to begin with. It wasn't LBJ's "war on poverty" that began that path to single mother households.
Republicans, anytime they gain footing in any or several branches of federal office, throwing a wrench in and sabotaging LBJ's plan is what lead to single mothers raising children alone. And that can be found in white households too.
Either under Nixon or Ford, and later under Reagan, all three Republicans, this is what Republicans to the effect said back then, "We'll take care of the women and children but only if there's no man in the house."
Then they proceeded to have neighbors spying on neighbors to see who was coming and going in households where family were receiving social benefits or living in public housing. They had workers from social services entering into households, going through family closets, and if so much as what appeared to be a man's hat was found the family could lose benefits and be threatened with eviction from public our subsidized housing.
Families receiving food benefits were accused of hoarding and had those benefits cut or cut off when someone from social services peered into kitchen cabinets or the frig and they determined the household had too much food.
I remember an elderly woman, Miss Annie McKane, who lived alone in the community I grew up, having her already meager food stamp allowance cut off when someone from the local social services came to her residence and she had a line of can goods in her pantry on a shelf. In those days canned vegetables could be bought for as little as 10-15-25 cents a can. The person from the local social services accused her of 'hoarding' food (same thing said to have led to the African famine--the country too was accused of 'hoarding' food and told to empty their silos of grain before the world would come to their aid), and began the process of completely cutting off her food stamps.
Ms. McKane was a very slim lady and obviously didn't eat much, but was one of those individuals who likely lived through the last Great Depression that lasted from the late 1920s to near the end of 1930s. Remembering what it was like for many during the Depression, and as many people who survived the that period, she ate little and preserved more.
It's easy for a group of old beer guzzling geezers to get together, sitting around talking smack and agreeing with one another then forming an opinion and putting it in print on an opinion page. But that "group think" is not the real world and it often miss out on a lot of facts.
Prentice Hicks said it best. Single mothers aren't a black family issue. It's an American issue that can cross any racial, ethic, and even class or group.
Under Republican rule, a lot of good fathers, great fathers even, were chased off simply because their jobs were unreliable, paid very little or many women were forced to lie and say no man was around when he was in order to keep a roof over their head, medical benefits, and food on the table. Then they went about throwing the men in jail for non-support which made it even more difficult for them to find employment when they were released. Or their small salaries weren't enough to make up for the court ordered amount they were ordered to pay in child support. So back to jail and prison they went again, creating that revolving door of having a prison record and leading to that generational curse we hear so much about.
Republicans basically aided and abetted in turning its male population into drug dealers and prostitutes just to get by.
Now, chew on that.
Thank you, Mr. Prentice Hicks.
Brenda Washington
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My brother passed way too early in life when my nephew was 10. He was then raised with the love and guidance of his grandparents until they passed, most recently my father in early 2019. It was then my turn to take the helm when the dorms closed for COVID as he had nowhere to land.
We made it very clear school and work were requirements while living under our roof and there were no exceptions. At first there was some resistance and it took some tough love as it was cutting into the freedoms he had experienced living the dorm life and getting by with minimal work on the side, so it wasn’t the easy path he was used to.
Long story short, he just made dean's list this past semester for the first time while working three part-time jobs in order to work around his studies. He definitely has a new appreciation of “free time” and our relationship has never been stronger.
I thank God we were able to be there for him and sometimes wonder where he would be right now had we not been able to step in and assist and have no doubt he will succeed in the next chapter of his life.
I guess the bottom line is no matter what the color of your skin and who is challenged with the raising of our children and young adults whether it be a nuclear family, relatives or guardians, if you don’t stay engaged with expectations, goals and guidance each and every day the path they choose will most likely be guided by the path of least resistance and that is a very dangerous and uncertain path.
Chris Morgan
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Brenda, Brenda, Brenda. You forgot President Abraham Lincoln in your diatribe of blaming anyone
and everyone for the plight of the nuclear family (and excusing those personally responsible). Abraham Lincoln, Republican.....he's the guy who issued the Emancipation Proclamation back in January 1863, stating all being held as slaves shall be free. Families separated by slavery, now had the opportunity to be together again.
Of course, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, which doesn't fit your "blame game" narrative....but there it is. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, started the ball rolling for the nuclear family. All as slaves shall be free. A beginning.
Chew on that for a bit. And please, enough of the false flags.
Phil Snider