Sexuality: a search for perspective; Culture, class, and color: A minority view

Explaining the behavior of the poor in terms of class differences is inadvertently analogous to the tendency of an early age to explain poverty in terms of biological differences. It is a not Various in a not very subtle way. It exonerates us for all blame for their predicament. It is my contention that the deviant lifestyles of the poor are. Insofar as they are pathological ought to be explained much more in terms of the structure of our society. The fact that the poor are defacto excluded from all opportunity system. Michigan State University radio presents sexuality a search for perspective a series of recorded lectures from an interdisciplinary colloquy on human sexuality held on the campus of Michigan State University. The purpose of this series is to provide a comprehensive discussion of human sexuality in its broadest possible perspective. And yet deal with this important and timely topic in an organized informed and rational manner. The

lecturer today will be Dr. Charles R. Lawrence professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York. He is also a fellow of the American Sociological Association and the Society for religion in higher education the author of numerous articles Dr. Lawrence's main interests are in the field of race relations and the family. His topic today will be culture class and color a minority view. Now Dr. Charles R. Lawrence family life among Negro Americans is particularly and peculiarly a product of the American experience. Chattel slavery as practiced in the Anglo American colonies and later in the United States involved a systematic extirpation of the African cultural past. It is true that significant vestiges of African cultural traits are to be found in some of the more isolated large scale plantation areas such as

the Sea Islands of South Carolina. But by and large has the African past was plated by slavery. The patriarchal frequently polygynous family of black Africa were part of a complex cultural system and could hardly have survived. Through American speak unity or institution. Even if this labor crowd had been willing to tolerate it and this was no money by no means the case. Anglo-Saxon Protestants also found it necessary to justify their enslavement of black Africans to reconcile it with their religious beliefs. For a while it was enough to rationalize the slave trade as a large scale effort at Christian proselytism the black heathen was to be saved. Whether you liked it or not and in spite of himself that was even an early belief that a Christian had an obligation to free a slave who

professed Christianity. This doctrine did not however survive beyond the seventh decade of the seventeenth century and it stead a kind of Biblical racism arose based upon the story of ham which the more biblically literate if you will know you remember him. It was disrespectful to his drunken father and as a result was sentence and all of his descendants with descendants were sentenced to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for their bretheren and by the time of the African slave trade particularly those pinkish white brethren whom we call great cut a brother in whom we call white ethnocentrism was of course not nothing new in the world. But the notion of the innate inferiority of dark skinned people had its origin in the African slave trade. The biblical racism has long since

been supplemented and even supplanted by pseudo scientific racism. But it still persists today among some of the more backward segments of our population. The Anglo-Saxon rationalization of slavery placed the black African in a subhuman or at least an absolutely inferior category. Judge Taney is obiter dictum in the Dred Scott decision. You remember took off from his notion that in the preamble to the Constitution the phrase the people of the United States did not include negroes and the in a sense the racism that developed to justify slavery. Africans the black slaves black African slavery anticipated the Taney doctrine in. And this had two results among others.

Slaves were equated with things. On the same level as other domestic animals except insofar as it suited the slave of krauts to count them as two thirds of a person to give additional Congress congressional representation to the slave owners. The second result was to set up a standard by which the least Caucasians were inherently superior to the best and wisest negroes color racism popularized as a rationalization for the African slave trade thus became inextricably into woven with the history of black families in the United States. It is instructive to take a cursory look at the development of family styles among Negroes during the slave era. The Franklin phrase you pointed to the to the close relationship between the existences of the plantation economy on the one hand and the kinds of family life evolved during slavery on the other. Slavery

became institutionalized a division of labor and a kind of social status emerged among the slaves. This division of labor was pronounced on them on the large plantations. And these tended to set the tone for the more numerous smaller slave holding units where most of the slaves were also found. The brief account that follows is necessarily ideal typical in the sociological sense and does not take into account many exceptions to the general pattern. The very bottom of the slave system where the field hands who are also the largest group of slaves. It was they who did the son to son labor in the fields torn from their African heritage on the one hand and isolated from their white masters on the other. This group developed a matrix centric family system. Males in this group particularly the young males constituted a large part of the master's liquid

assets and were most vulnerable to being sold off of the plantation. When ready cash was needed of the entire slave population field hand meals were the most also the most likely to run away for their toil was not even required by the psychic income of approbation for a job well done and it was they who most often felt the driver slash both the opportunity and responsibility of claiming risk of claiming their progeny as their own and being responsible for them was denied. Although the begetting of such progeny was actively encouraged the women of this group worked alongside their men in the fields or at other low status work parturition provided only a brief respite from toil and the mother of a newborn baby was expected to return soon to her tasks in the field leaving her child to the care of her own mother. Even her own grandmother. The field

hand household became in Frazier's words the house of the mothers and the role of the role of the grandmother became the most important source of nurture and continuity. A still common phenomenon among lower status Negro families. It is important to keep in mind that the field hand slave families were not matriarchal because that would mean the mother's room. They were rather his peculiar sort of patriarchy in which the master rude and the mothers provided the scent. The nurture for the family for the mother are more likely the grandmother provided such stability as a family unit new along with an amazing amount of nurture and affection. There were of course many unstable monogamous relationships among field hands and many of the small team and on many of the small to medium size plantations masta families tried to encourage all of their slaves to adopt European marriage

customs occasionally providing the sanction of the church though not the state for such such alliances. The economics of the slave plantation However militated against such practices and the May trip local family was probably the norm for field hands to other groups of slaves are identifiable in terms of the plantations division of labor. The house servants and artisans within the plantation social hierarchy. These two groups had about equal standing house servants consisted of those persons employed within the immediate household of the master. They were chosen in part because of their attractiveness and tractability as coachman cooks maids nurse maids butlers etc.. They were in intimate contact with the master class. There are material lot was moreover considerably superior to that of their brethren in the fields for they often ate the same food as the masters rather than the the slave

vittles provided in the quarters instead of the coarse homespun domus provided for field hands. House servants arrayed themselves in the cast off by an array of the big house. You may recall the Denmark beezy the insurrectionists leader in South Carolina advised his lieutenants not to enlist in his conspiracy quote such as wear old clothes from the master in clothes for he recognised that the house knickers as they were called usual developed developed a strong identification with their oppressors. Among the artisans to be found on a large plantation were cop and his Masons cobblers blacksmiths iron workers and others who whose training represented a very heavy economic investment like the house servants they worked relatively close to their masters and they also gained considerable influence how servants and authors and therefore tended to assimilate simulate European values regarding

families and monogamous concurrent Cuban age marriages. But the double standard of sexual morality was nowhere more honored in observance than in the antebellum South. The males in this group wish to emulate their master's family style and their intimacy and influence with the master often enabled them to maintain a stable relationships with less fear that they or their mates would be sold away. A quasar patriarchal family life therefore developed within this school. Outside the slave system but greatly influenced by where the free negroes by 1860 these numbered four hundred and eighty eight thousand souls or 11 percent of the total American Negro population a stranger points out quote Contrary to popular belief the free class may even be said to be prior in origin to the slave class. Since the first negroes brought to America did not have a status of slaves

but of indentured servants. Court records show that Negroes were released originally upon the completion of a term of servitude. The end of quotation aside from those slaves those persons whose families ancestors had never been slaves the free negro population was increased from time to time by mulatto children born of free colored mass mothers with a lot of children born of white servants of free women children the free negro and entering Indian parentage. Man united slaves or slaves freed at the hands of their masters. Many also were the result of having taken French leave of the of that peculiar institution. Large numbers of free Negroes resided in such cities as New York Boston and Philadelphia in the north and Charleston Baltimore Washington and New Orleans Augusta Augusta Georgia and the south. There were also many rural settlements of the negroes

particularly in Virginia and North Carolina. And notably in the Roma poor foothills of New Jersey in New York and into supperless Michigan and Wilberforce Ohio. These families provided leadership by establishing Negro churches newspapers lodges free schools Sunday schools and other agencies of self-help and mutual aid. North and South. It was from this group that leadership of the anti-slavery movement and the negro convention movement came as a matter of fact. Some of our black militants present day pros pales when compared with the writings of David Walker Frederick Douglass and the latter seem to make themselves effective without even the result to prefer resort to profanity obscenities. Although most of these families lived economically precarious lives many were skilled workers caterers and subsistence farmers. The family

organization was usually strongly patriarchal although female headed families were quite common particularly in southern cities. The hierarchy of status is upon the plantation. Together with free people of color provided for the evolution of an intra racial system off color part of intra racial system of stratification long before the Civil War. Through historical circumstances the system of stratification and incipient class system if you will was highly correlated with pigmentation field hands were predominantly of relatively unmixed African ancestry. The intimate contacts between house servants and the masters of which I spoke earlier were both the results and the occasion for considerable sexual relations between white males and black females and their progeny tended

to be to have preferred positions within the plantation system. A very high proportion of the free negro population was made up of mulattoes. Indeed they formed a distinct recognized caste in antebellum New Orleans for example. There was therefore concrete evidence not only that White was superior. But that in general the black one was the further down in the social hierarchy. Was he to be found. Through historical circumstances and the workings of the self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon the color racism which is served as a justification for slavery was given a spurious though all too convincing confirmation in the intra group stratification that developed within the slave and free negro population the dominant racist values were indeed widely accepted within the subordinate group. An acceptance summed up in the Negro folk saying if you're white you

alright if you're brown stick around if you're black get back. Now this acceptance of the dominant color values has also been repeatedly confirmed by studies of color preference among Negroes. And there's an evidence in the numerous ads for hair straighteners and skin bleach is in black in black papers and magazines even some which have a very militant militant editorial policy. The structures and functions of black families during slavery were formed by the relationships of family members to the processes of production. Social roles were highly correlated with economic roles. A system of intra racial stratification based upon social and economic role and highly correlated with skin color was developed. Although legalized slavery ended a little more than a century ago.

Economic circumstances continue to be crucial in the family life of American Negroes. The closer one is to the margin of economic subsistence the more his family life is affected by economic circumstances. For most of the period since emancipation negroes were rural folk on the plantations of the deep south they struggled to climb the agricultural ladder from sharecropper. To share tenant and eventually to owner. But those at the lowest rung of the lot the family remained still essentially made to century for a woman as easily as a man could enter into the sharecropper contract promising her labor and that of her children in return for a share of the cash crop. She could Moreover take up with a man who could help her farm and add to her progeny. And as Charles S. Johnson pointed out and shot of the plantation

this was acceptable to her neighbors as long as she acted responsibly toward her children. Those families who rose to the status of cash tenants who simply rented the land and supplied their own work animals and tools were most often headed by men as were the families of some of owner operators. The social standing of the family was derived. That is of owner operator and right of families that the social standing of the family was a derived from the father's economic position and from his participation in church mutual aid societies and other community activities. The most important and striking change in black families during the past half century has been their increasingly rapid rate of urbanization and 1910 the Negro population of America was 73 percent rural.

By 1960 it was 73 percent urban and 69 percent of the Negro population now lives in metropolitan areas that is in or around the largest cities. This process of urbanisation has had many can competence in a few and I would just mention a few. It has resulted in increased social stratification resulting from greater economic and occupational differentiation. This resulted in the growth of associations the development of powerful institutions and social movements. It has also resulted in increased residential segregation. And also in new problems which arise with urbanisation situations which were not defined as problems on the plantation. Urbanization has also seen the emergence of an authentic middle class where a

lot with all of the attributes of the great American middle class its virtues and its vices. And finally it has resulted in increased group consciousness particularly man manifest recently in the emphasis upon black consciousness and negritude. It is within the context of the foregoing concomitants of urbanisation that I should like to examine contemporary. Family life among American Negroes indicating something of its pariah as well as suggesting the continuing importance of color and class. Based upon an extrapolate strop relation of the 1900 census figures and entered ascending estimates there are upwards of twenty four million Americans of some recognizable and recognized African descent between 11 and 12 percent of the total population of the United States. The nonwhite population is growing Moreover at nearly twice the rate of the white

population. The former having increased fourteen and four tenths percent between one thousand sixty one thousand sixty five while the white population increased 7.4 percent during the same period. Negroes Negroes have for a long time known large cities as places of relatively greater freedom and opportunity. They've been attracted to cities by the prospect of better jobs better educational opportunity and lessened prescriptions. And these attractions were at work during the various waves of citywide migration from the boll weevil migration of 1900 1910 through the migrations of the first and second world wars in the periods in between those wars. And since those wars these aspirations and hopes have resemble those of various Europeans who came as immigrants some of those literally expecting to find the streets of New York paved with gold.

There's also been in the terms of a democracy demographers an enormous push complementing the pull of the rationalization of southern agriculture that is automate automation and making southern agriculture more economically feasible was first facilitated by the agricultural policies of the New Deal policies which greatly favor the large scale farmers and aid and enabled him to take advantage of revolutionary developments in agricultural technology and chemistry and your own great university has contributed greatly to this agricultural revolution through chemical and other discoveries. Before all the rationalisation plantations in the Deep South for example required large complements of labor and labor that was essential a season on which remained in residence on the plantations as sharecroppers or in nearby towns available for such peak Labor

periods as cotton chopping and cotton picking in as much as a docile labor force was preferred and since the work demanded. No no book learning or education of farm hands was neglected if not actively discouraged. That ignorance helped them to know their place in court. Nowadays only a fraction of the previous labor force is needed and the operation of a complex of complex farm machinery and modern farming methods demands at least functional literacy on the part of workers. Those who are least suited therefore to contemporary farming life are precisely those workers who lack the literacy and work discipline needed in the urban labor force. The most likely candidates for separation from agriculture in the Deep South are and have recently been there for those least prepared for city life. Even under the best of circumstances and their

circumstances have been the worse many of the problems are sort of our central cities are directly attributable to the dislocations of southern agriculture. It is ironic therefore that southern congressmen took their lead in the unholy alliance that last year voted the federal government the federal government would not finance any increase in the proportion of Aid to Dependent Children and Families already to that which is that proportion already bore to the population of the state. Then of course the same in this in the constituencies of the same congressman proceeded to starve out those people who would then contribute to the rolls up north so that the proportion available to the south would increase in divorce and available to the north would decrease. It is my belief that a careful analysis would show that much of the apparent deterioration that Monahan and others see among black urban families or it

is a reflection of the fact that packed pathology which was ignored among rural folk are not viewed as social problems on the plantation is made manifest in the cities. Even to the second or third generation of persons on assimilated into urban life. The relative deprivation would seem to me much more important. Than absolute deprivation and considering the American scene American income American families for example with poverty incomes would be considered rich in other parts of the world. But the fact is that they don't live in other parts of the world they live here where they see other people living in much greater comfort. Forty percent of America's black families had incomes of less than $3000 per year in 1954. Fewer than 20 percent of white families were to be found in that category. Although we must know we must

recall that that met twice as many whites as Negroes were in poor. On a much larger proportion of the whites who are among the aged and the rural. In other words the poverty among Negro families affects many more children proportionately than the poverty among white families about half of the negro and white urban families had incomes of between 3000 and $7000. Seventy five hundred dollars in one thousand sixty one. But most of the remaining whites had higher income and most of the remaining negroes had lower incomes. I think Claire Drake points out quote getting an education pays off for Negroes. As for all other Americans. But while some Negroes get ahead of other negroes education has not yet raised their earning power to the level of whites with equivalent training. In fact. The average income for a nonwhite family with a farm for a nonwhite

family with a male here who had finished high school was less than that. Of a white male head who had finished only the eighth grade in don't quote As a matter of fact a negro male has to finish college before he gets the equivalent lifetime earnings of a white male. He finishes high school and I don't think this can be completely explained in terms of the differences in the quality of education. The median income of urban Negro families has been improving relative to that of whites. During the last 10 years though it lost relative to whites during the 50s. As of 1966 slightly more than half of America's white families had incomes of $7000 a year or more while 23 percent of nonwhite families were to be found in this category. Black families have been moving up

relatively faster than white families while the proportion of whites receiving 7000 are better. Had had increased by two thirds. Moderate proportion of whites receiving $7000 had increased by two thirds the proportion of black families that this level had increased by two and one half times to wanting the necessary however before we saying our hosannas too highly and too loudly those black families who across the 7000 barrier tend to be concentrated near the bottom of this open ended category while white families were concentrated several thousand dollars higher. Probably along early on it was noted that COLA and class continue to be the most important. Parameters for the consideration of family life among Negro Americans. I turn now and it's about time to a consideration of

intra group stratification. I should like to identify the various strata suggest some of the indices for membership in each say something of the family life styles characteristic of each category and in some instances indicate something about differential life chances. The optimal stratum of America's black population is roughly comparable to the general American upper middle class. It includes all line professionals successful entrepreneur blacks who have moved into the middle man or into middle management research public relations and marketing as executives in America's business world. Educated and established clergy and celebrities such families are likely to reside in the more fashionable sections of the black ghetto in the relatively gilded suburban and semi suburban ghettos and in significantly increasing numbers in upper middle class predominantly white neighborhoods. Used frequently suburban.

Wives typically are employed except when their children are quite young and their occupations resemble those of their husbands. Marriages tend to be relatively egalitarian at this level as is the case with upper middle class in general mothers. Mothers in this group lead an active club life. Many in addition to full time employment. Small families are the rule within the school and in the and in the larger middle class group of which this is a part. And there is a disproportionately large number of childless couples. This is due in part to the high incidence of working mothers. It also reflects a desire to limit offspring in order to be able to quote do well in court by their childbearing is greatly influenced by current popular doctrines and the nation as a nationwide network. Of clubs for children and adolescents to maintain in order.

In order that the progeny from this stratum may learn proper social graces associate with the right people and hence find an appropriate mate. Now this is some times this is gotten to be embarrassing to some of the young men and women as they have become more black and more militant. Young nephew of mine is was attending a midwest small midwestern college. One of the other three or four negroes on the campus was an angry black militant from the central city of Philadelphia. And he was very black and very militant and very very angry in every issue of the school newspaper. And one day when my nephew and this young man met. And if you said oh you know you we were in pink. He said nigger if you say kid you divide by deaf you was about to say that they were both members of the jack and jill club you see which would put him up which would immediately dub him

as part of the black which was C and he couldn't afford to be that and also be the sort of militant he was pretending to be in that college. Color is relevant to this group in several ways. The upper most stratum among Negroes had its origin among the free families and domestics of the pre-Civil War years and these were predominantly the latter as achievement has replaced family of orientation of origin or rather joined it as a passport into the school. The importance of skin color has declined more than vestiges of intra group Color prejudices remain however in spite of the growth of black consciousness. The external color bar persists for the negro upper strata social standing and income may shield them from many of the couter forms of racial discrimination. Although a few members of this group have been spared less gentle reminders of the caste like nature of America's black white relations. Let me cite two instances from New York City where as a municipal radio

station reminds us every noon. Eight million people live together in harmony and enjoy the blessings of liberty and democracy. One. A beautiful well-dressed woman in her early 20s boarded an elevator leaving the home of friends in a luxury apartment house on the east side. The elevator operator sought to force her to take the service car when she pointed out that she was a guest. He proceeded all the way down the 16 stories to make nasty remarks about how careful one has to be these days in these days of high crime rates. The young woman found his boorishness hard to take but the concerting silence of the half dozen tenants on the car brought tears of rage when she was safely out of sight. The second instance is a young colleague who recently joined us. His grandfather was an internationally known university president and the young man was in the final stages of

writing a doctoral dissertation. He and his wife spent three months of daily searching before they found a suitable apartment for themselves or their and their young daughter. Time after time they were told that an apartment had just had been rented just the night before. When ten minutes before by telephone they had been told that it was available. Agents landlords even building superintendents were uniformly courteous but their intent was unmistakable. Another point of contact with the external call of offer up a status Negroes is in being printed potentialities ambassadors to the occasion Brotherhood. They're expected to supply the want to two black board members for charitable enterprise. Other Voices of color on a committee and as it has long since been their happy obligation to integrate soirees and cocktail parties in this not obligation however they are rapidly being replaced by angry young black militants from the ghetto. Now that

confrontation is the name of the game. Of course one need need not need be need for a young black girl from the ghetto to be a you know militant to be a young black militant from the ghetto. This this role can be taken on as it is quite frequent now by persons who by no means said it otherwise. Now by no means all of the mainstream participation by upper status blacks is mere tokenism an ever increasing though still all too tiny number have regular normal and easy social interaction with whites of equal status at work in voluntary associations as well as in more intimate social contacts. For this small fraction of an already tiny group of friends and associates are likely to be chosen on the basis of common interests regardless of race. Just below this upper stratum and hardly distinguishable from it. Are those black families and part of it really are those black families of middle class standing.

The parents in these families typically have finished high school and in recent years most of attended collar's incomes range from seven to $15000 per year. Probably the largest single group of Negro families are to be found in the working class people who have a relatively regular employment or jobs that provide adequate income for subsistence and even some of life's luxuries. This is the group which Drake calls the negro middle class. I think it less confusing however to use categories of the general American middle class seeing class as embodying the relationship of the me to the means of production as Marx said as well as lifestyle and status. The penchant of this segment of the black population for being respectable and not being crude is reflected in their lifestyle. The importance of education is held very high and much of the support for educational reform in black neighborhoods

has come from working class parents particularly working class mothers. The threat of being overcome by pathological influences of the ghetto is ever present with this school. Yet most of these families hold together their apartment so often islands of cleanliness and neatness in the midst of filth and even structural deterioration. The extended family continues to function within the school despite the ravages of urbanization and along with the black middle class the working class provides the manpower through which churches lodges and other institutions in negro neighborhoods are maintained. Working class blacks have always been more attracted to black nationalism than have their more highly situated brothers. It was among the respectable black masses including many West Indian origin that Marcus Garvey found members of for his universal Negro Improvement Association and father back to Africa movement. If he were of course an equally fruitful source of recruits

for Martin Luther King Jr. and the nonviolent movement for human rights and integration it is doubtful however. That the appeal of integration was ever strong within this group as a desire for for a larger measure of freedom and personal dignity. Now despite much current conventional wisdom I'm not suggesting any inconsistency between integration on the one hand and dignity on the other. Quite a contrast. They seem to me to be inseparable in our society. With this there's no time to go into that at this time. Reference was made earlier to the importance of the extended family within the working class. It is also important within the respectable underclass. In so far as the extended family can be sustained in the underclass it is through the extended family that make sure Centrale attain is maintained within the working within working class black families. Working parents

living in northern cities often send their children solves the lot as Grandmother most often maternal grandmother to be cared for during preschool and early school years. Grandmothers continues to be the central adult figures for the growing child. Even though the nuclear family may be Quezon patriarchal. Lower class families constitute to move out of the lower class lower class families constitute about 40 percent. Of America's black families and more than half of her black children. This segment of the black population includes the underemployed the chronically unemployed persons dependent upon public assistance those who have simply dropped out of the labor market Mynah hustlers etc. they have recently received much attention from scholars and journalists alike. The Monaghan report titled The Negro family dealt almost exclusively with this group though of overwhelming bulk of sociological research and

punditry on black families deals with the black underclass. In part this preoccupation reflects the urgency of gaining imperial data on which to base intelligent action. Two other reasons for the preoccupation with lower class black families must be mention. As recipient as recipients of relief tenants in public housing projects and idlers in the market place they are available to us and unable to protect themselves from our prying eyes and tape recorders. Secondly their behavior particularly particularly their sexual behavior has been perceived as exotic from a middle class point of view and therefore titillation Spurs scientific inquiry. It isn't the latter connection that an undue interest has been placed upon most pathological people upon the most pathological minority within the negro middle and

lower class. It is partially in response to this over emphasis upon family life among the lower among lower class blacks that I have given a disproportionate attention to other groups in this paper not even families of the black underclass can be so should be seen as an undifferentiated mass a widely recognized distinction is that between respect what they can take and call the respectable and the shades. The lives of the respectable underclass revolve around their churches. Frequently the storefront the rioting with a high incidence of Pentecostals Holy Rollers The Church of God and saints of Christ as well as Baptists and Methodists. Religion is primarily understandable at this level as an opiate and a relief from frustration. These churches also provide a sense of belonging and solidarity with fellow worshipers as well as some sense of self-worth

in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Lower class respectable so unlikely to have any association a life. Aside from that related to their churches the shadiest find themselves involved in petty hustles such as prostitution narcotics petty thievery and numbers running some of the less decorous bars provide the release which the more respectable fellows find in storefront churches. Much of the lives of the parents of black underclass families are spent in an unremitting and unrelenting struggle for existence. Most parents work at full time. Most of the parents whether they are mother and father father alone or mother alone. Work at full time jobs but jobs which are very not very remunerative. You know more in like in jurisdictions such families are eligible for supplemental public assistance. The leader

of a Municipal Employees Union in New York. Recently demanded that employees of the City Housing Authority be paid wages commensurate with their family size. Pointing out that many fall time city employees who are eligible for and receiving relief payments many of the otherwise praiseworthy institutions such as hospitals restaurants and even universities maintain vital services through the through involuntary subsidies supplied by the poor. That is poor people who work full time receive pittances as wages are helping to educate in a number of us in very plush universities Monahan among others has emphasized the breakdown of the black underclass family and he has pointed to the rapid increase of what he called the rapid increase increase in the proportion of such families headed by women. This is a third sock on the other hand has noted there was no appreciable increase

in the percentage of Negro families with female heads. As you will recall Monahan also cites the fact that there had earlier been a positive correlation between editions of Negroes to the rolls of Aid to Dependent Children. On the one hand and rising unemployment rates among Negro males on the other. In recent years however he observed an apparent drop in negro unemployment had been had not been accompanied by a rise in apartment. That. That a drop in unemployment had been or had been accompanied by a rise in relief for all. In other words despite the fact that more Negro males were working on the relief rolls rose and this was a major element of his argument that the black family was deteriorating. Now it seems to me that two additional important variables must be considered in this analysis. One is the continued movement of dependent and

partially dependent families out of the areas in which they couldn't get on relief despite their need into areas in which they can so the rebels rise not because the need arises but because people find themselves where the need is attended to rather than where the need was ignored. And secondly the growing conviction among such families that public assistance is a right. A view encouraged by the growing welfare rights movement. It is another instance in which the perceived urgency of sort of a social problem is due to its discovery rather than to its existence. So a father is present more often than absent and black underclass families. The pattern is clearly a major focus. The stability and continuity of the nuclear family is mainly dependent upon the mother or in many cases the grandmother rates of illegitimacy ahigh within the school and exceedingly high fertility rate. Within this group particularly coupled with a high rate of illegitimacy is not to be taken lightly. And I'm not taking this situation

lightly. For a time in the US as pointed out although illegitimacy may carry relatively little stigma among one's lower class peers penalty to illegitimate children penalties are still very great in terms of their eventual life chances. Therefore we cannot ignore illegitimacy simply on the grounds that people among whom the mothers of illegitimate children live don't you know stone them or to treat them the way respectable people think they ought to be treated. Much has been made of such characteristics of serial monogamy proneness to violence and poor motivation toward education and vocational achievement among the American black underclass and among the underclass in general. Walter Miller and others of attributed these characteristics to cultural differences. Not only is lower class behavior different from that of middle class people according to this view that aspiration is also different. Oscar Lewis has also written a great deal about the poverty culture a culture of

poverty the notion of poverty culture has become a byword and I hear the people and social workers have taken up the cry of quote cultural deprivation quote cultural culturally different the culturally deprived often trends that are rated into the culturally depraved. One result has been that those who have responsibility for education social services and job training in poor neighborhoods have used the notion of a culture of poverty as an exotic excuse for their own miserable results. The culture of the poor has also become a euphemism for the behavior of blacks. The view that it's given some probably unintended credence to the current culture of negritude. So popular since ban law. Capitol star is a black and white who're by Helen Lewis and Helen saw for Lee rainwater among others have demonstrated that such so-called middle class values

as family stability and a desire for an education are shared by the poor in the sense that they know them to be quote write in code and think that they would rather live by their very objective economic and social circumstances simply do not permit them to do so they learn to live with themselves and to tolerate their neighbors inability to quote live right in court. But they do not abandon nor repudiate the larger societal standards which we with understandable Saito centricity call middle class. First our getting their putative virtues to ourselves and explaining the behavior of the poor in terms of class differences is inadvertently analogous to the tendency of an earlier age to explain poverty in terms of biological differences. It is a not very in a not very subtle way. It exonerates us for all blame for their predicament. It is my contention

that the deviant lifestyles of the poor in so far as they are pathological. Are to be explained much more in terms of the structure of our society. The fact that the poor are defacto excluded from Opportunity system I have sought to describe something of the origins and operation of social stratification among and against black families. The significance of color and class in their lives. I've also attempted to suggest with all to addict to inadequate discussion of it the paucity of the poverty of culture concept. In dealing with the problems of the black underclass and by implication black families in general. I was not attempting to discuss them. I should not like to raise some questions that some that seem opposite in considering the future of black families in America part of men women relations among black families

in general lower class working class families lower class and working class families have tended to be made to century middle class families have been patriarchal and upper middle class families have been egalitarian but some real patriotic patriarchs among the so called Families at the same time Negro Women have had a long time educational and vocational advantage over Negro men except at the very highest status levels. The historical powerlessness of the black male. These are be the dominant society has also been a source of weakness and raves. It is often said that the black male has been castrated a figure of speech that flies in the face of misfits Kondratieff an important element in the contemporary black mood is the elevation of the black male to a position of dominance. Even if this means that the black female must feign weakness. The black power conference

in New York under the strong influence of the Muslims denounced birth control among blacks as genocide. Now that the black middle class the middle class Negroes do not share this view this evidence by the fact that they have even fewer children than whites of comparable education and income. And this is true of the middle class negroes who signed the resolutions of the black power cuts as well. Planned Parenthood clinics have been attacked sometimes fire bombed by black militants. Yet in every instance in which non-core etal related contraceptive method that is in short the pill of the loop have been made available to working class and lower class black women and follow up studies done of on them. The women have been highly cooperative and the result satisfactory. In other words. The blackmail may be against birth control but the black female seems to be welcoming. One may

ask whether the recent bad odor of contraception among young black male militants grows out of a fear of genocide or an effort to dominate their women. What about the present mood of black consciousness. Will it prove productive of genuine self-esteem within black families. To what extent is its occasionally highly defensive nature an unwitting revelation of self Despise is a present trend toward separatism among black university students and young community militance a genuine effort to become part of a more healthy pluralistic society in America. One laudable rationalization or reason given for or is it a harbinger harbinger of voluntary parting just as there is a growing gap between America's affluent majority and her poor. That has been a recent trend toward heightened income education and the indices of social mobility social upward mobility among the majority of America's negro's relit with relation to

whites. Though the process is painfully slow. At the same time you have to be sending your stories in such cities as Cleveland Los Angeles. Show that the black underclass is getting poorer. Not only compared to whites also compared to other negroes and even in an absolute sense the HOF study showed that in what was called the the the problem neighborhoods of the ghettos. The real income while real income had Rose had risen very fast. Relatively fast among Cleveland's Negro population faster than it risen among Cleveland's white population. Real income within these tough neighborhoods had actually decline the proportion of female headed families had actually increased the number of illegitimate not only the rates of illegitimacy but the number of

illegitimate children had actually increased. Now so far there is not much evidence that the poverty program programs of community action or even Black Power campaigns have touched these groups can we intervene to bring them into the body politic. If so how do we do it particularly. Is this a problem when we consider that automation and cyber nation are cutting off the lower rungs of the economic ladder by which the immigrant poor of another era became part of our economic order. It must also be remembered that the white underclass though proportionately smaller is twice as numerous as the black underclass. And we mustn't forget them. Meanwhile central cities become blacker in population and bleaker in Outlook. White neighborhoods are frightened and increasingly lacking an understanding of black aspirations particularly as the as the tone changes from one of

supplication to wanna be fine young blacks want a piece of the action. But they now seem to want it on their own terms so that their terms are not always crystal clear to gray bearded negroes white youths. Meanwhile questioning whether all of our institutions are so rotten that their destruction is bound to be succeeded by something better. Are you wiser as well as more virtuous. We know they're more virtuous than the rest of us. I want to raise these questions. I wouldn't try to answer them. Thank you. You have been listening to Dr. Charles R. Lawrence professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York. Dr. Lawrence spoke on culture class and color a minority view.

This has been sexuality a search for perspective a series of recorded lectures from an interdisciplinary colloquy on human sexuality held on the campus of Michigan State University editor for the series is Steve Jensen. This is a Michigan State University radio production. This is the national educational radio network.