The Future of Marriage and Family in Black America

The discourse surrounding African American families during the past 30 years has primarily consisted of some form of reaction to the Moynihan Report (1965), which presented evidence support-ing the contention that the Black family was falling apart. These responses, often by African American social scientists, usually represented some form of what I call Yes, but responses, including: a. Countering the attacks by focusing on the strengths of Black families (e.g., Billingsley, 1968; Hill, 1972), or more recently to focus on Black middle-class families (Landry, 1987; McAdoo, 1988). b. Agreement that there are problems among Black families, but placing emphasis on the structural conditions that caused them (e.g., Holmes-Norton, 1987). Earlier versions of this response tended to focus on what structural changes could be made that would directly affect Black families-increased employment op-portunities for Black males for example. More recent versions have called for broader changes that would affect all families; Wilson (1987), for example, calls for a national child care policy that, while helping all employed mothers, will nevertheless trickle down to poor Black mothers who most need it. This latter version of the structural cause/solution response occurs as a result of increasing awareness of shrinking national resources and the accompanying shift in public opinion (Pinkney, 1984) that reduces the chance of providing direct assistance to the Black families. c. Acknowledging problems but focusing on what the Black com-munity has done-or continues to do-to either perpetuate or alleviate these problems (Edelman, 1987).