The UN demands the US pay Reparations

[kmoney]

Well, we're trying to explain the disparity.

Which disparity?

Unemployment is hard on a marriage: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/unemployment-and-divorce-_n_2288702.html

The education issue plays into both the employment, and the incarceration rate.

I wasn't denying that, only saying it's indirect and I don't know how much the gov't should do if the purpose is about couples staying together (I don't doubt you'd want to do 1,3 for their own purposes too).

Also, another factor, possibly a more important one, is couples that never even get to marriage. A girl gets pregnant and they split up before it even gets to marriage.

Such as how the government, mostly run by white people, used tax dollars to build segregated neighborhoods.

Are you talking about when segregation was still legal? Or after?

That may be, and certainly individual decisions are very important. But there's also plenty of evidence of systemic discrimination that is either beyond the ability of an individual to control, or that makes individual decisions a lot hard to make in a successful way.

I agree. I try to see both sides. And for certain issues I put more emphasis on the personal responsibility end of the spectrum (like the family issues) and for others I can see a greater possibility for systemic disadvantage (jobs, parts of the criminal justice system).

With counseling in general? Nothing. As a way of correcting what white Americans see as a problem with black Americans? It's more than a little patronizing.

Sure, I can see how it might come across that way, but I think counseling could be a more direct, effective way of tackling it. You can put people in a good financial situation but if they don't want it then it's still not going to happen. On the other hand, if you have the knowledge and will then you can make it through financial difficulty. And it wouldn't need to be targeted at just black people. I'm sure plenty of people could use more counseling before getting into marriage.

However, the template I had in mind was what housing agencies will do for first-time homebuyers. From the start it wasn't a perfect analogy and it gets even worse when you factor in relationships that never even get to marriage.