The black family, source of so many Austin problems

More here on Austin issues, from Austin Talks:

African Americans make up a disproportionate percentage of the U.S. prison population, black students drop out of school at alarming rates and are increasingly victims and perpetrators of violence, causing many of us to wonder why.

One reason could be the dissolution of the African-American family.

A good, clear, healthy treatment of the matter. For instance,

I’ve seen even further dissolution as my grandparents pass on. The role of the African-American family is shifting from a joint family base to a more nuclear based unit where individual families essentially are fending for themselves without much network to fall back on.

Not that the writer prescribes this or that. Rather, she talks about the problem, which is step one, of course. And she is writing for Austin Talks, a project of journalism students at Columbia College Chicago.

(I taught there some years…