The Devolution of Community — looking beyond the absence of fathers in black households
I originate from Barbados — a coral-formed island with crystal-clear, aquamarine waters and white, sandy beaches, at the centre of a custody battle between the gentle Caribbean Sea and the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean. It is truly a paradise, until you read the headlines of local newspapers: gangs, drugs, stabbing, shooting and killing. Even a tiny, idyllic island like Barbados is not exempt from gangs and violent crime, casting a shadow over a not-too-distant past of safely going to bed with doors unlocked and windows left open to allow the gentle tropical breeze to come and go as it pleased. One of my aunts always says “we were all poor together and it didn’t matter”. Barbados’ population is 95% black, mostly descended from slaves brought to the Caribbean from West Africa since the 1600s. Once African slavery was no longer seen as economically viable for Europe, such that moral arguments could have some prominence in public debate, the African slave trade ended between 1807 and 1834. This left a large population of people with a shared heritage, limited skills and resources to re-imagine nationhood, culture and community in a disproportionate hierarchy, still under the dominance of a small 5% population of whites who maintained custody of power, resources and wealth on the island for many years. Yet from this context there are many narratives of resilience, generosity and sharing that relate how blacks in Barbados lived and struggled together in open community, bringing about sustainable literacy, wealth and opportunity. This sense of open community and togetherness has since dissipated, replaced by walls, high palings (a property enclosing made of galvanised sheets), iron bars, isolation and fear.
I now live in the United Kingdom, where issues of gangs and violent crime are rising on a more macro scale. In a recent article, Dr. Tony Sewell addresses the rise in fatal knife crime among blacks in Britain (especially in London) to the absence of fathers in households. In his article he forms an alliance with a journalist called Rod Liddle (Sewell refers to him as “his mate”), who published an article titled “Half of black children do not live with their father. And we wonder why they’re dying”, suggesting this as the obvious cause for the spate of gang crime and violence concentrated in black communities. Liddle’s article was met with a backlash, labeling him as a racist and suggesting that his views were bigoted.
Rod Liddle was branded a ‘national disgrace’ when he wrote about how black boys are paying the price for growing up in households without their dads. But he’s right. The disproportionate number of black boys held in youth offending centres, which I visited during my time as a member of the youth justice board, shocked me. Many of those I encountered had been involved in knife crime. So what was going wrong? I did what many sociologists have failed to do: I asked them. These boys knew I wouldn’t stand for any spin about racism or the closure of the local youth club. Without such excuses, nearly all pointed to the absence of their fathers as a key problem in their lives. It was straightforward: for these boys, the restraints were off and they were simply left to fend for themselves. (Tony Sewell, “Rob Liddle is right about black boys and absent dads”, The Spectator Blog, January 2019.)
While I agree that the absence of fathers in homes brings various social and economic challenges for children, let’s be sensitive in the way we explore, present and handle this matter. I want to reflect grace and truth as opposed to blame and judgement. Like Liddle, we often treat statistical correlation in a manner that incites exclusion and reinforcement of negative stereotypes, replacing emotional understanding with disconnection, letting the ‘facts speak for themselves’. This leads to segregated ambivalence, affirming our attitudes of indifference toward absent black fathers and black homes without fathers, treating them as a mindless, irresponsible, ill-disciplined collective of benefits seekers, reproducing criminals and societal menaces. We stop seeing 14 year old black boys in hoodies as children and relate to them as gangsters, limiting their potential and expectation. We start to treat criminality and poverty as far removed issues from our proper circles, shrugging our shoulders with condescending laments— “and we wonder why they’re dying”.
British MP David Lammy referred to Rod Liddle’s entitlement to publish in a leading newspaper as a “national disgrace”, suggesting that his [Liddle’s] utterances are consistently devoid of substance, characterised by ad hominem attacks, racism and superiority. Ironically, Lammy made similar claims regarding the impact of fatherlessness in an article back in 2012, announcing his empathy for the London rioters:
Today, one in four children is brought up by a single parent, compared with one in 14 in 1972, the year I was born. Overwhelmingly, it is the father who is absent. Many single mothers do a heroic job looking after their families, as mine did with her five children growing up in the shadow of the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham; but as she found, it becomes twice as hard to set boundaries with half the number of parents. (David Lammy, “My fatherless childhood helps me to understand London’s rioters”, The Telegraph, August 2012.)
While I believe that children without a father present in their lives are disadvantaged for many socioeconomic reasons, including the lack of boundaries, finances and aspirations, there are several more cases where this social circumstance has not descended into desperation and criminality. Josh Levs writes about the myth of fatherlessness in his Huffington Post article “No, Most Black Kids are not Fatherless”, exploring the source of statistics that leads to a staggering “70% fatherless black kids” in the USA. He shows that these statistics are based on documents of marriage, divorce and different addresses, giving a misinformed picture about the relationship between fathers and their children.
Still the absence of a parent, mother or father, depending on the circumstance, inevitably leads to less boundaries, reassurance and financial resources, which may then nurture resentment in children toward the missing parent. Resentment fuels anger, less boundaries feeds indiscipline, a lack of reassurance can lead to feelings of inadequacy and deficient financial resources creates barriers to education, opportunity and socialising. Any of these factors could persuade brilliant minds to join gangs as an act of social compensation or rebellion. Criminal gangs often promise access to finances, status, merchandise and protection, or may threaten to harm individuals and their loved ones if they do not comply with the gang’s criminal pursuits. Some do not willingly join gangs but are in effect slaves to their environment. Caspar Walsh, a journalist and and founder of the charity Write to Freedom, talks about the lack of boundaries in his 2011 article:
Young people are looking for boundaries, and these are explored in gangs and in their social interactions with each other and people outside the gang circle. They will push the boundaries until they reach a wall they are either unable or unwilling to break down. This is an essential part of the process of growing up and becoming an active, law abiding member of society. The proliferation of violence in so many gangs in the UK is largely down to the absence of positive older role models holding the boundary line of acceptable behaviour. Without them, gang culture becomes toxic, loses its moral compass and often resorts to violence in dealing with power struggles and internal conflicts. (Caspar Walsh, “Gangs are good for society”, The Guardian, Nov 2011)
What better positive older role models could we have other than fathers? Given that the setting of a fatherless home does not match my upbringing and that of my children, it is easy to point a finger and turn away in righteous indignation. I’ve been challenged to look at this with a wider lens that allows authentic engagement in the dialogue without sitting on the edge of piety. I refer to this as the devolution of community, where we are all partisan and need to take some accountability. It is my opinion that the lack of strong, positive community values and the disempowering of community elders, parents, aunties, uncles and teachers to set and reinforce those values, are the reasons we see this rise of gangs and crime.
…the lack of strong, positive community values and the disempowering of community elders, parents, aunties, uncles and teachers to set and reinforce those values, are the reasons we see this rise of gangs and crime.
Elders of course includes black fathers but, as stated above, it is insufficient to limit our assessment and target our admonishment toward this group. With rising population densities and stretched resources (housing, play-parks, jobs, school, healthcare) comes the inevitable decisions: commune vs conflict, collaboration vs domination and selfishness vs sacrifice.
People on lower-incomes often live in places of above average population density, restricted personal space and more shared infrastructure, services and resources. A recent survey by Gov.uk shows that 35% of Black households had a weekly income of less than £400, the highest percentages out of all ethnic groups in this income group. We cannot overlook the visible links between lower income, gangs and violent crime. One could argue that household incomes are low because of absent fathers, but this again is a single viewpoint on a complex set of interrelated incidents and factors, which are hard to decipher and interrupt without community engagement. Gangs fill the cracks in ruptured community and occupy the open spaces. They start to dominate, fester and expand, ruling by fear and ruining families, neighbourhoods and futures. Susan Winkelman in her 1999 paper states:
Gangs therefore are everyone’s problem and unless something is done, they will continue to grow and infect every community across the country. The only way to control this spread and save the very places we reside is for all members of society to collaborate together and mobilize. In essence we need to gang up on gangs. (Susan Winkelman, “Ganging up on Gangs”, Stanford Journals on Poverty and Prejudice — Spring 1999)
Although Winkelman’s ideas are from 2 decades ago and in an American context, there is still evidence of relevance to our contemporary British context. We are bound by fear, correctness and apathy when it comes to dealing with problems on our doorsteps. I do not want to dismiss Tony Sewell’s professional insight regarding the absence of black fathers, as I do believe this promotes and challenges fathers to take responsibility. Moreover, I’d like to mention and celebrate a charity he leads called Generating Genius, which makes STEM (Science-Technology- Engineering-Mathematics) subjects accessible to underrepresented and lower-income communities. This has the potential to transform many lives and communities, creating opportunities that were otherwise inconceivable. This is not about creating surrogate fathers or father figures. It is about creating communal environments where youth talk about ideas, studies, careers and family, in ways that reinforce positive values and ignites brilliant minds — community experiences that are too often only accessible to higher income households.
Let us not to lose sight of a more inclusive problem at hand — the devolution of community, where we perceive community and community service as intangible, powerless and onerous. Community has become an initiative rather than an establishment. Community service is a penalty and alternative to prison, rather than a honour, pleasure and a pride. We are more at home in “virtual communities” formed online than the ones in which we physically dwell. But even the novelty of virtual communities is starting to devolve, as we are forced to include moderation and regulation to thwart online bullying, intimidation and indecency — the unfortunate, occasional outcomes when people with different values, beliefs, opinions, fears and prejudices share space.
Discoveries become novelties,
novelties become norms,
norms become standards
with rule-books and forms.
Standards become legal,
illegal becomes crime,
and that’s how nice things
devolve over time.
Community is one of those ‘nice things’ that has devolved with time. History shows progress and advancement through collaboration and commune, yet we resort to selfish endeavour and ambition. Sayings such as “no man is an island” and “it takes a village to raise a child” remind us not to refrain from joining forces and sharing resources, as the benefits have been proven over the generations. The Bible reiterates the importance of community, such as in Ecclesiastes 4:12 : “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him — a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Community was likely at some point in our history a “novelty” and seen as a “better approach” to isolation and the resolve that we are bound to be genetically selfish. Over time we have developed written and unwritten rules about being part of community, which tend to create exclusion zones for those who don’t abide by the rules, knowingly or unwittingly. It is time that we come back to the table and break bread together.
