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The Resilience of the Black Family

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By thogan8
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The Resilience of the “Black Family” Despite Societal Hardships
It is widely know that there has been a “breakdown” in the family structure of African Americans. Many news programs and books have been made about the low marriage rates in the African American community, and high rate of single-motherhood in the black community. Despite the depressing statistics African Americans have found a way to create extended family and fictive kin such that have allowed not only for a different family structure that the traditional family structure that is commonplace in the dominate ethnic group in the U.S. So, despite the insidious effects of slavery and Jim Crow, black families have survived, albeit in a more non-traditional form
Prior to the transatlantic slave trade, African families were strong, and thriving. When men and women reached a certain age they were expected to marry, and bare children (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). The family was (and still is) the cornerstone of the community, and extended family was considered very important in child rearing. There is an old African proverb that says “it takes a village to raise a child. So, even during slavery, when parents and children were separated, other adults on the plantation would help to rear children of single mothers or children whose parents had been sold off (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). So, the belief in communal responsibility to the family survived the “middle passage.” Moreover even amongst scholars of “black psychology” the definition of “black family acknowledges the fact that most “black families to not fit the norm of the tradition, American family with a mother, father, and biological children (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). Oftentimes because of a lack of father’s in the home (which would require the mother to be the sole-breadwinner) grandparents have to step in and help raise the

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