Williams: Challenges for Black People-- Part II

The prospects for a better future are nearly hopeless for roughly 20 percent of black people — those who reside in big-city crime-infested and dysfunctional neighborhoods. There is virtually nothing that can be done about it without a major rebuilding of the black community from within.

Let's examine some of the aspects of the problem and the dismal prognosis, given the status quo.

The most important social unit is the family. Many talk about the "breakdown" in the black family when a far more accurate description is that the family doesn't form in the first place. About 73 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers. By the way, that percentage was 25 in 1963 and 11 in 1938. The absence of fathers is crucial. Even President Barack Obama recognized this when he said that "children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison."

Female-headed households are a devastating problem, but the solution lies almost exclusively within the black community. It's a massive job for black churches and social organizations. If there is a role for government to play, it's to stop subsidizing such behavior with handouts.

Education and skills acquisition are vital to upward mobility. But what goes on in many predominantly black schools is no less than a betrayal to those blacks and whites who sacrificed their blood, sweat and tears during the civil rights struggle of the 1940s, '50s and '60s in an effort to secure better educational opportunities. Nationally, an average of 1,175 teachers and staff were physically attacked EACH DAY of the 2011-12 school year. Most of this occurred at predominantly black schools.

In Baltimore, each school day in 2010, an average of four teachers and staff were assaulted.

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