Recently, Bill O'Reilly hosted the NAACP's Hilary Shelton to ostensibly engage in a conversation on race. What transpired, instead, was an attempted lecture by O'Reilly and an utter dismissal of Shelton's authority to speak as a black leader. It is emblematic of a strain of conservative white reaction to any attempt to discuss race and inequality in the United States. It blackwashes society's ills by attempting to isolate problems as uniquely black and frame solutions as burdens the African American community must bear on its own. It rejects context and whitewashes history by marking Brown v The Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act as the end of racism, absolving from sin future generations of whites.
It is rather stunning how quickly O'Reilly went from praising Shelton as someone concerned with the plight of all people to lumping him in with the "race hustlers". O'Reilly initially said of Shelton, "You're a gentleman, and you are someone who I believe sincerely wants to help poor people, not just poor black people, but more people in general. And I respect that. You're not hating." But whenever Shelton brought up history or context, O'Reilly interrupted by saying, "You're wrong!" and arrogantly insisting that Shelton agree with him. Shelton had the temerity to disagree with O'Reilly's view of "What's Wrong With Black People"™. And because Shelton disagreed and tried to address problems bigger than the African American community, O'Reilly no longer saw a gentleman, but just another race hustler.
I have studied this issue for thirty years, and my sincere belief is that the African American community it is being devastated by the collapse of the family. That's your root, that’s your core. That drives poverty. It drives violence. It drives resentment. It drives everything. And you guys are just not acknowledging it.
It's not quite a "you people" moment, but the blackwash drips from O'Reilly's broad brush.
It's also plainly obvious that O'Reilly doesn't see white society's role in creating, perpetuating, or solving these issues he's spent so long studying. While Shelton uses the inclusive pronoun "we" 12 times in the interview, O'Reilly utters it once (and only as signifying appreciation for Shelton appearing on the show). O'Reilly concludes the interview by dumping everything in Shelton's lap.
[Y]ou’re never going to improve the situation until you acknowledge that... the out of wedlock birth rate... is a catastrophe. And income inequality, violence, it all stems from that. And you've got to start there.
O'Reilly seems to say, Hey, look, white America didn't make this mess, so black America needs to clean it up.
So let's look at the data.
Between 1970 and 2010, births by unmarried black women as a proportion of total births by black women nearly doubled. Contrary to O’Reilly’s theory, however, the gap in median income between black and white families shrank. In 1970, the median income for black families was just 50% of the median income for white families according to US Census data. By 2011, the median income for black families rose to 63% of that for white families. It isn't parity, it isn't where it should be, but it is progress and it clearly contradicts O’Reilly’s narrative.
High school dropout data doesn't support O'Reilly's claim either. According to the US Department of Education, 72% of African Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 had their high school credentials in 1972. By 2009, that number jumped to 87%, representing an increase of 21%.
Not surprisingly, violent crime statistics do not support O’Reilly’s theory either. After homicide rates for men (both black and white) reached a peak in 1993, they’ve steadily declined since then. According to FBI statistics, homicide offending rates for black men ages 18 to 24 are down 52% since 1993. They are down 38% for white men ages 18 to 24 during the same time period.
In the United States, neighborhood rates of single parent households are correlated with lower education attainment, lower income, and higher crime. But correlation isn't necessarily causation. While this relationship holds for distinct snapshot at different points in time, adding a continuous time element confounds the relationship.
O'Reilly gets it wrong because he has a prejudicial view of society. While it is true that the proportion of births by unmarried black women nearly doubled between 1970 and 2010, there is a large chunk of context missing from his narrative. By framing out of wedlock births as a particularly vexing problem for the African American community, O'Reilly missed that the proportion of births by unmarried white women rose 414% during this same period! If O'Reilly spent those past 30 years studying more carefully, he would've found that the increase in births by unmarried women isn't just a black issue. It's not even a uniquely American issue. A 2009 CDC report on nonmarital childbearing noted, "The United States is not unique, nor does it outpace other countries, in nonmarital childbearing... The upward trend in nonmarital childbearing seen in the United States is matched in most developed countries, with levels at least doubling or tripling and in some cases increasing many multiples between 1980 and the mid-2000s." The following chart from the CDC report illustrates this quite well.
Whatever effects - good or bad - nonmarital childbearing may have on society, the impacts will be global in scope and will neither begin nor end with the African American community. Without context, O'Reilly mistakes correlation as causation. But a larger view of the data suggests this change isn't distinct or unique for African American communities.
Rather than viewing the rise in out of wedlock births as simply the cause of other problems, O'Reilly should try to understand how this rise is symptomatic of other, larger structures of society. Society is complex, so looking at single variables seldom paints an accurate or complete picture. Context matters. This is what Shelton was trying to tell O’Reilly. This is what O’Reilly refuses to hear. Until O'Reilly acknowledges this, the situation will never improve.