5A
OPINIONS/ (S:(t calotte
Thursday January 29, 2004
Why good marriages really matter
William
Raspberry
President Bush^ proposal
to spend $1.5 billion for the
promotion of “healthy mar
riages” is, at one level, a mat
ter of babies and bath water.
There’s precious little the
government can do to
strengthen existing mar
riages or to encourage new
ones, as the president surely
knows. The only pragmatic
purpose I can see for his idea
is that it might please his
supporters on the religious
right — particularly if he
yields to their pressure to
define healthy marriages as
traditional marriages. No
gays or lesbians, thank you.
That is tired and tepid
political bath water, and, not
surprisingly, people who
fancy themselves more
socially aware than the pres
ident are demanding that it
be tossed out the door.
But wait: There’s a baby in
there that deserves more
attention than some of us
have been willing to pay.
The president’s proposal
may not be entirely serious,
but the state of marriage in
America is. And when mar
riage is in trouble, the soci
ety is in trouble.
Take, for instance, the sac
rifices that are necessary to
raise the kind of healthy,
happy and competent chil
dren we want. These sacri
fices are almost always
unequal between husband
and wife. They are tolerable
only if marriage is accepted
as a permanent arrange
ment.
Marriage has always been
a way of tying fathers to
their offspring. But we’ve
come to believe that this is
no longer necessary because
women (in economic terms,
at least) no longer require
the commitment of their
children’s fathers. When
dads become superfluous, it
becomes more difficult for
men and boys to see useful
social roles for themselves.
Too often, young men
become threats to the fami
lies and communities that
might once have considered
them assets.
This is particularly true in
America’s inner cities. The
decline in marriage may
have begun with the decline
in the number of eligible
(meaning employed) men.
But it accelerated when we
abandoned the notion of
“illegitimacy” and, in effect,
declared marriage irrelevant
to families.
If low-income women often
opt out of marrying the men
available to them (“I can do
bad by myself’), middle-
income women often opt out
for the opposite reason: I can
do just fine by myself Even
if there are children.
Some of the things lost
when marriage declines are
obvious. Others are more
subtle — for example, the
value to young couples of
having two sets of parents on
tap for emergency financial
help and two distinct groups
of people who can hear and
pass on information about
jobs or other opportunities.
Educators know that chil
dren from two-parent house
holds tend to perform better,
both because there are likely
to be more assets at home
and because there is less
stress on the parents.
And of course there is the
undeniable fact that the
absence of a second income
can move a family toward
poverty.
About 10 years ago, the
Annie E. Casey Foundation
reported a study that com
pared two groups of
Americans — those who grad
uated from high school,
reached age 20 and got mar
ried before having their first
child and those who didn’t.
Only 8 percent of the chil
dren of the first group were
hving in poverty a few years
later. For the children of
those in the second group,
the rate was nearly 10 times
as high: 79 percent.
Marriage does matter, and
I wish the president’s pro
posal didn’t treat it so cyni
cally.
But the rest of us had bet
ter get serious about doing
what we can to restore mar
riage: by celebration, by
exhortation, by making the
workplace more accommo
dating to marriage and by
creating the jobs that can
make marriage a realistic
option.
WILLIAM RASPBERRY is a
Washington Post columnist.
Corporations owe slave descendants a debt
By Richard Barber
SPECIAL TO THE POST
Testimony of Richard Barber,
president of US Reparations to
the Federal Reserve on the merg
er of FleetBoston and Charlotte-
based Bank of America on Jan.
J4:
Subsequent to the acquisi
tion of Summit Bank in New
Jersey by the FleetBoston
Financial Corporation, when
their financial health and
future independence was
being questioned by Wall
Street stock analysts, it
appeared that this merged
Fleet Bank simply could not
get its “economic traction”.
In short, it seemed that the
management and board of
directors had lost their way. I
recall that Michael Mayo, an
analyst at Prudential
Securities and a critic of
Fleet’s corporate gover
nance, said that, and I quote,
“if you had to pick a song to
go with Fleet, it would be
Bob Seger’s We felt the
lightning, and we waited on
the thunder.’” ‘We felt the
lightning, and we waited on
Barber
the thunder.”
In October 2000, I, along
with the president of the
New Jersey State NAACP,
met with Jack Collins, Vice
Chairman of Summit Bank
and tried to
convince him
that
FleetBoston
was not an
appropriate
suitor. We
correspond
ed directly
with
Terrence
Murray, Chairman & CEO
of FleetBoston, and Joseph
Semrod, CEO of Summit
Bank and conveyed that
same message. They collec
tively chose to look away and
passed on the other side of
the road.
I contend Madam Smith
and panel members, that
part of the reason that Fleet
Bank never seemed to get
productive “economic trac
tion”, may just be due to the
historical weight of slavery
and the baggage of slave
trade of its predecessor
financial institutions.
Maybe, just maybe, the pos
sible presence of ghosts in
their corporate headquarters
from the skeletal bones of
captured Africans who died
in the beUy of sla,ve ships in
the middle passage across
the Atlantic Ocean en rpute
to a horrible existence in
slavery in the . Americas.
Maybe those ghosts may
very well be froip the slave
ships financed by'Providence
Bank for John Brown, who
founded Brown University
with part of his slave trading
wealth. Maybe those ghosts
are trying, to convey a mes
sage to FleetBoston’s man
agement, directors and
investors to ‘pay up’ and set a
new example and moral
standard for the other
American and European cor
porations that benefited
from slave trading and the
institution of slavery.
My plea to you madam
chairperson, and members of
this panel, and to Kenneth
Lewis, the CEO of Bank of
America and his directors
and investors, is to reflect
long and seriously on Fleet
Bank’s history before you
transfer the “historical bag
gage of slavery and slave
trading” from Boston,
Massachusetts to Charlotte,
North Carolina, my native
state. For on my journey
from that tobacco farm near
Trenton, North Carolina to
Boston today, I enrolled in
North Carolina A&T, earned
a degree in physics and an
R.O.T.C. commission in the
U.S. Army. I participated in
the sit-in movement in the
sixties...
So madam chairperson,
and members of this panel, I
respectfully request that if
you must approve the Bank
of America and FleetBoston
merger, please do so on a
contingency basis; contin
gent on the successful reso
lution of the slave repara
tions complaints against
FleetBoston. Please don’t
give me a second reason to
go to Charlotte in
September. Fqr to do so, the
thunder of which Michael
Mayo spoke and was waiting
on, just may be the thunder
ous marching feet of commu
nity leaders and concerned
citizens across the Bank of
America Plaza in Charlotte.
I hope that as you reflect
on my journey over the last
50 years, you understand
that the real message that I
am conveying to you today, is
that a financially viable
merger of Bank of America ^
and FleetBoston, coupled
with a truly committed and
productive community part
nership, will enable future
travelers to live their lives
with greater economic stabil
ity and greater social well
being. We seek a partnership
so that investors from Wall
Street to the main streets of
urban, suburban and rural
communities will truly reap
tremendous economic bene
fits and an improved quality
of life.
North Carolina native
RICHARD BARBER is president
of VS Reparations.
Statistics on teen sexuality don’t tell the whole story
Donna
Ertit
Why is it that when good
news surfaces, bad news
often lurks close behind?
Why is it that what we
“know” — about people,
events, our own kids — is. so
often wrong?
Take the ever-unsettling
issue of teen sex. Tfeenagers
live in a world in which casu
al, unprotected, “what’s-love-
got-to-do-with-it?” sex is
omnipresent on TV and
radio, in movies and litera
ture. So teens are having
more high-risk sex than
ever, right?
In fact, teenagers in every
ethnic and economic group
are having less sex. And
they’re using more contra
ception.
So teen births are dropping
across the nation. The statis
tical drop is most pro
nounced among those at
highest risk: urban
teenagers who are poor and
African American.
Reading that felt good? Get
over it.
These recent findings by
the federal Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention provide a decep
tively reassuring backdrop
for the new report “This Is
My Reality - The Price of
Sex: An Inside Look at Black
Urban Youth Sexuality.”
Sponsored by Motivational
Educational Entertainment
Productions (MEE) of
Philadelphia, the report is
based on discussions in 40
focus groups in 10 cities in
which low-income black
youth shared their unvar
nished views about sex, rela
tionships, marriage, preg
nancy and parenthood.
Much that these young
people (ages 16 through 20)
said was sobering. Many see
sex as a transaction in which
trust is minimal or nonexis
tent. The skewed way in
which many, urban teens
view relationships con
tributes to their alarming
HIV rates (half of victims
ages 25 and younger are
black). Most said adults —
particularly parents — con
tribute to the problem of
early sex and pregnancy.
Sad stuff. But perhaps
you’re a semi-sheltered sub
urbanite. Maybe you’re a
parent who feels unaffected
by the sexual attitudes of
this isolated, little-heard-
from group of teens.
But in modem America,
where urban-based hip-hop
culture dominates music,
fashion, dance and, increas
ingly, movies and TV, these
kids are trendsetters. What
they feel, think and do could
soon play out in a middle
school — or a Pottery Bam-
decorated bedroom — near
you.
In 1995, MEE President
Ivan Juzang reported to the
federal government that
“marijuana was again
becoming a big phenome
non,” Juzang recalls. “And
everyone said, ‘No, drug use
is going down.’ They were
measuring [usage] in the
suburbs. ...Now there’s this
big, $2 biUion anti-drug cam
paign.”
In our spillover world,
“risky behaviors of city kids
often set the trend,” explains
Juzang. ‘Youll see the same
behaviors copied in the larg
er communities.”
Sarah Brown of the
District-based National
Campaign to Prevent Teen
Pregnancy says the “less sex,
more contraception” trend
results from increased
awareness of AIDS and
other sexually transmitted
diseases, programs that tar
get teen pregnancy and
increased attention to absti
nence as a preventive.
“There’s been a change in
the conversation,” Brown
says. Yet the dramatic drop
in teen births — the rate of
black teens ages 15 to 17
having babies decreased 50
percent in the past decade -
doesn’t change her most
lamentable statistic: “The
U.S. has the highest teen
pregnancy rate in the indus
trialized world. By far.”
DONNA BRITT is a
Washington Post columnist.
AIDS and
social
hypocrisy
By Bill Fletcher Jr..
SPECIAL TO THE POST
I have been wondering
why so many attempts to
stop the spread of HIV have
failed, including here in the
U.S.A. Clearly the insuffi
cient resources committed to
it are a large part of the
problem, but that is only one
part.
HIV/AIDS, specifically
because it is largely trans
mitted through sexual con
tact, raises a series of prob
lems that this society does
not wish to address. While
some forces on the political
Right, as well as many peo
ple of good intention, believe
that human beings can sim
ply turn off their sexual
impulses and “just say no”
indefinitely, such a course of
action bears no relationship
to reality.
Human beings have very
long lives, particularly when
compared with the humani
ty of just 200 years ago.
Human beings are marrying
much later than even 100
years ago. This situation is
presenting significant chal
lenges to anyone who wishes
to face the reality of the var
ious means and opportuni
ties for the transmission of
an illness through sexual
relations. What has also
changed is that the reality of
homosexuality is becoming
more openly acknowledged,
rather than being subject to
idiotic games of denial.
U.S. society, and probably
most others on this planet, is
not prepared for this situa
tion. As a result, people are
dying in numbers that' defy
our ability to mentally
absorb. Over the last year I
have had the interesting
opportunity to speak with
teen-agers and young adults
about many things, includ
ing HIV/AIDS.
What fascinates me is that
when we do speak about
HIV/AIDS, they are more
likely to engage if I am real
with them. In other words,
they are more likely to want
to exchange views and con
sider my point of view if I
speak with them about sex.
They are not interested in
being spoken down to. Nor
are they are interested in .
being hit over the head with
why premarital sex should
be a taboo. They have not the
least interest in listening to
a judgmental discourse.
They want to speak about
what is happening among
them and to them.
Yet, I notice that too many
older adults, and particular
ly those people that have
titles associated with their
names, don’t want to be real.
We would rather ignore the
open sexual hypocrisy of this
country where we know that
extra-marital affairs prolif
erate (and are often accept
ed); alternative life-styles
are very common; television
soap operas go beyond sug
gesting sexual situations;
and television commercials
openly appeal to lust.
When will we also awaken,
stop playing games, and face
the fact that simply because
we fail to discuss sex with
our children, does not mean
that they themselves will not
discuss sex, let alone partici
pate. If we are going to
address the HIV/AIDS pan
demic we have to change our
entire mindsets. Obviously
we must demand that the
Bush administration step
away from it’s grandiose, yet
hollow, rhetoric about
HIV/AIDS and instead com
mit the same level of
resources to fighting this cat
astrophe that it was pre
pared to commit to fighting a
war of aggression against
Iraq.
BILL FLETCHER Jr. is presi
dent of Tran.sAfrica Forum in
Washington, D.C.