Chapter 4 Part 3

Therefore, God can and does use anyone to prosper His people and to continue His divine plan. However, in order for that to happen, we must submit to His will and not ours. We must follow His perfect plan and not our imperfect ones. We must cooperate with the Hole Spirit. God will never impose His will in our lives. I have often said, "God loves me so much, He will allow me to kill myself." God has given us His “plan A”, but for some reason we must use our inferior “plan B”. This one requires God to initial here, here, and sign at the bottom. This is the plan we came up with while waiting on God’s perfect “plan A”. This is the plan that we devised when God seemed too busy or when we did not want to turn some area of our lives over to Him. God made us sexual beings and God wants us to enjoy it, but like everything else in His creation within the boundaries of His perfect love and will for us.

For those of us who have been married, marriage is a difficult proposition. It has it‘s moments of pure bliss, mixed with moments of what seems like pure hell. Into this mix, we incorporate habits of the male role model being around the house infrequently and under dubious conditions. The man, the supposed head of the household according to God’s hierarchy could not even be in the house. We wonder why our men do not know how to be husbands and fathers. How can we?

In this already explosive atmosphere, we add the blossoming women’s liberation movement with its calls for freedom for women. At this time, I want to acknowledge that for the first 200 years of our country’s history the white male has had a monopoly on opportunity. Anyone who was not white and male was excluded from any and all opportunities. Saying all this, the women’s liberation movement had some appeal with its cries of freedom. The problem occurred when they began to tell women that they did not need a man. I am all for equal pay for equal work for everyone, but it goes against God’s Word to proclaim that we do not need each other. The women’s movement even went so far as to compare their struggle with the plight of the black people. This only gave it more creditability in the eyes of some. I wonder though how can the mistress of the house compare her position with the slave? No matter how difficult their situation may have been I have not heard of many stories where the mistress of the house made a decision to exchange places with the slaves. One writer explains in the following way:

“Part of the overwhelming frustration black women felt within the Women's Movement was at white feminists' unwillingness to admit to their racism. This unwillingness comes from the sentiment that those who are oppressed can not oppress others. White women, who were (and still are) without question sexually oppressed by white men, believed that because of this oppression they were unable to assume the dominant role in the perpetuation of white racism; however, they have absorbed, supported and advocated racist ideology and have acted individually as racist oppressors. Traditionally, women's sphere of influence has extended over the home, and it is no coincidence that in 1963, seven times as many women of color (of whom 90 percent were black) as white women were employed as private household workers. It has been the tendency of white feminists to see men as the "enemy," rather than themselves, as part of the patriarchal, racist, and classist society in which we all live.

Not only did some white feminists refuse to acknowledge their ability to oppress women of color, some claimed that white women had always been anti-racist. Adrienne Rich claims, "our white foresisters have ... often [defied] patriarchy ... not on their own behalf but for the sake of black men, women, and children. We have a strong anti-racist female tradition;" however, as Bell-Hooks points out "[t]here is little historical evidence to document Rich's assertion that white women as a collective group or white women's rights advocates are part of an anti-racist tradition." Every women's movement in the United States has been built on a racist foundation: women's suffrage for white women, the abolition of slavery for the fortification of white society, the temperance movement for the moral uplifting of white society. None of these movements was for black liberation or racial equality; rather, they sprang from a desire to strengthen white society's morals or to uplift the place of white women in that society.”

“It is not good for the man to be alone. I
will make a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:18 NIV

Therefore, it was always God’s plan for men to need women and women to need men. We were placed here to be helpers for each other, not hindrances. So here, we have the intentional emasculation of the black man through racism mingled with the call of the women’s liberation movement, “What can a man do for me?” The women’s movement saw the man as the enemy through sexual discrimination, yet overlooked the inherent racial discrimination of the participants. That through the policies many supported to overcome poverty they were actually destroying the black family unit. This left the black man with few if any options.

“Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
Genesis 3:16

It is only by the grace of God that we have been given this desire for one another. I would not for a moment overlook the pleasures and the joy that God has given us in a healthy sexual relationship between married couples. We have perverted this relationship by making sex and our own selfish pleasures our God. We should ask ourselves what is our desire when we participate in fornication. Is it a desire to please God or to please man? God has created a hierarchy for His understanding not mine. When I surrender to God, I lose my justification for asking why. Why is this happening to me Lord or why is the world setup in this way? It is not for me to question, it is only for me to do. Many times some modern Christians believe that God needs their belief and understanding to do His will. God does not require my belief! It does not matter whether I believe in God because God believes in me. We should always remember that we were created for God. God was not created for us.

“For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?”
Romans 11:34

Chapter 4 Part 1 Government Policies, Institutional Racism, and Societal Values

Government Policies, Institutional Racism, and Societal Values

Now we begin the controversy. Unlike the majority of peoples that arrived in this country, the black man’s plight was different; we were brought over in chains. We did not have control of our bodies or our lives. We were at the mercy of others. All of our institutions and customs were replaced with the customs and institutions of slavery. It was under this system that the practice of marriage and the black family structure were perverted for us as a people. The practice of not allowing slaves to marry as well as the practice of breeding people as with livestock were common during this period. No one can measure the devastating effect of this on the psyche of a people. There have been many books by both blacks and whites debating the effect this has had on us as a people, as well as a number of psychological and sociological studies. To be sure, this was a major issue and despite the obstacles, a surprising number of blacks did marry in secret ceremonies during this dark period in our history. I think the more devastating policy against the black family was the later government services policies of the times, policies that prevented the male from living in a house that was receiving government payments.

These were the policies that rewarded women for having children out of wedlock and drove the black man from the family structure. The more children a woman had the more money in aid she received. This intentional racist policy elevated the black woman over the black man economically and further emasculated him. The man could not obtain employment to care for his family due to racist hiring policies, but the woman was able to obtain financial assistance without the necessity for a male presence. Institutionalizing the enmity, that God had already placed between man and woman at the fall of Adam. So not only could he not get a decent job due to racist policies and prejudice, he could not be present publicly in the household. The black man had to sneak in and out of his own home like a thief in the night. The psychological effect of this phenomenon has I think never adequately been measured or researched. For more information on this topic, I would recommend the report of former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. This report was written while he was Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Johnson Administration. The name of the report was “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”, it discussed the connection between the loss of the family nucleus in the black community and poverty.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of marriage to families and society, the sad fact is that, for more than four decades, the welfare system has penalized and discouraged marriage. The U.S. welfare system is currently composed of more than 70 means-tested aid programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to low-income persons. Each year, over $200 billion flows through this system to families with children. While it is widely accepted that the welfare system is biased against marriage, relatively few understand how this bias operates. Many erroneously believe that welfare programs have eligibility criteria that directly exclude married couples. This is not true.

Nevertheless, welfare programs do penalize marriage and reward single parenthood because of the inherent design of all means-tested programs. In a means-tested program, benefits are reduced as non-welfare income rises. Thus, under any means-tested system, a mother will receive greater benefits if she remains single than she would if she were married to a working husband. Welfare not only serves as a substitute for a husband, but it actually penalizes marriage because a low-income couple will experience a significant drop in combined income if they marry.

For example: A typical single mother on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families receives a combined welfare package of various means-tested aid benefits worth about $14,000 per year. Suppose the father of her children has a low-wage job paying $16,000 per year. If the mother and father remain unmarried, they will have a combined income of $30,000 ($14,000 from welfare and $16,000 from earnings). However, if the couple marries, the father's earnings will be counted against the mother's welfare eligibility. Welfare benefits will be eliminated (or cut dramatically), and the couple's combined income will fall substantially. Thus, means-tested welfare programs do not penalize marriage per se but, instead, implicitly penalize marriage to an employed man with earnings. The practical effect is to significantly discourage marriage among low-income couples.

This anti-marriage discrimination is inherent in all means-tested aid programs, including TANF, food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food program. The only way to eliminate the anti-marriage bias from welfare entirely would be to make all mothers eligible for these programs regardless of whether they are married and regardless of their husbands' earnings. Structured in this way, the welfare system would be marriage-neutral: It would neither reward nor penalize marriage.”