The government did not set out to destroy the Black family. That is probably true.

But the effect is the same whether the intent was there or not.

For decades welfare policy in this country carried a quiet condition. If a man was present in the home the benefits decreased or disappeared entirely. The math was simple and brutal. His absence was worth more to the household financially than his presence.

So men left. Some were pushed. Some walked willingly. But the policy created an incentive structure that made fatherhood economically inconvenient and dependency economically logical.

The results are sitting in prison cells, dropout statistics, gang recruitment numbers, and fatherless homes that produce the next generation of the same. Not because Black men are uniquely broken. Because any community where the government pays women to be single and penalizes families for being intact will produce these outcomes. Race is incidental. The policy is the variable.

Government was never designed to be a father. It does not know your son’s name. It does not stay up at night worrying about who he is becoming. It does not correct, affirm, challenge, or love. It deposits a check and walks away.

A check cannot raise a son. A policy cannot build a man.

God designed the father for that. And until the father is back in the home – not replaced, not outsourced, not made economically irrelevant – the cycle does not break.

The check kept families fed and hungry at the same time. Hungry for the one thing it could never provide.

Stephon Rudd

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