Talk:African-American family structure

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Feedback
I like how this article focuses on issues such as educational performance that are often involved with African American families, but I think the title of the article is too vague for the contents of the article. From looking at the title, I expected to read about culture, demographics (as in the number of children, where African American families generally live, etc.), economy (the wage of African American families, jobs, etc.), and just more general information on the general aspects of a family. But since these topics are not the main concerns of this article, I think that changing the title to be more specific on the issues that you wrote about will be beneficial in emphasizing the uniqueness of this article.

Next, I suggest editing the very first sentence of the article, “The African American family structure has been of great debate…” to avoid the tone of an essay. It may be difficult to put in exact words of defining the African American family structure, but I think deleting the first sentence and expanding the second sentence could be better.

Would it be possible to add more information on the history and/or the causes section? I wish I could learn more about how the structure of African American families goes back to the slaves. It seems that some of the information in the causes section and the implications section overlap especially with information on poverty, young mothers, and single parent homes. I also think it’s a bit blurry on the distinction between the causes and the implications. Maybe combining the two sections under a different title could help clear the issues. Also, I think there are more issues such as housing discrimination (such as red lining) and more specific aspects of poverty such as homelessness and unemployment that could add much more to the article.

Overall, the article takes a unique stance on African-American family structure, and it has great potential to be a more interesting, informative article. MinjKim (talk) 12:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback. I agree that the topic is truly one that is broad and while I did not think I would be able to cover every aspect of under the African American Family Structure umbrella equally in-depth, I hoped to be able to discuss the main points that come up in literature and to provide the reader with an overview of the topic. To make sure I do this, I will expand on the article in some of the ways that you have suggested and then make sure to link to other Wiki articles that currently expand on topics I will not be going in extreme depth about. B.chachere (talk) 16:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Additional Review
I agree with Min Ji that the title of the page could be more specific to address more of what you actually wrote in the article. You could even tailor the contents of your article to better fit one specific topic (such as education within African-American families) so that you are not trying to address such a large, broad topic. In fact, I would suggest that to make your work easier and to make the page as a whole more cohesive. I think the history section can use more information and could be broken down by time periods. Also, more information would be good in explaining extended families and what that means. More explanation for a lot of the historical claims would be really interesting to readers. Additionally, there is some overlap between "history" and "causes" so look at that and see how you can break them up more evenly. I like the parts that compare African American families to other kinds of American families because it helps show how the structure is unique. This is also a good opportunity to show comparisons through a chart, maybe. Another round of proofreading would be great! There are some sentences that could be rewritten to be a little clearer and typos here and there. Example: "99 black males for every 100 males" in Black Male Incarceration. There are a lot of stats in there so I bet you could find some graphs or charts to make your page a little more exciting looking. Mariapickett (talk) 20:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback! I will definitely consider your all of your suggestions and do my best to improve the article so that it is both cohesive and covers the topic adequately. I will also go back and do some reorganization and proof-reading to ensure that the quality of the article is as great as it can be! B.chachere (talk) 16:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I don't think there should not be a separate article for research from this article.Leutha (talk) 20:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Merger Proposal Response
Hi! Thank you for your feedback! The Research on the African American Family article cites information about a book written in response to criticism about the Moynihan report. It is not necessarily "research from this article" if you mean research regarding the African American family structure. This article also does not cite any sources. While I will add in relevant information for this topic, I think the entire Research on the African American Family article should be deleted or legitimized with sources.B.chachere (talk) 18:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Adding a stub
Hi! My name is Michael Sam Jr, a PJHC minor at Rice University. I am currently researching the male/father role in the African-American family structure. My goal is to add a stub relative to this role in the African-American family structure. MichaelSamJr (talk) 13:41, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Editing entire article structure
Wikipedia currently contains an article named African-American family structure. This article focuses on the typical infrastructure of an African American family and theories that support Black matriarchy. Unfortunately, these articles and the rest of Wikipedia lack entries that represent the male and/or father figure in the African American community outside the context of incarceration rates. In the Wikipedia article, African-American family structure, I will add material that speaks to the African-American male/father figure in the overall African-American family structure, the different types of family structures amongst African American families, and the roles within the African American family structure.

These additions are necessary for this article since its current state only describes the viewpoint of a single mother hosehold. The Wikipedia entry, African-American family structure, describes a women social authority over a “typical” African American family, while neglecting the responsibility the father or male figure has within the family structure. By adding to this article, I will contribute to the Wikipedia community in making an article only holding one point of view, show all the viewpoints associated with this article.

Supporting the research previously done by Wikipedia contributors, I plan to add scholarly graphs that endorse their facts. This will add more credibility to their sources and improve white space to the page, instead of having all words. The additions of graphs and possibly pictures will differentiate the African-American family structure entry from its parent entry, Family structure in the United States.

In moving forward I think one of the most important things to do is edit the African-American family structure section located in the Family structures in the United States article, an entry that receives many viewers. The current section on the African American family structure is written with a negative viewpoint. Rewording this section so it does not come off not as negative will describe the difference in the African American family structure from the general family structure found in America.

I request the Wikipedia community to continue to watch over this article as I start editing it and advise me on any and all areas in this article that you feel may need more attention. Thank you!MichaelSamJr (talk) 16:48, 07 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review
My major concern is neutrality. The article makes a number of bold statements without qualifying who made these statements with in-text citations. The article on the whole takes a negative view of the topic. If there are more reputable opinions that go in the opposite direction, then they should be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brodgers15 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Reply to Peer Review User:Brodgers15
Hello Ms. Rodgers! Thank you for taking the time to read over my article. I appreciate your critics and am taking all into consideration as I work to make the article as great as it can be with the limited research available. To aid with neutrality, I will qualify my statements with the scholar who has done the research. In response to your observation of the article taking a negative view, I want to inform you that the majority of the research on the topic is slighted strongly towards matriarchy. Since there are not many opinions that go against this direction I will do my best to not include words that elude to my opinion about the topic. --MichaelSamJr (talk) 01:08, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * You know exactly what you're doing 2600:8807:4058:DA00:1505:63E5:A18F:B84F (talk) 09:35, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I am coming in here on 3/17/2022, I just wanted to tell you that I also agree. This whole article is anti-black AF. I was pointed to it by some dude on twitter making racist innuendos about black folks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.126.131.191 (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Inline citations and Neutrality
While I think your article provided very comprehensive information explaining the African-American family structure, the implications due to a missing father figure, and the effects this may have on his children, I think that you can make this article even better by going back through and properly giving titles to the people that you quote throughout the article. This will make the quotes that you cite more credible and seem more relevant to the reader. Additionally, if you go back through, read, and makes changes to a few of the words that give negative connotations (such as the word "plague" under the "Implications" section), then you could enhance the neutrality of tone required by Wikipedia.

Dmillar23 (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Reply to Peer Review User:Dmillar23
Thank you Dmillar23 for you thoughts on my article. The implications are what is shown through all research, but by qualifying these implications by prefacing statements with Author I think I will be able to address this issue that you have stated. In response to my negative word usage, I am working to go back through the article to take negative works like "plague" out of this article. If you see anything like this before 12/3 please let me know. Thank you --MichaelSamJr (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:African-American gospel which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:20, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Section proposed for deletion: Absent Black Fathers and their Effect on Black Men
I propose to remove the entire section African-American_family_structure, as it consists of banal, vague, and speculative statements with no references to sources. The quality of the text is comparable to a secondary school pupil's essay. Here is a quote for illustration. "In many instances, a child benefits more when they have access to both parents. In the absence of one partner, it jeopardizes the development of several things in the life of a child." No clarification is given for the number and character of "many instance". "It jeopardizes" - what is "it"? The access to both parents in the preceding sentence, or the "The involvement of fathers" in the sentence before? "Several things in the life" also come without any specifics or examples whatsoever. 99.255.229.66 (talk) 16:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Regarding my recent edit.
The statement had multiple issues.

Issue one, it cited the Washington Examiner, which is an acceptable source, but the Washington Examiner cited the Center for Immigration Studies, which is explicitly not a trustworthy or verifiable source. Quoting wikipedia on the source in question:

"The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham and eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton. The organization was founded in 1985 as a spin-off from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA."

"Reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, Snopes, media outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN and NBC News, and immigration-research organizations."

An organization created by a white nationalist which has been widely accused by trusted and verified sources of fabricating data cannot be considered a verifiable source.

Second, the statement the article supported itself was supported by neither the washington examiner article, nor the CIS report. It said that a percentage of children were born to "absent fathers." This was explicitly not studied by the report. It was about whether the parents were married, rather than whether the father was present. No data was collected on what role the father played, and there are a number of families whether they were never married or divorced where separated parents care for children. So the "absent fathers" line is explicitly not supported by the data in question.

This article needs significant work. Ollie Garkey (talk) 15:54, 31 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, "Absent fathers" does not necessarily mean the father was not present and should have said born to unmarried mothers.  PolitiFact, based upon 2012 federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2010, did confirm  the statement  that "more than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock"    while  the 2018 National Vital Statistics Report provides a figure of 69.4 percent for this condition (an improvement, thank God). I added the latter stat to the intro. &#32; Grace and peace thru the Lord Jesus (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

This shit racist AF
I have no comments or suggestions other than that. These are the types of articles that I wish white folks would not be able to edit or comment on. This whole article reads something out of stormfront and based principally on a report that's over 50 years old.

Requested move 19 September 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 02:10, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

African-American family structure → African-American family – Family structure doesn't even haven article, and it is an academic jargon that often means just "Family". Let's simplify the name of this article. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC) — Relisting.   &ddagger; Night Watch &omega;     (talk)   16:11, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose. Family structure may not be an article, but Family structure in the United States is, and similar titles are redirects to sections of culture pages for other countries. Family structure is IMO pretty clearly different from family (the former referring to how families are structured, who is typically included in one, and the latter referring to a much broader concept). Bayonet-lightbulb (talk) 13:54, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Bayonet-lightbulb. Also, the term "family structure" is in the title of many of the cited sources, so it's clearly a relevant term of art. Colin M (talk) 16:29, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Weird framing of the topic and citing white supremacist "studies"?
I see the earlier update where the user recognized that CIS was not a reliable source, but it's still cited. This whole article reads like it was written by a fucking racist third grader? This might be the worst Wikipedia article I've ever read. 2600:8807:4058:DA00:1505:63E5:A18F:B84F (talk) 09:23, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

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Out of date
This article cites statistics that are now out of date. The non-marital birth rate, for example, has fallen to 69%. This OOW births is presented as a perpetually rising trend, which isn't accurate. There are other issues with old studies, but that number is the low hanging fruit. 23.243.2.213 (talk) 15:37, 30 January 2024 (UTC)