Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an American sociologist who served in the labor Department as Assistant Secretary under the President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson. As a Secretary he wrote his famous Moynihan Report in 1965. His work was concentrated on the deep descents of black poverty in America and derived the conclusion that the large number of families consisting of single mothers and child (children) would greatly impede progress of African Americans on their way toward political and economic equality. Moynihan stated that the incremental number of black single-mother families did not result from a lack of jobs that would be also an issue very soon because of the loss of jobs due to the industrial restructuring, but from the certain destructive deviations in the ghetto culture, which traces lead back to the times of slavery times and long discrimination period in the American South states familiar as Jim Crow period.
In the years that began with the school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), ended with the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it could be considered that the expectations of African Americans that they finally met the full recognition of their civil rights. Moynihan went further describing the black Americans’ expectations for not only equal rights but also for equal economic conditions. Unfortunately all their expectations remained unsatisfied supplementing additional problems as education, good jobs, equal payment, etc.
He rendered the situation to the structure of the Negro families that followed the structure of the Black society in America. His conclusions were followed with critics from all sides. The feminist movement accused him that he analyzed the problem from the male point of view followed by the leaders of the leaders of the movement for civil rights for the Black Americans blaming him of white patronizing and racism.
William Ryan, a psychologist, in his book blaming the Victim, edited in 1971, popularized the phrase “blame the victim” (Ryan, 1971) as a critique of the Moynihan report. He qualified it as an attempt to transfer the responsibility for poverty from the factors responsible for the existing social structure to the cultural and behavioral models of the poor.
In 2004, Bryce Christensen, a contributing editor for the online journal The Family in America wrote an article describing the current situation with the families in America asking if it is time again for ‘Moynihan report’. Along with the developing of the society, the American families are confronting new challenges that are typical for the society as a whole with some diversions responding to the separate race culture and ethnics.
References
Brown v. Board of education in Topeka, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), Web Retrieved March 2, 2016 from www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0347_0483_ZS.html
Christensen, B., Time for a new ‘Moynihan Report’? Confronting the National Family Crisis, The Family in America, (2004) The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, Vol. 18, No 10 Retrieved March 2, 2016 from www.profam.org/pub/fia/fia_1810.html
Ryan, W., Blaming the Victim, (1976) Vintage, ISBN 0-394-72226-4, Print
