During the Father’s Day weekend, CNN tried to float an article that made the absurd claim that black men are better fathers. But even Twitter’s community notes couldn’t sit by and let that balderdash stand unaddressed.
On Sunday, CNN posted a story entitled, “Black dads are more likely to play, dress and share a meal with their child, data shows.”
“Black fathers are often portrayed as absent or distant, but that isn’t what most people experience, according to both data and Black dads themselves. Such biased portrayals are often based on who is telling the story,” the CNN story says.
It went on, saying:
Seventy percent of Black fathers who live with their children were most likely to have bathed, dressed, changed or helped their child with the toilet every day, compared with their White (60%) or Hispanic (45%) counterparts, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2013 National Health Statistics Report.
Those Black fathers were also most likely to have eaten a meal with their children, the data showed.
If data shows that Black fathers are often involved in the daily care of their children, why is that story not being told?
Given the history of racism in the United States, some Black fathers may face disproportionate incarceration rates or have difficulty in obtaining jobs to provide for their families, Noble added. But such hardships are only part of the story of Black fatherhood.
For a narrative that better represents Black fathers, we need to emphasize who is telling the story, Givens said.
Wow, that would be something, if true.
There is one little problem. It lacks full context.
But Twitter’s “community notes” wasn’t fooled.
Twitter users pointed out statistics from the Data Center on the percentage of children living without their biological fathers which counter CNN’s narrative.
Here is what they found:
- Black children: 64%
- Hispanic children: 42%
- White children: 24%
- Asian children: 16%
That is massive. Fully 64 percent of black children do NOT have their father in their lives. This hardly makes blacks “better fathers” than any other race.
The chart showed that as of 2021, 64 percent of “black or African American” kids lived in single-parent families. The data were based on the “Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, 2001 Supplementary Survey, 2002 through 2019, [and] 2021 American Community Survey,” according to the Foundation’s website.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
