If I hear one more person talking about Baltimore’s missing fathers, I am going to blow a GD gasket

[phantom power]

If I hear one more person talking about Baltimore’s missing fathers, I am going to blow a god damned gasket. They aren’t missing. We didn’t misplace them. They didn’t up and disappear or get zapped into the skies by aliens or fall down a well. My mustard is missing. Baltimore’s father’s aren’t missing, we know exactly where the fuck they are. They’re in jail or dead, victims of insane drug laws, institutional racism, lack of opportunity, and their own bad choices made substantially more enticing than they should be by the lousy options from which they had to choose.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/05/06/two-things-i-really-fucking-hate/

[malaise]

1. I also wonder why the RW morons don't mention Bushco's illegal invasion and

occupation of Iraq and the 4,000 plus dead military most of whom were men and fathers.
Who sent men to their graves in all these wars? Who demanded that they put country before their wives and children.

Discussions about absent fathers in 'war on drugs' communities are a joke.

[former9thward]

4. The Iraq war is the reason no fathers in Baltimore??

Wow. So 4000 dead over a 10 year period in a nation of 330 million is the reason no fathers in Baltimore. Love your math skills.

[malaise]

6. Where did I say that?

I made a general point about fathers being killed in wars - - a point that is never included in RW discussions about absent fathers

[former9thward]

15. The amount of fathers killed in wars

is mathematically insignificant when compared to the total number of fathers in the U.S.

[dembotoz]

10. his point has some validity since going to a volunteer army recruitment in the inner cities and very

rural areas has been proportionately higher than the burbs.

lack of options produces more foot soldiers.

therefore poor folks in a place like baltimore have a higher risk of death in iraq than those who attend ivy league schools--simple math

[former9thward]

14. There is no point.

And your math is terrible. The military only needs 2% of high school graduates to fulfill its quota. A tiny amount. Those "poor folks" in Baltimore are likely to be h.s. dropouts and thus ineligible for the military. The military rejects more people than they accept. You are living back in the 60s. This is not the Vietnam military.

[treestar]

16. Did you miss the word "also?"

Because those are additional missing fathers, caused by right wingers. Right wingers are the ones who drone on about fathers

[former9thward]

17. Baltimore has a population of 620,000.

That is 0.00186 of the U.S. population. There were 4491 Iraq war dead. So assuming an even distribution that means 8 Baltimore war dead. So I think that reason would be dead last by far of all the reasons for "missing fathers".

[PNW_Dem]

5. Don't forget the three trillion dollars

Remember when the Iraq was was supposed to pay for itself and last a month?

Three trillion dollars

[malaise]

8. Amazing how little discussion on these facts took place

on M$Greedia

[Crowman1979]

2. Missing fathers and police brutality have no correlation whatsoever.

That's like saying adult novelties cause men to have sex with Jellyfish.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. Yup.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/15/a-dead-broke-notdeadbeatabaltimorerethinkswelfarepolicy.html

Whereas state welfare policy wasn't fashioned to serve Charlotte and Darnell as a family, a nonprofit in West Baltimore, the Center for Urban Families (CFUF), treated them as one. In 2010, after years of struggling to maintain their marriage, they enrolled in the center's Couples Advancing Together (CAT) program.

In Baltimore, where fathers are already in short supply, in part due to high incarceration rates, CFUF seeks to help couples stay together or at least effectively raise their children together. The organization offers a mix of programs that focus on job training, relationship-skills building, parenting and financial counseling. The group also works with men who owe child support to craft with DHR a viable payment plan, including forgiving or alleviating arrears. Last year, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation to expand CAT’s program that, starting this month, could put the state at the forefront of potentially innovative policy.

"It holds tremendous promise," says Thomasina Hiers, deputy secretary of programs at the Maryland Department of Human Resources. "If it works, it will redefine policy."

Child support debt

In four Baltimore ZIP codes where CFUF works, parents owe a total of $111 million in child-support arrears. That's about a quarter of the city's total. In those ZIP codes, DHR jointly with CFUF identified 4,642 cases (9.4 percent of the total caseload for the city) in which individuals owe an average of about $130 per month. In 68 percent of those cases, DHR has never received a single payment.

But while the measures the state can take to recover that money are intended for deadbeat dads, men caught up in the system in inner-city Baltimore are often dead broke. DHR officials say those in arrears are mostly parents who would pay but cannot — the unemployed, underemployed and incarcerated — not those who can pay but won't.

[AuntPatsy]

7. They are attempting to see if they can get something to stick.....

[Omar4Dems]

9. Why is your mustard missing?

[Enthusiast]

11. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

It's just more biased media. They tailor every message. Tax payers pay for some shit kicker good ol' boys to decide which memes to push.

[lame54]

12. I didn't know General Discussion had a gasket

[heaven05]

13. +1000

for the most part, a national situation.... Until POC are accepted as 100% americans citizens, like the privileged of this country, this situation will remain, with all of the ramifications as stated in OP, as it has for150 years, the same.