Cover Story Written by Tia McGill, MPH; and DeWayne Rogers
Cover images by DeWayne Rogers
Cover models: Christopher and Tricia Watkins
Seventy-two percent.
It’s a number that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around because it just seemed so improbable. That number — 72 percent — is the percentage of black children in the United States who are born to unwed mothers. Now that number may not set off any triggers, or cause any five-alarm fires in your mind, but it certainly does for me. Especially when comparing it to the seemingly low numbers of white Americans brought into the world under similar circumstances. (That number stands at 24 percent, according to the 2012 U.S. Census.)
So why are the numbers so high? Why is the percentage of black babies born to unwed mothers so disproportionate in comparison to other cultures? That was the question that we set out to answer, so we enlisted a behavioral science expert, Tia McGill, MPH, for a bit of open dialogue to discuss this disturbing trend. Below is an excerpt from our conversation:
