Devastation of the family was one of the most damning aspects of slavery. In separating brother and sister, mother and child, the slave trade was able to prosper and continue as men and women toiled with no hope of belonging with their kin and therefore being owned by their master. The constant pain of the slave was not having “relations.”  This broken human link weakened the resolve of the individual to fight for freedom giving greater power to the masters to control their slaves’ lives. The master of the house was the patriarch in an isolated and cruel world that bemoaned freedom to black people and offered only the most limited notions of humanity.

The Master of the House of late is our US government. It is difficult to deny the role government has played in breaking down the family ideal, particularly in the black community. The advent of welfare programs, public housing, public assistance programs, has landed the black community in peril.   As the government set out to replace fathers in the homes with welfare checks and food stamps, out of wedlock birth in the US has gone from 5% in 1960 to a whopping 38.5% as of 2005.  For the black community, the statistics are worse -- up 70% percent today .

Every recent legislative arrow is aimed at the core of the family: same sex marriage legislation, publicly funded abortion, health care reform, even climate change is all about having Americans identify with a communal and global family rather than their God given one.  Public schools are being used lately as a soapbox for the President’s agenda. Climate change, as a religion, pulls every person toward a communal family working as one, not working for their actual family. Health care reform requires every person to submit to our governmental father’s system of care where all Americans are the responsibility of their state father … not, their real father.

But the government is a lazy parent. Government as master cares little that the Stevens come from a long line of good swimmers, or that the Andersons all have the ability to think swiftly on their feet making them great doctors and keen negotiators. Government as parent doesn’t care for the soul of its children. Submission and homogenous dependency is the government’s goal.

Who we are, and grow to be, is firmly rooted in our family. Family was historically the bearer of identity and the passing of heritage. Last name first on applications.

Without the structure of the family America will fall. The government will have our people believe that those 70% of black children born out of wedlock are safe as long as there are enough food stamps, public schools, and universal health care to go around -- that the million black men in jail would be free if not for the systemic racism that failed them. Or, that a flat or rising economy, greedy capitalists, and stimulus packages dictate our future.  Yet, blood is indeed thicker than water and without returning to family as our core American value, we can be sure that the poor will definitely get poorer and so it will seem that the richer gets richer. For our poverty is spiritual, not financial.

Master is hard at work. Our government master knows that without family, the motivation for individual purpose and authority are weakened. “In this sense, government power is inherently limited by the role of other social institutions, such as families, religious congregations, schools, and businesses.”   The God-given father then is a protection against falling prey to the master. In our God given father rests one’s dignity, tradition of heritage, and the glorification of our heavenly one. The government as master has neither the desire, nor, capacity to support this. In fact, it is master’s best interest to abate these traditions of generational influence on the individual self. And, with this, we see a version of history repeating.