As a Cuban American, I will never understand what it's like to grow up black in the U.S.  As the son of a very responsible father, and the dad of 3 wonderful sons, I do understand the importance of a father in young man's life.
 
With all due respect to the "race hustlers", the "grievance crowd" and the black left still living in the 1950s, Ferguson is not about race, racism, or terrible white people.
 
Ferguson is really about something awful happening in black America, something that no politician peddling "hope and change" can fix.
 
Linda Chavez quotes Jason Riley's new book and some statistics that the left can no longer "race card" away:

In 2012, blacks made up 38.5 percent of all persons arrested for violent crimes and 51.5 percent of those under 18 arrested for such crimes, but they constituted only 13 percent of the population. 

And even accounting for the possibility or likelihood of bias in arrests, the conviction rates are similarly stark. One Bureau of Justice Statistics study from 2002 concluded that when the race of the person committing homicide was known, blacks committed 51 percent of homicides.   

Riley’s book discusses why these depressing statistics stem not simply from poverty or prejudice, but from cultural changes that have occurred in the black community and the unintended consequences of liberal efforts to blame everything on poverty and prejudice.  

Much of Riley’s discussion has to do with what has happened to black culture. He describes the pernicious effect of even middle-class black youngsters eschewing proper diction and devotion to schoolwork.   

In one study of fairly affluent kids in an Ohio suburb, Riley reports that researcher John Ogbu, a Nigerian-born anthropologist and Berkeley professor before his death in 2003, found that “black kids readily admitted that they didn’t work as hard as whites, took easier classes, watched more TV and read fewer books.”  

But, of course, the major problem in the black community that accounts for so much of the disparity in achievement and criminal behavior is that more than seven in 10 black children are born to single women and will spend much of their lives with no father present.  

If we want to have an honest conversation about race, we need to begin here. Riley is not afraid to confront this issue or any other.   

As the conversation on race in America continues, let’s hope his voice gets a hearing."

Yes, let's have an honest conversation about black young men growing up without fathers in the Fergusons of America. It is the root of the problem in our inner cities!
 
Of course, we can not erase or overlook the reality that young black men were mistreated by police in the past.  
 
At the same time, there is something terrible happening in inner city districts run by the Democrat Party. 
 
And it has nothing to do with racism!
 
P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.