Rev. William Owens: What About Black American Children Separated from Their Parents?

The president of a coalition of black pastors says media have highlighted outrage at illegal immigrant parents and children separated at the U.S. border but have given little attention to the millions of black American children separated from their parents due to incarceration, abortion, and policies that have encouraged single-mother, fatherless homes.

“The stories we are seeing from the border are truly heartbreaking,” said Rev. William Owens, president of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP), in a statement. “But they should not be our only focus. Rather, their plight should wake us up to the tragic stories that are all around us.”

Owens continued:

In our country, there are 2.7 million children separated from parents who are currently incarcerated in American prisons. Their story is not less worthy of notice. One in nine black children has a parent in prison. Is that inequality not sympathetic enough? And what about children who are separated from their parents by illness, death, or economic troubles?

Owens said black American families continue to suffer separation of parents and children through abortion and the disintegration of the black family due to so-called “social justice” welfare policies that encourage fatherless homes.

“In America today, a black child is three times more likely to be killed in the womb than a white child,” Alveda King, director of Civil Rights for the Unborn at Priests for Life, wrote recently in a column at the Washington Examiner. “And since 1973, abortion has reduced the black population by more than 25 percent.”

“About 13 percent of American women are black, but they have more than 35 percent of the abortions,” King added.

Owens said the media and politicians have given no attention to the policies that have caused black children to be separated from their parents.

“African American children, in particular, have suffered from cultural upheaval, the evil of eugenics disguised as abortion rights, fatherless homes, and policies that have helped destroy families and communities,” he asserted. “Yet no one is calling for relief from their plight. What’s more, their pain and inequality has deeper roots – going all the way back to the failed policies of President Johnson’s Great Society.”

“When it comes to separating families, few things have done as much damage as the federal government’s effort to incentivize illegitimacy and single-parent families in minority communities,” he added.

Owens commended President Donald Trump for signing the executive order to end the practice of separating families at the U.S. border.

“But we must do more,” he urged. “Other nations must help us stop the exploitation of children. And at home, we must examine the many ways that children – especially black children – are separated from their parents by policies that continue to harm black families.”