According to the CDC, most sexual irresponsibility in the black community results in health disparities including the occurrence of new cases, number of people impacted, death caused by disease, and changes in the body that leads to disease or other health problems. Health disparities are typically contingent on “gender, age, race or ethnicity, education, income, social class, disability, geographic location, or sexual orientation”. Statistics shows that black men lead in reported cases of HIV, viral hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis and tuberculosis, especially compared to white men. On the other hand, black women are more susceptible to those same diseases than white women, specifically between the ages of 15-24. For instance, black people only make up 13.7% of the population but in 2018, they represented 42% of HIV cases in the country. Of those cases, 31% were black men—mostly homosexual, and 11% were black women. Furthermore, black women between the ages of 15-24 were 5 times more likely to contract chlamydia than white women. But black men were 6.8 times more susceptible to acquiring the disease than white men between the same age range. In 2018, black people were 7.7 times more likely to get gonorrhea than whites. And of all the cases of primary and secondary syphilis, 34.7% of the reported cases were for black people—4.7 times the rate among whites. The CDC states that “from 2014 to 2018, the rate of reported congenital syphilis increased 126.7% among Blacks,” at a rate of 6.4 times that of whites. Of 1,649 people that died from viral hepatitis, 18.4% were blacks. Finally, black people represented 20% of all tuberculosis cases, being “eight times higher than the rate of TB disease in non-Hispanic whites”. Sexual irresponsibility essential includes: • Unprotected sex (especially with multiple partners) • Sexual activity at a young age • Sleeping with high-risk partners (i.e., drug users or promiscuous individuals) • Prostitution • Incest • Pedophilia • Rape/MolestationData shows that most black people that suffer from health disparities are either low-income, unemployed, uneducated, and/or many times homosexual. In numerous cases, sexually irresponsible people may possess poor self-esteem, have been sexually abused at some point in their lives, encounter social pressures, drug addicted, and/or lack love and support from family and their community. However, sexually irresponsibility amongst black people hadn’t always existed. Prior to the slave trade, black people possessed a moral compass that they carried over from Africa. It wasn’t until their identities were replaced with those given by white society during slavery, did they begin to perpetrate irresponsible sexual behavior. In the beginning of chattel slavery, black men outnumbered black women, making it difficult for them to find sex partners. Frazier Franklin tells us in his book, Negro Family in the United States that:“Those who cannot obtain women (for there is a great disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes) traverse the woods in search of adventures, and often encounter…patrol of whites, who tie them up and flog them, and then send them home.” The casualness of the contacts, when the slaves succeeded in finding women, prevented the development of strong attachments, which result from prolonged association between the sexes. On most plantations, where there was no lack of women, mating ranged from purely physical contacts, often enforced by the masters, to permanent associations, in which genuine sentiment between the spouses and parental affection for children created a real family group. There were masters who, without any regard for the preferences of their slaves, mated their human chattel as they did their stock.Since slavery, black men have been trained by white men to mate and breed without forming any attachment to the chosen women. The lack of women caused many slaves to mate with any woman they came into contact with. Casual sex became a necessity to these men as they were unable to court women or spend enough time with them to form a bond. Furthermore, once many men and women married or became emotional attached to one another, they were sold or separated, permanently ending their union. There have been several cases where the slave master would then force the female or male slaves into promiscuity. It wasn’t until 1840 when black male and female slaves were equal in numbers, allowing more stable unions to form. But even then, some plantations still lacked black female slaves, and this caused many men to constantly sneak off their plantation to those where women resided. To prevent these men from leaving the plantation in search of female mates, slave masters would offer them white female indentured servants on the plantation, hence promoting interracial relationships. Unions between black men and white women persisted for centuries during the slave era before it became outlawed. After the Civil War ended in 1865 and slaves were officially emancipated, there were no systems, programs or institutions in place to help them transition to citizens of the United States. This is because in all actuality they weren’t considered citizens by whites and had only been freed for economic reasons oppose to whites acquiring a moral compass. During the Reconstruction era between 1863-1877, whites were doing everything in their power to establish a revised form of slavery. The southern economy had been shattered once the slaves were freed, therefore they needed new ways to not only keep blacks as the inferior class, but also to compensate for loss wealth. One way they accomplished this was by preventing blacks from gaining employment, education, and proper housing. Consequently, black people struggled severely to survive, and this had dire consequences to the behavior of the masses.Many black men and women migrated from farms, lumber and turpentine camps into towns and cities in the North and South. These homeless people maintained “free sex” in these camps and cities, hooking up randomly with each other, and in many cases forming no real attachment. E. Frazier Franklin tells us:These camps offer greater anonymity and freedom from social control than the small towns. They bring men and women from the farms in contact with men and women who have already had some experience in the outside world. Often some black troubadour meets a simple girl in the town and lures her with his romantic tales and strange words of love to take up her abode with him in the camp… Since these couples are drawn together by spontaneous attraction, in which physical desire usually predominates, their association is characterized by impulsive behavior. Quarreling and fighting as the result of outbursts of jealousy or slight irritations occur periodically…Often, when the woman finds her lover unstable in his affection or the man discovers, in the language of this world, someone else in his “stall,” the result is a stabbing or murder. Sexually transmitted diseases were rampant during those times as casual sex was prevalent and there was a lack of sex education. Because of unprotected sex, both men and women contracted syphilis at alarming rates. In many cases the disease would go untreated, causing blindness, brain damage and several other bodily ailments. Homosexuals suffered significantly from sexually transmitted diseases as they participated in random unprotected sex with multiple men. After emancipation of the slaves, southern white men were comfortably open about their sexuality and lust for black men. Therefore, there was a large population of gay black and white men that spread diseases not only to each other, but also to women they may have slept with.Several newly freed slaves simply wandered about the country, seeking employment, housing, food and other resources for sustenance. Some settled in the rural areas, establishing families and a structured way of living. Men that were able to provide and protect their families remained the leading figure in the household. However, those that couldn’t were completely unstable, drifting aimlessly between the North and South. While living a nomadic life, they detached from the morality they once possessed during their enslavement and operated based on physical attractions. A multitude of these individuals cut all ties with family to seek work in different places. In doing so, men would meet women, make babies and desert them, going on with their lives. The black men that settled with women and children, were so “hardened by their wandering life” that they would be mean and abusive to their families. And sometimes, they’d eventually abandon them altogether, leaving the women to fend for themselves and their children. While on the road, some of these black men would meet disloyal women from the city, causing them to return to the family they’d left behind. Lonely black women became prey for the wandering black man. He’d show them affection while gaining their sympathy for his hardships. As a result, women would provide him with food, shelter and sex, in hopes of keeping him around. Unfortunately, however, many times once the man had his fill he’d abandon the women, hitting the road again, off to new adventures. These types of men had no emotional or romantic attachment to the women because they were never taught to love anyone, not even themselves. They barely maintained a steady income, had no shelter and didn’t know when their next meal was coming. Therefore, when they’d mate and make children, fatherhood wasn’t an option since they couldn’t even take care of themselves. In some cases, a man’s parents may have died when he was young, forcing him to fend for himself. Consequently, he became self-centered, solely aiming for his own survival, even at the expense of his own children. Other times, these men were born to wandering mothers that neither maintained a relationship with their fathers nor acquired structure and stability. This prevented the young boys from developing a mindset that promoted security and stability for others, and therefore, women and children were merely people to be dealt with for the moment and no commitment was necessary. Many black women, on the other hand, were desperate for love and stability. They’d meet a man, have several children by him with no desire to get married. Eventually, the man would abandon them all, and she’d meet another man, have several more children, only for the new man to ultimately leave as well. This cycle of childbearing and abandonment by multiple men appeared to have been a regular occurrence amongst black women.At times it was extremely difficult for black women to find work. Some would seek employment with black mega churches, only to be overlooked and ignored. Many black women lived in dilapidated shanty homes, had no income, and on average between 2-10 children to support. Frazier Franklin describes a study conducted of single black mothers and the number of children they had:Of the 379 unmarried Negro mothers studied by Dr. Reed, 47 had had two children; 10 three children; 8 four children; and 4 as many as seven or more. In our study of 300 unmarried mothers in Chicago the case records revealed that bout 13 percent of them had had more than one child. That more unmarried mothers do not have several illegitimate children is hardly due to their reformation but to the fact that they acquire knowledge about birth control and abortions. Nor should it be overlooked that venereal diseases play some part in preventing conception. It was very common for black women to prefer to raise their children on their own, without the assistance from the fathers of the children. Despite living in deplorable conditions due to lack of income and employment, these women had no qualms with making illegitimate children with no intentions on co-parenting or getting married to the fathers. Several women claimed that black men were so abusive and lazy that marriage would be burdensome as they’d have to deal with his harshness and fend for the entire family. Frazier Franklin tells the story of one single black mother with multiple children and an utter disregard for their father, stating:The shanty is black within and without through age and weather, but more through dirt and grime; and the decaying floor is filthier than the ground outside… A black woman sits on a log… She has eight children, and was married once, but only two of the children belonged to her husband. “Where is your husband?” “Is he living?” you ask. “Dunno, missis, don’t care; he may go to de debbil fur all I knows and cares.” Two of the children are partially blind through measles, and a third is a cripple. The oldest daughter is married, and with her husband and child lives at home; and the second which knows no father; and all this numerous family live in one small room, and all sleep together. In a 1986 special report titled, The Vanishing Black Family, the mindset and attitude of young black men and women were revealed as it relates to family structure. The women were satisfied with being single mothers because their mothers and grandmothers didn’t have fathers helping to raise them. Furthermore, black men had no qualms making children and abandoning them because they didn’t want the children to begin with. In their opinion, once the mothers gave birth, the children became theirs and theirs alone. The men weren’t responsible for the children that the mothers chose to have against his will. The sexual irresponsibility in the video lies on both black men and women. The black man (what’s his name) claimed that black women refused the usage of condoms, and he obliged. Both parties disregarded possible pregnancy and the contraction of venereal diseases. Therefore, the black man irresponsibly put himself at risk of impregnating the woman and by going through with the pregnancy, she essentially signed up for single motherhood. And there are a multitude of cases where the children of these types of parents grow up to repeat the same cycle. I’ve been to Ethiopia and toured Omo Valley in the southern part of the country. I spent over a week with multiple indigenous African tribes that hadn’t been influenced by mainstream society. I learned that the black man’s primary responsibility from the moment he’s born is to take care of his black women and children. Fathers raised their sons to earn a wife and fend for his family. Men had to convince a woman’s father that he was worthy of their daughter, and only then would the father agree for him to marry her. On the other hand, black women only had children by their husbands and worked hard to support their family. This is quite contrary to the Western world we live in today. In our society, the black man despises the black woman and disregards his children. The black woman, however, has no qualms with producing several children not only out of wedlock, but also by several different men. This is further evidence that black society has adopted the mentality given to them by white men and have forgotten their true purpose is life: the black family.Although black parents deliberately put themselves in positions of having children out of wedlock, many mothers grow to resent their children due to the stress of single motherhood. During slavery, a mother would give birth to a child and only days afterwards was she required to return to the field for work. If there wasn’t anyone to take care of the newborn, she’d have to take it with her. This would cause her to resent the infant and view it as a burden. The struggle of survival and taking care of multiple children as single mothers caused many black women to abuse their children. These mothers were overwhelmed by life and loneliness, blaming their children for their predicament. Others failed to form a maternal bond with their babies, at times becoming bitter towards them because the fathers had abandoned them. Moreover, black women with unwanted pregnancies would give birth to children only to throw them away in an alley garbage dumpster. Typically, black single mothers without education and stability come from broken families where their mother or father had died, divorced or separated, or abandoned them. In situations where young girls were left completely on their own, they’d end up in a poor environment that influenced their sexual behavior. Even if a parent, typically the mother, was around, she had to work, leaving young girls on their own. Then the girls end up being raised by their environment, taking on the sexual attitudes of those around them. It was common for single black mothers to be living in slums or housing projects where the environment was completely unsuitable for children. Franklin Frazier tells the story of a 14-year-old single mother who described the building she lived in, saying:The building where my cousin lives at now is terrible… You know what—that building ain’t nothin’ but for… [female homosexuals]… Some of the women in that building was a hustling. You know, they sell themselves. A man go up there, you know, and then they charge them $2.00. Men used to go up there all the time. There was an old woman there who used to come up to my cousin’s and she said to me one day, “Say, honey, when are you going to go up to my house and sleep with me?” She used to pat me down, and I turned around to her and one of the men in the house told her to let me alone I was a little girl… Police used to go up there and raid the place all the time… That place was so bad. I learned too much down there. Well, I’m glad that I did learn what I did for I can keep out of trouble from now on.Since the days of slavery, black women have been stereotypically labelled as hypersexual, promiscuous, and desiring rape. Not only was over 50% of female slaves victims of some form of sexual assault by white men, but also by black male slaves. In an essay called, Sexual Violence in the Lives of African American Women, written by Carolyn M. West and Kalimah Johnson, they described the sexual assaults perpetrated against black female slaves, stating: The institutional pattern of rape was well established before the newly enslaved Africans reached the Americas. During the transatlantic voyage, crew members routinely raped and impregnated Black women. In preparation for sale, enslaved women were stripped naked and placed on auction blocks. African American women’s economic value was dependent upon their ability to reproduce healthy offspring, which could be sold to increase the slave owner’s wealth. According to historians, at least 58% of enslaved women between the ages of 15 and 30 had been sexually assaulted by White men. After slavery ended, the Klu Klux Klan and other White vigilante groups whipped African Americans, destroyed their property, and gang raped Black women. Rape laws did not provide equal protection for all women… In 1859, a Mississippi judge overturned the conviction of an older slave who had raped a slave girl who was under the age of 10. The defense attorney argued: “The crime of rape does not exist in this State between African slaves…their intercourse is promiscuous.” Embedded in this court decision, and embraced by the larger culture for more than 500 years, was the belief that Black women’s innate hypersexuality made them “unrapeable” and underserving of protection or sympathy. During the civil rights movement and into the 1970s, rape against black women was so prevalent that activists formed anti-rape organizations to protest against sexual violence in their communities and in public spaces. Girls under the age of 18 have always been the most susceptible to sexual assault, especially through coercion, including strip dancing, prostitution, pornography, and sex trafficking. One in five black females have been sexually assaulted at one point in their lifetime. Most times the offenders are fathers, stepfathers, a spouse, other household members, a date, classmate, acquaintance, friend, or someone they knew. Black females under the influence of drugs and alcohol are the most at risk of rape, especially gang rape.In the late 1960s through the 2000s, crack cocaine and heroin ran rampant in the black community. These drugs completely annihilated what was left of the black family structure. Numerous black girls and women turned to drugs to escape the reality of their sexual abuse. Drug addicted mothers would birth children with no idea of who the fathers were. Many of these women lived high-risk lifestyles, having sexual partners while sharing needles for drug usage. The children of these women were extremely vulnerable to sexual assault. Several instances where these women would sell their children for drugs or expose them to random people that took advantage of their lack of protection.Throughout the dope era, teenage pregnancy rates were extremely high. Young girls would often have casual sex with older married men and end up pregnant with no assistance. Older men took advantage of these girls’ lack of resources and family support. It was common for a man over 30-years-old to be with a girl under the age of 21. In many cases, sexually abused young girls would be promiscuous, especially if they had been molested, having had casual sex with many boys and men, and contracting venereal diseases or pregnancies. To make matters worse, to this day most people don’t even view these young girls as victims, referring to them as “fast hoes” that knew what they were doing. It is unfathomable in the black community for the sexual behavior of adolescent black girls to be considered a result of sexual abuse or coercion. Young black girls are unfairly treated like adults with a full mental capacity to make responsible decisions related to their sexuality. Teenage girls coming from families where there’s little to no support may find themselves prostituting, stripping, or making pornography for survival. One of the main reasons that many black females suffer from depression or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is because of having been sexually violated in their lifetime.Incest has always been prevalent in the black community. During slavery, it was common for cousins to become romantic partners and even marry, especially those within close proximity to each other. Young girls and boys have been targeted by members of their church, fathers and other male family members and friends. Many times, the girls end up pregnant and forced into having an abortion. In countless cases, the family or community knew about the pedophiles and swept the abuse under the rug. Violators of sexual abuse, especially incest, typically offend with impunity. Black families are inclined to put more emphasis on protecting the offenders than the victims themselves. Most incidents of abuse become family secrets and the abuser is allowed remain a part of the family as others overlook their transgressions. Black men are the main sexual abusers and rapists in the black community, although women offend as well. As a matter of fact, young black boys and girls that are abused in their adolescence grow up to become abusers themselves, often times admitted having been sexually assaulted by a female babysitter or family member. RnB singer, R. Kelly, is a perfect example of an abuser having been abused by his sister and other men as a child. He ultimately preyed upon teenage girls that black society blamed for their own victimization, further proving that young black girls aren’t protected in the black community. His fame and the fact that he inspired many in the community took precedence over black girls’ safety and protection.Overall, sexual irresponsibility in the black community is rooted in slavery. The moral compass black people once possessed was lost with their identities as they were forced into becoming commodities for profit. Although it’s still a significant issue in black society, sexual behaviors have improved since there is more awareness about contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)—including HIV—and abortion options. Sex education should be required for black students in high school to not only emphasize the importance of abstinence, but also to highlight risks, especially those related to unprotected sex, and to provide solutions to mitigate them. Parents must discuss sex with their children, unfortunately, as young as 10 years of age because they’re being exposed to the topic that early by their peers. The last thing black children need is to be taught about sex by others who are just as ignorant as they are on the subject.Furthermore, the avoidance of sleeping with promiscuous or high-risk individuals is necessary. A person who maintains an irresponsible sexual lifestyle is more susceptible to contracting, and therefore, spreading STDs. There are several facilities that provide drug users with free clean needles and condoms to prevent spreading diseases. HIV medicines have improved to not only prevent gay males from contracting the virus, but also those diagnosed with it from spreading it. Using condoms and other contraceptives are the best practices that any sexually active person can take to protect themselves from long-term suffering.Promiscuous people should investigate within themselves an understanding of why they perpetrate reckless sexual behavior. More often their desires are rooted in low self-esteem and major insecurities. These days, many black women are pursuing therapy for healing and to explore their insecurities. Most black men, however, refuse to acknowledge there’s a problem to begin with, and therefore, won’t even consider counseling. However, all black men and women should investigate therapeutic options that will allow them to spiritually find themselves and overcome trauma endured throughout their lifetimes. Black people should value and love themselves and their bodies enough to avoid behaviors that are likely to disrespect or violate their well-being.Family secrets of incest and sexual abuse are being exposed more these days, forcing the perpetrators to be held accountable—although not nearly as often as they should be. Children are still the most vulnerable for being assaulted by pedophiles, however, parents are more aware that offenders are most likely family members or those closest to them. These days, many parents are somewhat more diligent in vetting who they allow around their children. Perhaps in the past it was “normal” for black families to ignore sexual abuse, but this must end today. No longer are the days where offenders can defile boys and girls and live as if nothing happened. Rapists must be revealed and punished for their crimes. Many victims refuse to report their assault out of fear, most times of not being believed or blamed for it. Society must end victim blaming and promote safe spaces for those assaulted to comfortably admit the crimes perpetrated against them and have confidence that the offender will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Too many studies have proven that sexual abuse of children and adults has a long-term effect on their physical and mental health, causing many of them to go down a toxic path just to deal with the pain. Family support and advocates for the victims are necessary for their healing, and healthy coping methods must be provided to help them overcome challenges. RESOURCES USED FOR THIS ARTICLE Diane Miller Sommerville Rape and Race in the Nineteenth Century-South E. Frazier Franklin Negro Family in the United States Carolyn M. West and Kalimah Johnson Sexual Violence in the Lives of African American Women (Free Research Paper)