Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter

The tone of this column is along these lines: "Ha-ha, I told you that single motherhood wasn't only a black problem. Sarah Palin's single daughter's pregnancy proves it. So, all you racists stop talking about it being a black problem."

Well, Mr. King, it is a black problem. Indeed, it is a problem for all society, but most particularly for black families. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that unmarried women account for 68 percent of black births, compared with 42 percent for Hispanics and 23 percent of white, non Hispanics.

Sadly, out-of-wedlock births are increasing for all races, and this is a major problem because it means that increasing numbers of children are being raised in what were once called "broken homes." This, research demonstrates, leads to a multitude of serious societal problems, including more crime, more poverty and higher school drop-out rates.

One would think that someone who is concerned about the higher rates of these problems in the black community would focus on this rather than the pregnancy of a child of a vice presidential candidate, as if that proves a general rule.