Even prominent Democratic officials blamed black families for education gaps

Evidence

Why aren’t wealthy black families contributing more? A common explanation for racial disparities in education, from the elementary to the college level, targets black parents as the culprits. This isn’t just a right-wing talking point either; two 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, explained achievement gaps in their cities by saying that black families lacked the experience to understand the value of an education. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 305

Categorization

• SEED: A sharp example of the ‘blame the family’ frame crossing the aisle — could anchor an essay on how bipartisan individual-fault narratives persist despite structural evidence.