What ills plague the black community?

“The O’Connor Project” Roger Clegg on National Review Online

"The major problem facing African Americans as a demographic group today is the fact that seven out of ten of black children are born out of wedlock.... So long as the African-American illegitimacy rate is more than triple that of whites, you are going to have a serious 'underrepresentation' of academically well-prepared blacks when it comes time to think about college.

"Note that, while there is no doubt that illegitimacy, failing public education, and poverty are serious social problems, it is a mistake to view them as essentially racial in nature, because many whites (and Asians) face them, too, and many blacks (and Latinos) do not. For those who support racial preferences, the deep-down justification for them remains a sense that they are needed to "make up" for past discrimination against certain groups. But this justification won't wash, as the days of Jim Crow recede further into the past, and as it becomes obvious that the remaining social problems — whomever they afflict — have little, and less and less, to do with discrimination."