Comparative Perspectives on Black Family Life: Uncommon Explorations of a Common Subject

WALTER R. ALLEN * and ANGELA D. JAMES ** During the past three decades, well over a thousand publications have been added to the research record on African American families in the United States (for detailed reviews of the literature, see: Staples and Johnson,1993; Hill et al., 1993; Billingsley, 1992; Taylor et al., 1990; McAdoo, 1988; Staples and Mirande, 1980; Allen, 1978; Staples, 1971). The literature on Black families across the African Diaspora has also grown exponentially (Allen et al., 1986). Despite this enormous volume of research on Black family life, we are very uneasy about the nature and consequences of past research, as well as our own attempts to enter the fray. This uneasiness is caused by continued references to "The Black Family." Such references ignore the extensive regional, ethnic, value, and income differences among Black families. It is an uneasiness with the theoretical and methodological assumptions underlying so many published, widely circulated studies of Black families. This uneasiness is bred by entrenched, stereotypic portrayals of Black family life which not only persist, but dominate popular as well as academic discourse about Black families. It is an uneasiness due to a frequently demonstrated ignorance concerning the internal dynamics and motives of Black family life in this society. We are uneasy that our own attempt to "tell the story" of African American family life will err too much in one direction or another. On the one hand, the statistical and ethnographic data on Black families present a picture of tremendous changes in the manner in which men, women and children organize themselves into family and household arrangements. We recognize that these changes have been accompanied by widespread concern of community members and often, feelings of social dislocation and personal difficulty among individual Black men, women and children. On the other hand, we also want to keep at the forefront of any discussion of the dislocating effects of recent changes in Black family organization the understanding that these families continue to be community mainstays. "The Black Family" is in no danger of "disappearing," even as families change in response to increasingly difficult economic, social and cultural circumstances. We seek to balance concern with what has been lost in the midst of current transformations, with an accurate telling of the varieties of African American family stories emerging from the storm's midst. DIVERSITY AND STEREOTYPES IN THE STUDY OF BLACK FAMILY LIFE Much that is written about Black American families is flawed by the tendency of researchers to gloss over within-group differences. While prior research has extensively explored Black/White family differences, information is relatively sparse regarding differences among African American families of different structure, incomes, regions, life-cycle stages, and value orientations. The record comparing African American families to Black families across the African Diaspora is also woefully inadequate (Allen et. al., 1986). Although this Special Issue's primary focus is on African American families, of necessity we incorporate studies of African, West Indian, and other racial ethnic families. The rationale for examining the African American experience (i.e., values, institutions) within the context of the larger African Diaspora is certainly well established (Du Bois, 1990; Drake, 1987). It is our premise that one best understand Africa American families by exploring both their specific and universal features. By focusing so much attention on comparing the experience of family among Blacks with Whites, much of the richness, complexity and subtleties of African American family systems have been ignored. This has resulted in widespread academic and popular acceptance of crude categories, poorly defined concepts, and negative stereotypes. Apparent in the literature are abundant references to "family disorganization," the "underclass," "culture of poverty," and "the Black Matriarchy. …