In five weeks, another Black Mother will give birth to another Black Baby out of wedlock.

What image do you see in your mind’s eye? Do you imagine an inner city, poor teenager named, perhaps, Kinesha? Do you presume an unemployed father in trouble with the law and perhaps several other babies by other mothers on the side? Stereotypes are easy because of the disintegration of the nuclear family in the ghetto.

Now, suppose I told you that the Black Mother was a graduate of Yale Medical School with a thriving medical practice? And that the Black Father, a surgeon’s son, was a graduate of Yale College and the Yale Law School and held an Ivy League MBA? What is wrong with this picture?

There is a troubling price that the affirmative action generation is paying for Hip-Hop and Rap. Artists like 50 cent and Snoop Dog have celebrated a culture of irresponsibility. Women are treated like objects. Authentic Men must be thugs or thugs in the making. Keeping It Real has replaced Lift Every Voice and Sing as the post-modern Black Anthem.

And the old barriers of class, status, and money are eroding between the culture of the street and the culture of the Ivy League. In my own family where I graduated from Harvard Law School and my wife graduated from Yale, I see the seductive allure of BET and MTV on my pre-adolescent sons. They see the gangsta videos and are captivated by a world that seems more exciting than an integrated 9 to 5 life. And I worry about the influence of no-where values and attitudes.

Even if Upper-Middle Class parents can turn off the television, we cannot control the Black separatism rampant on college campuses. The surgeon’s son learned to blame the White Man at Yale. He learned that the history of Black America was a history of slavery and discrimination, an odd lesson that must have led him to question his authenticity as a son of two black doctors. Building relationships with white classmates was discounted, if not held suspect. Constructive strategies for making one’s way in the world took a backseat to developing a fine vision for the invisible hand of the White Man in all personal failings.

This son of the Black Upper Class became a rabid celebrant of Hip-Hop culture and consciousness, a discipline of street life as authentic life. Handsome to a fault with move-star good looks, he luxuriated in the attentions of women. He used them to satisfy his needs and then dumped them, one after the other, as soon as a more attractive woman came in pursuit of his eye-candy face. He was keeping it real.

Time passed and the surgeon’s son traveled from job to job, always blaming The Man for his departures. He broke many a heart along the way. He was The Man in the bedroom, never settling down or buying a home or putting down roots. Now in his 40s and living like a bachelor, he fell into a prized Vice-President’s position and a new relationship with a Yale doctor.

But he refused to play the game of office politics with his white colleagues. He would not play the White Man’s game. Losing his job, he refused to look for work and was eventually evicted from his apartment (blame the Jewish landlord) Now his girlfriend is pregnant and he has no job.

Rather than spend every waking moment planning a wedding and finding a job to support his unborn child, this 42-year-old Yale attorney boosts that he is not ready for a commitment and that the Man won’t let him succeed. And in five weeks, another Black Baby will enter the world with a lame, absent Black Father.

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