>>17860968 (OP)I don't think it was welfare. I think it was more so a very harmful cultural trend which fucked over the African American community.
My best guess is that during the 50s and 60s, blacks in America had this idea that if segregation went away, and they fought against white supremacy, that the world would just be sunshine and rainbows afterwards, and that a few good bills or friendly administrations would solve all of the problems they had.
But then that never happened. Things got better, but there were obviously still plenty of issues. The political momentum of the civil rights movement dwindled out instead of causing some idealistic utopia or revolution.
So black youth got demoralized.
Since there were, more or less, no more racist whites on top trying to stop them from living a good, normal life or getting educated, it wasn't cool to do that anymore.
I think a good portion of the American black community just gave up afterwards. Started viewing education as gay or trying to please the unpleasable white man, started having kids out of wedlock.
And then once that really kicked off, and these young boys were being raised in urban decline, lead-gasoline-poisoned 70s/80s ghettos it was mostly over.
Rap music also did a lot of damage later on as criminality and irresponsibility were made cooler than being a normal, put-together guy