Of the total female student population at Paul Robeson High School in Chicago, Ill., 1 in 7 are expectant mothers. Robeson Principal Gerald Morrow blames the staggering number of pregnancies on the girls home life and absentee men who are not being the loving fathers they need to. "It can be a lot of things that are happening in the home or not happening in the home, if you will," Morrow said, according to the network, noting that "absentee fathers" are another factor in the school's high number of teen pregnancies.
The birth rate for teens ages 15 to 19 increased 5 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to a March 18 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.
Could the reasons be lack of access to sexual health education and pregnancy prevention and a lack of access to reproductive health resources. Possibly. What .about the effort to get public assistance? Absolutely.
Or could it be the highly sexualized rap videos on BET or the degrading lyrics in Hip Hop songs catering to these same kids.
Is it a culture that glorifies violence, sex and crimes against women. The same women who have grown up fatherless watching videos portray black women as sexual objects for the pleasure of rappers and their thug entourages.
Is it how rapper Lil Wayne freely plants his seed in any chickenhead willing to open her legs to him. (So far the tally of baby mamas knocked up by the rapper this year alone stands at 4. Wayne already has a 9-year-old with reality tv personality Antonia Carter)
In fact, there was a recent incident where black girls shot up his tour bus because he refused to have sex with them.
The school's students are largely from poor communities of color where teenage pregnancies can be high. At least Robeson is a school in which young women are not being thrown out or transferred to other schools. Principal Morrow notes, "We're looking at how we can get them to the next phase, how can we still get them thinking about graduation?"
Is the answer as simple as providing educational classes and centers to normalize and encourage the use of birth control methods and distribute condoms? While a teen health center is being built across the street, some are advocating for more funding for the creation and maintenance of centers such as these so that teenage pregnancy rates go down.
If only if it were that easy. having 115 pregnant students is an epidemic that is only accelerating the complete economic and social disenfranchisement of Blacks in the US!
