>In poor homes, the male is often absent entirely for a variety
>of reasons, not the least of which is the availability of medical
>insurance from AFDC/Medicaid for the children.
I've been reading James Baldwin's "Evidence of Things Not Seen". In a passage about black women raising children alone and why the men leave Baldwin reaches way back to a blues chorus that predates AFDC and Medicaid. It goes "when a woman gets the blues she hangs her head and cries....when a man gets the blues he gets on a train and rides." Baldwin uses this to illustrate a larger argument about the terror of being black in the U.S. and what he calls the emasculation of the black male. I think Baldwin is more eloquent, but it looks like he and Lewis are stepping on similar ground.